No doubt this was a fabulous sum. "You can form a little idea of it,"
said a gentleman to his country friend, "when I tell you that that little
bit there, that little corner of carving and decoration, cost two hundred
thousand dollars! I had this from the architect himself."

"My!"

The interior was as fully representative of wealth and of the ambition to
put under one roof all the notable effects of all the palaces in the
world. But it had, what most palaces have not, all the requisites for
luxurious living. The variety of styles in the rooms was bewildering.
Artists of distinction, both foreign and native, had vied with each other
in the decoration of the rooms given over to the display of their genius.
All paganism and all Christianity, history, myth, and the beauties of
nature were spread upon the walls and ceilings. Rare woods, rare
marbles, splendid textures, the product of ancient handiwork and modern
looms, added a certain dignity to the more airy creations of the artists.
Many of the rooms were named from the nations whose styles of decoration
and furnishing were imitated in them, but others had the simple
designation of the gold room, the silver room, the lapis-lazuli room, and
so on. It was not only the show-rooms, the halls, passages, stairways,
and galleries (both of pictures and of curios) that were thus enriched,
but the boudoirs, retiring-rooms, and more private apartments as well.
It was not simply a house of luxury, but of all the comfort that modern
invention can furnish. It was said that the money lavished upon one or
two of the noble apartments would have built a State-house (though not at
Albany), and that the fireplace in the great hall cost as much as an
imitation mediaeval church. These were the things talked about, and yet
the portions of this noble edifice, rich as they were, habitually
occupied by the family had another character--the attractions and