The entrance is by an Egyptian doorway 7 ft. high, with folding-doors of
gold-plated cedar, opening inwards, surrounded by a very large
projecting coping of plain silver, 3-1/2 ft. wide, severe simplicity of
line throughout enormously multiplying the effect of richness of
material. The interior resembles, I believe, rather a Homeric, than an
Assyrian or Egyptian house--except for the 'galleries,' which are purely
Babylonish and Old Hebrew. The inner court, with its wine-pool and
tanks, is a small oblong of 8 ft. by 9 ft., upon which open four
silver-latticed window-oblongs in the same proportion, and two doors,
before and behind, oblongs in the same proportion. Round this run the
eight walls of the house proper, the inner 10 ft. from the outer, each
parallel two forming a single long corridor-like chamber, except the
front (east) two, which are divided into three apartments; in each side
of the house are six panels of massive plain silver, half-an-inch
thinner in their central space, where are affixed paintings, 22 or else
21 taken at the burning of Paris from a place called 'The Louvre,' and 2
or else 3 from a place in England: so that the panels have the look of
frames, and are surrounded by oval garlands of the palest amethyst,
topaz, sapphire, and turquoise which I could find, each garland being of
only one kind of stone, a mere oval ring two feet wide at the sides and
narrowing to an inch at the top and bottom, without designs. The
galleries are five separate recesses in the outer walls under the roofs,
two in the east facade, and one in the north, south, and west, hung with
pavilions of purple, blue, rose and white silk on rings and rods of
gold, with gold pilasters and banisters, each entered by four steps from
the roof, to which lead, north and south, two spiral stairs of cedar. On
the east roof stands the kiosk, under which is the little lunar
telescope; and from that height, and from the galleries, I can watch
under the bright moonlight of this climate, which is very like
lime-light, the for-ever silent blue hills of Macedonia, and where the
islands of Samothraki, Lemnos, Tenedos slumber like purplish fairies on
the Aegean Sea: for, usually, I sleep during the day, and keep a
night-long vigil, often at midnight descending to bathe my coloured
baths in the lake, and to disport myself in that strange intoxication of
nostrils, eyes, and pores, dreaming long wide-eyed dreams at the bottom,
to return dazed, and wea