or two. The room is very spacious, and the five tables and two chairs
are but as islands. One table is for actual work, one close by for
references in use; one, very large, for MSS. or proofs that wait their
turn; one kept clear for an occasion; and the fifth is the map table,
groaning under a collection of large-scale maps and charts. Of all books
these are the least wearisome to read and the richest in matter; the
course of roads and rivers, the contour lines and the forests in the
maps--the reefs, soundings, anchors, sailing marks and little
pilot-pictures in the charts--and, in both, the bead-roll of names, make
them of all printed matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy the
fancy. The chair in which you write is very low and easy, and backed
into a corner; at one elbow the fire twinkles; close at the other, if
you are a little inhumane, your cage of silver-bills are twittering into
song.
Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great sunny, glass-roofed,
and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined with bright marble,
is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacious boiler.
The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one undivided chamber;
here are set forth tables on which to model imaginary or actual
countries in putty or plaster, with tools and hardy pigments; a
carpenter's bench; and a spared corner for photography, while at the far
end a space is kept clear for playing soldiers. Two boxes contain the
two armies of some five hundred horse and foot; two others the
ammunition of each side, and a fifth the foot-rules and the three
colours of chalk, with which you lay down, or, after a day's play,
refresh the outlines of the country; red or white for the two kinds of
road (according as they are suitable or not for the passage of
ordnance), and blue for the course of the obstructing rivers. Here I
foresee that you may pass much happy time; against a good adversary a
game may well continue for a month; for with armies so considerable
three moves will occupy an hour. It will be found to set an excellent
edge on this diversion if one of the players shall, every day or so,
write a report of the operations in the character of army correspondent.
I have left to the last the little room for winter evenings. This should
be furnished in warm positive colours, and sofas and floor thick with
rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality on silver
dogs, tiled round about with
|