on
Quixote, in four volumes, covered with brown paper; a green Milton; the
"Comedies of Aristophanes"; a leather book, partially burned, comparing
the philosophy of Epicurus with the philosophy of Spinoza; and in a
yellow binding Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn." On the second from the
bottom was lighter literature: "The Iliad"; a "Life of Francis of
Assisi"; Speke's "Discovery of the Sources of the Nile"; the "Pickwick
Papers"; "Mr. Midshipman Easy"; The Verses of Theocritus, in a very old
translation; Renan's "Life of Christ"; and the "Autobiography of
Benvenuto Cellini." The bottom shelf of all was full of books on natural
science.

The walls were whitewashed, and, as Cecilia knew, came off on anybody who
leaned against them. The floor was stained, and had no carpet. There was
a little gas cooking-stove, with cooking things ranged on it; a small
bare table; and one large cupboard. No draperies, no pictures, no
ornaments of any kind; but by the window an ancient golden leather chair.
Cecilia could never bear to sit in that oasis; its colour in this
wilderness was too precious to her spirit.

"It's an east wind, father; aren't you terribly cold without a fire?"

Mr. Stone came from his writing-desk, and stood so that light might fall
on a sheet of paper in his hand. Cecilia noted the scent that went about
with him of peat and baked potatoes. He spoke:

"Listen to this: 'In the condition of society, dignified in those days
with the name of civilisation, the only source of hope was the
persistence of the quality called courage. Amongst a thousand
nerve-destroying habits, amongst the dramshops, patent medicines, the
undigested chaos of inventions and discoveries, while hundreds were
prating in their pulpits of things believed in by a negligible fraction
of the population, and thousands writing down today what nobody would
want to read in two days' time; while men shut animals in cages, and made
bears jig to please their children, and all were striving one against the
other; while, in a word, like gnats above a stagnant pool on a summer's
evening, man danced up and down without the faintest notion why--in this
condition of affairs the quality of courage was alive. It was the only
fire within that gloomy valley.'" He stopped, though evidently anxious to
go on, because he had read the last word on that sheet of paper. He
moved towards the writing-desk. Cecilia said hastily:

"Do you mind if I shut the window, f