doing this I was closely followed by the reporter. My study was a place
of many windows, and on this morning in the first week of 1888 it was
flooded with sunshine, or as the reporter, with technical skill,
described it, "A mellow light." The sun is always "mellow" in a room
whenever I have read about it in a newspaper. The reporter found my
study "an unattractive room," because it lacked the signs of "luxury" or
even "comfort." As I was erroneously regarded as a clerical Croesus at
this time the reporter's disappointment was excusable. The Gobelin
tapestries, the Raphael paintings, the Turkish divans, and the gold and
silver trappings of a throne room were missing in my study. The reporter
found the floor distressingly "hard, but polished wood." The walls were
painfully plain--"all white." My table, which the reporter kindly
signified as a "big one," was drawn up to a large window. Of course,
like all tables of the kind, it was "littered." I never read of a
library table in a newspaper that was not "littered." The reporter
spied everything upon it at once, "letters, newspapers, books, pens, ink
bottles, pencils, and writing-paper." All of which, of course, indicated
intellectual supremacy to the reporter. The chair at my table was "stiff
backed," and, amazing fact, it was "without a cushion." In front of the
chair, but on the table, the reporter discovered an "open book," which
he concluded "showed that the great preacher had been hurriedly called
away." In every respect it was a "typical literary man's den." Glancing
shrewdly around, the reporter discovered "bookshelves around the walls,
books piled in corners, and even in the middle of the room." Also a
newspaper file was noticed, and--careless creature that I am--"there
were even bundles of old letters tied with strings thrown carelessly
about." The reporter then said:--

"He told me this was his workshop, and looked me in the face with a
merry twinkle in his eye to see whether I was surprised or pleased."