_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—These little alabaster figures on the mantelpiece, Mr. Crotchet, and those large figures in the niches—may I take the liberty to ask you what they are intended to represent?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Venus, sir; nothing more, sir; just Venus.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—May I ask you, sir, why they are there?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—To be looked at, sir; just to be looked at: the reasons for most things in a gentleman’s house being in it at all; from the paper on the walls, and the drapery of the curtains, even to the books in the library, of which the most essential part is the appearance of the back.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Very true, sir. As great philosophers hold that the _esse_ of things is _percipi_, so a gentleman’s furniture exists to be looked at. Nevertheless, sir, there are some things more fit to be looked at than others; for instance, there is nothing more fit to be looked at than the outside of a book. It is, as I may say, from repeated experience, a pure and unmixed pleasure to have a goodly volume lying before you, and to know that you may open it if you please, and need not open it unless you please. It is a resource against _ennui_, if _ennui_ should come upon you. To have the resource and not to feel the _ennui_, to enjoy your bottle in the present, and your book in the indefinite future, is a delightful condition of human existence. There is no place, in which a man can move or sit, in which the outside of a book can be otherwise than an innocent and becoming spectacle. Touching this matter, there cannot, I think, be two opinions. But with respect to your Venuses there can be, and indeed there are, two very distinct opinions. Now, Sir, that little figure in the centre of the mantelpiece—as a grave _paterfamilias_, Mr. Crotchet, with a fair nubile daughter, whose eyes are like the fish-pools of Heshbon—I would ask you if you hold that figure to be altogether delicate?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—The sleeping Venus, sir? Nothing can be more delicate than the entire contour of the figure, the flow of the hair on the shoulders and neck, the form of the feet and fingers. It is altogether a most delicate morsel.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Why, in that sense, perhaps, it is as delicate as whitebait in July. But the attitude, sir, the attitude.