The room was choked up
with chairs and tables, of all sorts of strange shapes and problematical
uses. The floor was strewed with skins of bear, deer, and seal. In a corner
lay hunting-whips, and fishing-rods, foils, boxing-gloves, and gun-cases;
while over the chimney-piece, an array of rich Turkish pipes, all amber and
enamel, contrasted curiously with quaint old swords and daggers--bronze
classic casts, upon Gothic oak brackets, and fantastic scraps of
continental carving. On the centre table, too, reigned the same rich
profusion, or if you will, confusion--MSS., "Notes in Egypt," "Goethe's
Walverwandschaften," Murray's Hand-books, and "Plato's Republic." What
was there not there? And I chuckled inwardly, to see how _Bell's Life in
London_ and the _Ecclesiologist_ had, between them, got down "McCulloch
on Taxation," and were sitting, arm-in-arm, triumphantly astride of him.
Everything in the room, even to the fragrant flowers in a German glass,
spoke of a travelled and cultivated luxury--manifold tastes and powers of
self-enjoyment and self-improvement, which, Heaven forgive me if I envied,
as I looked upon them.
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