I entreat you to continue, learned Peter, that we strangers may lose none
of the niceties of the exhibition."
"Thou seest, baron," returned the well-warmed bailiff, with a look of
triumph, "a little explanation can never injure a good thing, though it
were even the law itself. Ah! yon is Ceres and her company, and a goodly
train they appear! These are the harvest-men and harvest-women, who
represent the abundance of our country of Vaud, Signor Grimaldi, which,
truth to say, is a fat land, and worthy of the allegory. These knaves,
with the stools strapped to their nether parts, and carrying tubs, are
cowherds, and all the others are more or less concerned with the dairy.
Ceres was a personage of importance among the ancients, beyond dispute,
as may be seen by the manner in which, she is backed by the landed
interest. There is no solid respectability, Herr von Willading, that is
not fairly bottomed on broad lands. Ye perceive that the goddess sits on a
throne whose ornaments are all taken from the earth; a sheaf of wheat tops
the canopy; rich ears of generous grain are her jewels, and her sceptre is
the sickle.
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