|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted,
and gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score of
architectural fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted;
and in a great square panel in the centre, in black relief on a
gilt ground, Louis XII. rides upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip
and head thrown back. There is royal arrogance in every line of
him; the stirruped foot projects insolently from the frame; the eye
is hard and proud; the very horse seems to be treading with
gratification over prostrate serfs, and to have the breath of the
trumpet in his nostrils. So rides for ever, on the front of the
town-hall, the good king Louis XII., the father of his people.
|
