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Updated: May 13, 2025
On the bulkhead of the cabin at the Prince's head there hung a little block-calendar, and the exposed leaf showed the date, Monday, 6th June. As he read it an impulse caused him to look round at the calendar standing upon his own mantel-shelf. It showed the date, Friday, 24th June. He turned back to the window and saw nothing but his own lawn and the moonlit Common beyond.
He followed his housekeeper down the chilly, marble-flagged passage into the kitchen, where he never went for months together a cosey enough, pleasant place, with a deep valance hanging from the mantel-shelf, with many great copper pans, bright and shining as new gold, and furniture all scrubbed to the whiteness of snow.
"There, go away," she said quickly, snatching it from him and moving from her chair as he rose. She rested her elbow on the mantel-shelf, and the candles from the silver candelabra shone on her face; it looked strained and weary. Kemp's brows gathered in a frown as he saw it. "I am going this minute," he said; "and I wish you to go to bed at once. Don't think of anything but sleep.
But his spirit was not yet broken, and the letter, crumpled like a rag, was picked up by Mary Ann and straightened out, and carefully placed upon the mantel-shelf. Time did something of a similar service for Mary Ann herself, picking her up from the crumpled attitude in which Lancelot had detected her on the doorstep, straightening her out again, and replacing her upon her semi-poetic pedestal.
But on the mantel-shelf was the prescription which the doctor had written the night before. He read it, folded it, and put it in his pocket. As he locked the outside door the old gardener came running to him. "Don't you never go up there again, will you?" he pleaded, "not unless you see all the Nethertons home and I come for you myself. You won't, doctor?" "No," said the doctor.
This magnificent curtain was made by the sick woman herself, who could work, when she had the use of her hands, like a fairy. At the farther end of the room, and opposite to the door, was the fireplace, with a green velvet mantel-shelf, on which a few extremely elegant ornaments, the last relics of the opulence of two families, were arranged.
There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it.
The room looked as if it had not been lived in for years. A faded Flemish tapestry, a curtained picture, an old Italian cassone, and an almost empty bookcase that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and a table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was standing on the mantel-shelf, he saw that the whole place was covered with dust, and that the carpet was in holes.
Across the rough mantel-shelf was draped the French tricolor, and before the fireplace on the puncheons lay a huge bearskin which undoubtedly had not been shaken for a year. Picking up a bottle, the General poured out generous helpings in two of the glasses, and handed one to me. "The mists are bad, Davy," said he "I I cannot afford to get the fever now.
Twelve cockle-shells and a half- penny china figure were ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was an original note, and instead of sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would merit an article to itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text.
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