portal

Three important things are to-day lacking in that façade: in the first place, the staircase of eleven steps which formerly raised it above the soil; next, the lower series of statues which occupied the niches of the three portals; and lastly the upper series, of the twenty-eight most ancient kings of France, which garnished the gallery of the first story, beginning with Childebert, and ending with Phillip Augustus, holding in his hand "the imperial apple."

About noon I dragged myself wearily to the portals of a huge building which covered perhaps four square miles and towered two hundred feet in the air.

He saw the gilded halls of pleasure that would open their portals to the possessor of the wealth which lay scattered upon this stained and dented table top.

Within the precincts of her home she felt like one who has entered and lingered within the portals of some forbidden temple in which a thousand muffled voices bade her begone.

Twelve years had passed since his body had been found upon the bluff before his cottage overlooking the Hudson, and oft-times during these long years I had wondered if John Carter were really dead, or if he again roamed the dead sea bottoms of that dying planet; if he had returned to Barsoom to find that he had opened the frowning portals of the mighty atmosphere plant in time to save the countless millions who were dying of asphyxiation on that far-gone day that had seen him hurtled ruthlessly through forty-eight million miles of space back to Earth once more.

I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of little people, and with the big open portals that yawned before me shadowy and mysterious.

But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-hush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.

The idea occurred to many that either the funeral procession of some great personage had halted in front of the Province House, or that a corpse, in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-decorated coffin, was about to be borne from the portal. After listening a moment, Sir William Howe called, in a stern voice, to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies.

Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again taking up his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its shining surface.

Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold -- Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged pannels fluttering back, Triumphant, o'er the crested palls, Of her grand family funerals -- Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone -- Some tomb fromout whose sounding door She ne'er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

The massive portal yawned, somber and sorrowful, before us, giving a glimpse of marble halls within.

I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence.