midnight
A small Byzantine picture , painted on wood , with a silver frame ornamented with cornelian stars , and the background heavily gilded , hung over an etagere , where lay a leaf from Nebuchadnezzar 's diary , one of those Babylonish bricks on which his royal name was stamped . Near it stood a pair of Bohemian vases representing the two varieties of lotus -- one velvety white with rose-colored veins , the other with delicate blue petals . This latter whim had cost a vast amount of time , trouble , and money , it having been found difficult to carefully preserve , sketch , and paint them for the manufacturer in Bohemia , who had never seen the holy lotus , and required specimens . But the indomitable will of the man , to whose wishes neither oceans nor deserts opposed successful barriers , finally triumphed , and the coveted treasures fully repaid their price as they glistened in the gaslight , perfect as their prototypes slumbering on the bosom of the Nile , under the blazing midnight stars of rainless Egypt . Several handsome rosewood cases were filled with rare books -- two in Pali -- centuries old ; and moth-eaten volumes and valuable MSS . -- some in parchment , some bound in boards -- recalled the days of astrology and alchemy , and the sombre mysteries of Rosicrucianism . Side by side , on an ebony stand , lay an Elzevir Terence , printed in red letters , and a curious Birman book , whose pages consisted of thin leaves of ivory , gilded at the edges ; and here too were black rhyta from Chiusi , and a cylix from Vulci , and one of those quaint Peruvian jars , which was so constructed that , when filled with water , the air escaped in sounds that resembled that of the song or cry of the animal represented on the vase or jar .