Explore "A Rogue's Tragedy" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Royal Palace of Turin, situated off the Piazza Castello, in the east, or distinguished quarter of the city, epitomised in itself the policy of the Savoyard rule. Externally it was as unpretentious a pile as any brick-built factory -- or, shall we say, for the sake of apt analogy, as our own original South Kensington Museum. For, in like manner with that illustrious emporium, did the utilitarian face which it turned to the street afford no clue whatever to its inner meaning. It was just a countenance dressed for the demos -- a sop of unostentation offered to that triple-headed sleuth-hound.
It was certainly unelating as an architectural composition; but then we know, by the story, that the plain pear is often the most luscious. Beauty, saith the sage (a plain fellow himself, no doubt), is but skin-deep. That is an aphorism as untrue as many another. But, take it for what it is worth, and ugliness, by the like measure, is also skin-deep.