And to resoom.
The English Vestibule is decorated with panels painted by the wimmen of that country. There wuz one by Mrs. Swimerton, of London, that appealed strong to my heart; it was a seen from the temporary hospital at Scutori.
Florence Nightingale stood in the foreground—good, pityin' female angel that she wuz—and all round her lay sick and dyin' soldiers, and she a-doin' all she could to help 'em.
This picture, showin' woman as a Healer and Consoler, is in the centre, as it ort to be. On one side of it is a panel called Motherhood, an Italian mother a-holdin' a baby in her arms, and on the other side is Old Age and Youth, an old female bein' tenderly took care on by the beautiful young girl who kneels before her.
On the other side of the vestibule is the paintin's of Mrs. Merritt, of London. The centre piece shows a number of likely lookin' young females a-studyin' art, and the panels on either side shows young girls and older ones all a-studyin' and workin', and doin' the best they could with what they had to do with.
Dretful upliftin' to my sect it wuz to look on them pictures, all on 'em.
Wall, if I'd spent a month I couldn't begin to tell all the contents of them rooms—the paintin's and statuary, laces, embroidery, tapestry, and etc., and etc., and everything under the sun, moon, and stars, and so forth, and so on.
All the works of wimmen from the present age of the world back to that wonderful book writ by the Abbess Herrard in the twelfth century, which contains about all the knowledge of that date.
And tapestries wrought by hands that have been dust for hundreds and hundreds of years. But the work them hands wrought still remains, giving the best descriptions of them times we have now, of the manners and customs of that fur back time.