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!). And this button
is coming off--quite right; I will sew it on with a dream needle, and
dream thread, and a dream thimble!

This little door leads to every picture-gallery in Europe. It took me a
long time to build and arrange them all by myself--quite a week of
nights. It is very pleasant to walk there with a good catalogue, and
make it rain cats and dogs outside.

Through this curtain is an opera box--the most comfortable one I've
ever been in; it does for theatres as well, and oratorios and concerts
and scientific lectures. You shall see from it every performance I've
ever been at, in half a dozen languages; you shall hold my hand and
understand them all. Every singer that I ever heard, you shall hear.
Dear Giulia Grisi shall sing the 'Willow Song' again and again, and you