Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
290
Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
50
I
offer
you,
Miss
Dobson,
a
refuge
more
glorious
and
more
augustly
gilded
than
you,
in
your
airiest
flights
of
fancy,
can
ever
have
hoped
for
or
imagined.
I
own
about
340,000
acres.
My
town-residence
is
in
St.
James’s
Square.
Tankerton,
of
which
you
may
have
seen
photographs,
is
the
chief
of
my
country-seats.
It
is
a
Tudor
house,
set
on
the
ridge
of
a
valley.
The
valley,
its
park,
is
halved
by
a
stream
so
narrow
that
the
deer
leap
across.
The
gardens
are
estraded
upon
the
slope.
Round
the
house
runs
a
wide
paven
terrace.
There
are
always
two
or
three
peacocks
trailing
their
sheathed
feathers
along
the
balustrade,
and
stepping
how
stiffly!
as
though
they
had
just
been
unharnessed
from
Juno’s
chariot.
Two
flights
of
shallow
steps
lead
down
to
the
flowers
and
fountains.
Oh,
the
gardens
are
wonderful.
There
is
a
Jacobean
garden
of
white
roses.
Between
the
ends
of
two
pleached
alleys,
under
a
dome
of
branches,
is
a
little
lake,
with
a
Triton
of
black
marble,
and
with
water-lilies.
Hither
and
thither
under
the
archipelago
of
water-lilies,
dart
gold-fish--tongues
of
flame
in
the
dark
water.
There
is
also
a
long
strait
alley
of
clipped
yew.
It
ends
in
an
alcove
for
a
pagoda
of
painted
porcelain
which
the
Prince
Regent--peace
be
to
his
ashes!--presented
to
my
great-grandfather.
There
are
many
twisting
paths,
and
sudden
aspects,
and
devious,
fantastic
arbours.
Are
you
fond
of
horses?
In
my
stables
of
pine-wood
and
plated-silver
seventy
are
installed.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
