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Stevenson, Robert Louis

"Essays Of Travel"

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 Bible pictures; the
seats deep and easy; a single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or
so upon a bracket; a rack for the journals of the week; a table for
the books of the year; and close in a corner the three shelves full
of eternal books that never weary: Shakespeare, Moliere, Montaigne,
Lamb, Sterne, De Musset's comedies (the one volume open at CARMOSINE
and the other at FANTASIO); the ARABIAN NIGHTS, and kindred stories,
in Weber's solemn volumes; Borrow's BIBLE IN SPAIN, the PILGRIM'S
PROGRESS, GUY MANNERING and ROB ROY, MONTE CRISTO and the VICOMTE DE
BRAGELONNE, immortal Boswell sole among biographers, Chaucer,
Herrick, and the STATE TRIALS.
The bedrooms are large, airy, with almost no furniture, floors of
varnished wood, and at the bed-head, in case of insomnia, one shelf
of books of a particular and dippable order, such as PEPYS, the
PASTON LETTERS, Burt's LETTERS FROM THE HIGHLANDS, or the NEWGATE
CALENDAR.


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