nce, and announced themselves in the following
soliloquy:--

"What capital coals these are!--There's nothing in the world so cheering--
so enlivening--as a good, hot, blazing, sea-coal fire."--I broke a large
lump into fragments with the poker, as I spoke--"It's all mighty fine," I
continued, "for us travellers to harangue the ignorant on the beauty of
foreign cities, on their buildings without dust, and their skies without a
cloud; but, for my own part, I like to see a dark, thick, heavy
atmosphere, hanging over a town. It forewarns the traveller of his
approach to the habitations, the business, and the comforts of his
civilized fellow-creatures. It gives an air of grandeur, and importance,
and mystery, to the scenes: it conciliates our respect. We know that there
must be some fire where there is so much smother.--While, in those bright,
shining, smokeless cities, whenever the sun shines upon them, one's eyes
are put out by the glare of their white walls; and when it does not
shine!--why, in the winter, there's no resource left for a man but
hopeless and shivering resignation, with their wide, windy chimneys, and
their damp, crackling, hissing, sputtering, tantalizing fagots."--I
confirmed my argument in favour of our metropolitan obscurity by another
stroke of the poker against the largest fragment of the broken coal; and
then, letting fall my weapon, and turning my back to the fire, I
exclaimed, "Certainly--there's no kind of furniture like books:--nothing
else can afford one an equal air of comfort and habitability.--Such a
resource too!--A man never feels alone in a library.--He lives surrounded
by companions, who stand ever obedient to his call, coinciding with every
caprice of temper, and harmonising with every turn and disposition of the
mind.--Yes: I love my book:--they are my friends--my counsellors--my
companions.--Yes; I have a real personal attachment, a very tender regard,
for my books."

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my dressing-gown, which, by the by,
is far the handsomest piece of old brocade I have ever seen,---a large
running pattern of gold hollyhocks, with silver stalks and leaves, upon a
rich, deep, Pompadour-coloured ground,--and, walking slowly backwards and
forwards in my room, I continued,--"There never was, there never can have
been, so happy a fellow as myself! What on earth have I to wish for more?
Maria adores me--I adore Maria. To be sure, she's detained at Brighton;
but I hear fr