I saw that _he_ was surprised; that he was unprepared for such elaborate splendor.

He had told his friend to spare no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such Asiatic magnificence into our cities.

I believe I will describe my own first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.
The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,--for the season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world.

The glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as the noonday sun's.

It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams, reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity, fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance.