Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/780

 Hardly less surprising. Here is a favourite shelf, apparently, where the books stand loosely, and unevenly, as if ready for immediate action — Lettish Bible, Biblj Swata, Wendish Bible, "Zwingli's Werke" (pushed in hastily and upside down), a little Hindustani and incomprehensible "Jolowicz Polyglotte der Oriental Poesie," "Rabbinische Blumenlese." Nor, if you walk round the room with speed and caution that you may not be surprised too far from the two modes of escape, — the door and window — are the other shelves less bewildering to a merely human understanding. Bopp: "Sanskritsprache," "Koptische Grammatik," "Miverian Archæology;" Arabic, Armenian, Celtic, Persian dictionaries; grammars of Icelandic, Erse, Ægyptische. Seventy-eight volumes of "Memoires relatives à l'Histoire de France;" Dallas, the "Gay Science" (what may that be? — whist? fencing? dancing? Not at all — criticism!). Dante, Shakespeare, Bunsen, Milton, Hallam, Sévigné, Luther. But a complete list would take days to write and hours to read. Besides these, the library steps are crushed under a haystack of unbound books, mostly Dutch, and two open portmanteaus are overflowing with papers and correspondence.

The floor is covered with no luxuriant recluse Turkey carpet, but a common crimson and drab drugget, worn and faded. The paper, if there be any, is hidden behind the books. No, there is a strip over the mantelpiece, Indian red, with a creeping pattern of dull gold. On the mantlepiece stand three wax candles, a marble clock, and a heap of pennies, on which no unscrupulous housemaid will take compassion.

Searching curiously for traces of human presence, we notice a crab-stick leaning against the corner of the window, and on the centre table, erect and dignified, a black velvet skull-cap, very much — yes, uncommonly like in shape to Cowper's well-known nightcap. Its counterpart in black silk, tumbled, frayed, but evidently the more familiar friend, lies near the desk. A feather brush, worn out in hopeless attempts to fight the dust, droops over the edge of a century of Quarterly Reviews. Not many visitors are expected here, for all the chairs (horsehair and uncompromising, like the one at the desk) are built up with books. There are two deep leathern arm-chairs, though, on either side of the wide fireplace, but they are served in the same fashion. Over all, on a tall pedestal, the bust of Julius Hare gazes with bland, blank eyes.

Who is the master of the room? the hermit-crab of the shell? Hush, there are voices at the door; one grating with the huskiness of old age, slow and emphatic, giving, it would seem, some order, which is responded to with a ready "Yes, my lord" — and heavy, plodding steps come with frightful distinctness up the oilcloth-covered passage. Jump out of the window, if you are not prepared for instant annihilation, but wait behind that juniper and peep through the heavy, dark branches that rob the window of half the rays of a watery autumn sun, and you may note the entrance of an old man with stooping shoulders and scanty grey hair, and watchful, light-blue eyes, which need the warming effect of a smile on the quaint, rugged, but not unkindly face. He passes across to the chair in the window, and sitting down, he reluctantly pushes aside the book and paper-cutter, and breaks open the topmost of a pile of letters addressed to " The Bishop of St. David's."

 

  — In a letter to his son-in-law, Dr. Holland, the renowned humourist, Sidney Smith, says: — "I am suffering from my old complaint, hay fever; the membrane of my nose is in such a state of irritation, that light dust, contradiction, an absurd remark, the sight of a Dissenter, anything sets me sneezing, and when I begin to sneeze at twelve, I don't leave off till two, and may be heard at Baunton, when the wind sets that way — a distance of six miles. Turn your attention to this little curse. If consumption is too powerful for physicians, at least they should not let themselves be baffled by such a little upstart as hay fever."