unearths some literary gems.
A mass of gleaming white statuary confronted him; the room, large and high as a gymnasium, was disposed about it like a frame. Faraday, the statuary might be; or Samuel Rogers; or just conceivably Palmerstone. Seated, it stared apprehensively at the door, as though anticipating the arrival of duns or bailiffs. It base pinned a large though inferior Turkey carpet to the parquet floor. Portraits in ponderous gilt frames conversed wordlessly, and with the effect of administering a decisive snub, across the top of its head. A number of well-polished but clearly functionless tables--of the sort described as "occasional," but whose occasion somehow never arises--were ranged about the room's periphery like sitters-out at a ball. And the only other furniture consisted of two immense Victorian hat and umbrella stands which, flanking the door, flourished a multiplicity of knob-crowned arms, Vishnu-like, at the ceiling.
