James Henry. The American

Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, and AP English Test Preparation.On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining at his
ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied the centre of the
Salon Carre, in the Museum of the Louvre. This commodious ottoman has since
been removed, to the extreme regret of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, but
the gentleman in question had taken serene possession of its softest spot, and,
with his head thrown back and his legs outstretched, was staring at Murillo’s
beautiful moon-borne Madonna in profound enjoyment of his posture. He had
removed his hat, and flung down beside him a little red guide-book and an
opera-glass. The day was warm; he was heated with walking, and he repeatedly
passed his handkerchief over his forehead, with a somewhat wearied gesture.
And yet he was evidently not a man to whom fatigue was familiar; long, lean,
and muscular, he suggested the sort of vigor that is commonly known as
toughness. But his exertions on this particular day had been of an unwonted
sort, and he had performed great physical feats which left him less jaded than his
tranquil stroll through the Louvre. He had looked out all the pictures to which
an asterisk was affixed in those formidable pages of fine print in his Badeker; his
attention had been strained and his eyes dazzled, and he had sat down with an
aesthetic headache. He had looked, moreover, not only at all the pictures, but at
all the copies that were going forward around them, in the hands of those
innumerable young women in irreproachable toilets who devote themselves, in