e apartment extend ranges of shelves, from
floor to ceiling, filled with ponderous tomes in black substantial
binding, seeming to belong to that class of standard works chiefly
valuable for reference as authorities, and bearing ample testimony in
their wear and tear, and their soiled appearance, to having been
faithfully fingered. No thin, delicate and perfumed duodecimo is there,
resplendent in gold and Russia, with costly engravings on steel, and
letter-press in gilt or hot-pressed post. No, the books, the table, the
journalist and the whole chamber bear the dark, stern, toil-soiled
aspect of labor, the severe air of practical utility. The only
ornaments, if such they can be styled, are busts--the busts of the
silver-tongued Vergniaud and a few of his political brothers--the victim
Girondins of '92 being conspicuous. Here, too, in a prominent niche is
the noble front of Armand Carrel, the brave, the knightly, the
chivalric, the true Republican, the true statesman, the true journalist,
the true man--Armand Carrel, who, with Adolphe Thiers, his associate,
sat first in this apartment as its chief--Armand Carrel, who fell years
ago before the pistol of Emile de Girardin, a brother journalist, the
founder of the cheap press, the hero of scores of combats before and
since, yet almost unscathed by all.

Such are some of the ornaments of the chief editor's sanctum. At the
further extremity of the apartment, the wall is covered with maps and
diagrams, as well as charts of the prominent cities and points in
Europe; and a large table beneath is heaped with books of travel,
geographical views, and historical scenes arranged with no regard to
order, and seeming to lie precisely as thrown down after having been
used.

In a word, the whole room bears unmistakable evidence of stern,
practical thought. In it and about it display is everywhere scrupulously
eschewed. Practical utility is the only question of interest as touching
the instruments of an editor, as of those of a carpenter; and the
workshop of the journalist bears no inconsiderable similarity to that of
the artisan in more respects than one. To each a tool is valuable, be
that tool a book or a chisel, only for its usefulness, and the facility
and rapidity with which it will aid the possessor to accomplish his
ends, and not for its beauty of form, or costliness of material or
construction.

In one respect only was there variance from this settled custom to be
perceived, a