g to introduce our reader. There are but two rooms, each of them of
the dimensions of closets, but furnished with a degree of pretension
that cannot fail to cause amazement as you enter. Silk draperies, carved
cabinets, bronzes, china, chairs of ebony, tables of buhl, a Persian rug
on the floor, an alabaster lamp suspended from the ceiling, miniatures
in handsome frames, and armor, cover the walls; while, scattered about,
are richly bound books, and prints, and drawings in water-color. Through
the half-drawn curtain that covers the doorway for there is no door
you can peep into the back room, where a lighter and more modern taste
prevails; the gold-sprigged curtains of a French bed, and the Bohemian
glass that glitters everywhere, bespeaking another era of decorative
luxury.

It is not with any invidious pleasure for depreciation, but purely in
the interests of truth, that we must now tell our reader that, of all
this seeming elegance and splendor, nothing absolutely nothing is real.
The brocaded silks have been old petticoats; the ebony is lacquer; the
ivory is bone; the statuettes are plaster, glazed so as to look like
marble; the armor is papier mache, even to the owner himself, all is
imposition, for he is no other than Albert Jekyl.

Now, my dear reader, you and I see these things precisely in the same
light. The illusion of a first glance stripped off, we smile as we
examine, one by one, the ingenious devices meant to counterfeit ancient
art or modern elegance. It is possible, too, that we derive as much
amusement from the ingenuity exercised, as we should have had pleasure
in contemplating the realities so typified. Still, there is one
individual to whom this consciousness brings no alloy of enjoyment;
Jekyl has persuaded himself to accept all as fact. Like the Indian,
who first carves and then worships his god, he has gone through the old
process of fabrication, and now gazes on his handiwork with the eyes
of a true believer. Gracefully reclined upon an ottoman, the mock amber
mouthpiece of a gilt hooka between his lips, he dreams, with half-closed
eyes, of Oriental luxury! A Sybarite in every taste, he has invented a
little philosophy of his own. He has seen enough of life to know that
thousands might live in enjoyment out of the superfluities of rich men,
and yet make them nothing the poorer. What banquet would not admit of
a guest the more? What fete to which another might not be added? What
four-in-hand pra