Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/230

presiding genius is an artist of the highest order; none other could produce the wonderful effect that meets you at every turn. Not a corner is lost, not an inch of space but what is turned to good account; abundance without ostentation, riches without display. No thrusting forward of treasures in an attitude of aggression, that seems to say, "See how much I have cost." It is just everything in the right place for it, with a result place for it, with a result beyond conception. How I wish I could adequately describe it; and how much more I wish I could show it to some of the stately dowagers who make their homes places of dreary splendour, odious to the eye, and destructive to the comfort!

The corridor, with wedding-presents.
From a Photo. by Gunn and Stuart.

But I am keeping you in the Entrance-hall, and you want to see more; so we pass on to the next corridor. By the way, corridors abound here, the whole place reminding one of an Indian residence. It has a fairly substantial centre building, with long semi-circular wings projecting from either side. This special corridor we have just entered is most interesting just now, for here are displayed the the numerous and costly presents that are continually arriving from all quarters. The close proximity, and the absence of hurry and crush, make the inspection delightful, and I feel loth to leave them; but as you will be familiar with the list and description as given in our "dailies," and will perhaps have seen them at the "Institute" prior to the publication of this number, I will not say anything about them beyond a general remark as to the extreme beauty, combined with utility, of the whole. You have here before you a photograph of the corridor containing them, an apartment that had been entirely cleared for their reception, so that, with one exception, every article shown therein is a veritable wedding present, the exception being an easel, containing a very large and remarkably life-like photograph of the Princess May, taken recently by Gunn and Stuart, the artists responsible for the accompanying views, taken by special permission. This, I am told, is a favourite likeness; the prominent position accorded it testifying to the fact.

From here we step into a little ante-room, lighted by a window from which you look