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Du Maurier, George, 1834-1896

"Peter Ibbetson"


Here are cigarettes and pipes and cigars. I hope they are good. I don't
smoke myself.
Isn't all the furniture rare and beautiful? I have robbed every palace
in Europe of its very best, and yet the owners are not a penny the
worse. You should see up-stairs.
Look at those pictures--the very pick of Raphael and Titian and
Velasquez. Look at that piano--I have heard Liszt play upon it over and
over again, in Leipsic!
Here is my library. Every book I ever read is there, and every binding
I ever admired. I don't often read them, but I dust them carefully. I've
arranged that dust shall fall on them in the usual way to make it real,
and remind one of the outer life one is so glad to leave. All has to be
taken very seriously here, and one must put one's self to a little
trouble. See, here is my father's microscope, and under it a small
spider caught on the premises by myself. It is still alive. It seems
cruel, doesn't it? but it only exists in our brains.
Look at the dress I've got on--feel it; how every detail is worked out.
And you have unconsciously done the same: that's the suit you wore that
morning at Cray under the ash-tree--the nicest suit I ever saw. Here is
a spot of ink on your sleeve as real as can be (bravo!).


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