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The oak panelling was painted white, a barbarity on the part of those modern Goths the West End decorators, but a charming background for quaint Venetian mirrors, hanging shelves of curious old china, dainty little groups of richly-bound duodecimos, brackets, bronzes, freshest flowers in majolica jars; water-colour sketches by Hunt, Prout, Cattermole, and Edward Duncan; sage-green silk curtains; black and gold furniture, and all the latest prettinesses of the new Jacobean school.
As his name was mentioned, the Minister gave him a sharp, sidelong glance, and moving his head slightly, invited his guests to enter the house. The gentlemen accordingly complied with his request. Passing through the bow window, they found themselves in a well-sized room, the sides of which were covered with shelves filled with richly-bound books.
He had not been long at home when there came a richly-bound volume, inscribed on the title-page, 'The gift of Admiral Lord Radstock to his dear and excellent friend, John Clare, August 1st, 1822. The gift gave him no pleasure, but, awakening thoughts of the past and the present, only brought tears into his eyes.
With a few touches Mendelssohn makes us see the delightful ease and comfort of this royal interior, the Queen gathering up the sheets of music strewn by the wind over the floor the Prince cleverly managing the organ-stops so as to suit the master while he played the mighty rocking-horse and the two birdcages beside the music-laden piano in the Queen's own sitting-room, beautiful with pictures and richly-bound books the pretty difficulty about her finding some of Mendelssohn's own songs to sing to him, since her music was packed up and taken away to Claremont her naïve confession that she had been "so frightened" at singing before the master, all are chronicled with not less zest and affection than the graceful gift of a valuable ring "as a remembrance" to the artist from the Queen, through Prince Albert.
"Who rang the bell, Minny?" inquired Della one morning, as she sat looking over a richly-bound volume of engravings, a recent gift from her father. "General Delville, Miss." "Has mamma gone into the drawing-room?" "Not yet, Miss; she is preparing to do so." "Well, Minny, do you go to her, and tell her that Della says, please not go in this morning, she wishes to see General Delville alone."
That is how it strikes an American, of democratic tendencies. About a year after the death of Prince Albert, the Duchess of Sutherland presented to the Queen a richly-bound Bible, the offering of loyal "English widows."
Throughout the establishment there is an appearance of care and order, but not of restraint. Some inordinately richly-bound volumes have special grooves or niches for themselves lined with soft cloth, as if they had delicate lungs, and must be kept from catching cold. But even these are not guarded from the hand of the guest.
In a handsome glazed bookcase, opposite his writing-table, appeared a richly-bound edition of the Waverley Novels, Knight's Shakespeare, Hume and Smollett, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Gibbon; but, except when Georgy dusted the sacred volumes with her own fair hands, the glass doors of the bookcase were never opened. Mr.
We passed up great winding stairs, over which, it seemed to me, three carriages might have been driven abreast; we were surrounded at every step by exquisite statuary and royal paintings; our course led through great libraries where the softened light fell on the endless arrays of richly-bound books. But they were as dead intelligence under the spell of a magician.
There were fine paintings and engravings to adorn her walls; fine china, and glittering cut glass, silver and gold ware for her tables; vases for her mantels; richly-bound and illustrated books, whose literary contents were worthy of the costly adornment, and various other things calculated to give her pleasure or add to her ease and comfort.
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