A
person of more calm reflection thinks not only of what he is consuming
at that moment, but of the soups of the same kind he has met with in a
long course of dining, and which have gradually and justly elevated
the species. I am perhaps making too much of this; but the failures of
a man of sense are always painful"
One of the chief features in the restored Rectory of Combe Florey was a
library, twenty-eight feet long and eight high, ending in a bay-window
supported by pillars, and looking into a brilliant garden. This room had
been made by "throwing a pantry, a passage, and a shoe-hole together."
Three sides of it were covered with books. "No furniture so charming as
books," said Sydney, "even if you never open them, or read a single word."
He passionately loved light and colour, sunshine and flowers; and all his
books were bound in the most vivid blues and reds. "What makes a fire so
pleasant is that it is a live thing in a dead room," A visitor thus
describes him at his literary work:--
"At a large table in the bay-window, with his desk before him--on one
end of this table a case, something like a small deal music-stand,
filled with manuscript books--on the other a large deal tray, filled
with a leaden ink-stand, containing ink enough for a county; a
magnifying glass; a carpenter's rule; several large steel pens, which
it was high treason to touch; a glass bowl full of shot and water, to
clean these precious pens; and some red tape, which he called 'one of
the grammars of life'; a measuring line, and various other articles,
more useful than ornamental.
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