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Updated: July 4, 2025
In the antechamber they found a provision of immense felt over-shoes which they were expected to put on for their passage over the waxed marquetry of the halls. These roomy slippers were designed for the accommodation of the native boots; and upon the mixed company of foreigners the effect was in the last degree humiliating.
It was in that grave and silent abode, with Alresca, that I first acquired a taste for bric-â-brac. Ah! the Dutch marquetry, the French cabinetry, the Belgian brassware, the curious panellings, the oak-frames, the faience, the silver candlesticks, the Amsterdam toys in silver, the Antwerp incunables, and the famous tenth-century illuminated manuscript in half-uncials!
The room was quite dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and incongruous furniture; several great pier-glasses, in which he beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, framed and unframed, standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with tapestry hangings.
The light from a high slit under the architrave sifted down on the floor strewn with carpets of Damascene weave. Two great pillars, closely set, supported the ceiling. They were of red and black granite, and each was surmounted by a foliated encarpus of white marble. The ceiling was a marvelous marquetry of many and wondrously harmonious colors.
Below these was a card-table of marquetry with spindle-legs, and on it a work-box of ivory, inlaid with silver and ebony. In the corner stood a harp, an Erard, golden and gracious, not a string of it broken. In the middle of the room was a small square table, covered with a green cloth. An old-fashioned easy chair stood by the chimney; and one sat in it whom to see was to forget her surroundings.
From this sketch everybody can see the sort of house the brother and sister lived in, though they can never imagine the absurdities into which a clever builder dragged the ignorant pair, new inventions, fantastic ornaments, a system for preventing smoky chimneys, another for preventing damp walls; painted marquetry panels on the staircase, colored glass, superfine locks, in short, all those vulgarities which make a house expensive and gratify the bourgeois taste.
There was a great deal of beautiful ornament in gilded bronze and ormolu on the furniture, and many colored woods were used in marquetry. The fashion of using Sèvres plaques in inlay was continued. There was a great deal of white and colored marble used and very fine ironwork was made.
Her maid had kindled a little fire on the hearth, and it contended cheerfully with the sunlight which slanted across the moss-green carpet and caressed the curved sides of an old marquetry desk. Near the bed stood a table holding her breakfast tray, with its harmonious porcelain and silver, a handful of violets in a slender glass, and the morning paper folded beneath her letters.
Franz led him to a spot on the wall hidden by a marquetry cabinet. "Here's the bell, it rings for several minutes before it stops." The light of the candle which the butler held fell upon a portrait hanging above the cabinet. It was a sketch in water-colours, the life-sized head of a man who may have been about thirty years old, perhaps, but who had none of the freshness and vigour of youth.
Below these was a card-table of marquetry with spindle-legs, and on it a work-box of ivory, inlaid with silver and ebony. In the corner stood a harp, an Erard, golden and gracious, not a string of it broken. In the middle of the room was a small square table, covered with a green cloth. An old-fashioned easy chair stood by the chimney; and one sat in it whom to see was to forget her surroundings.
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