The things we do!

Amazement,
as the Captain of the Nautilus had predicted, had already begun to
take possession of me.
"Professor," said this strange man, "you must excuse the unceremonious
way in which I receive you, and the disorder of this room."
"Sir," I answered, "without seeking to know who you are,
I recognise in you an artist."
"An amateur, nothing more, sir. Formerly I loved to collect
these beautiful works created by the hand of man.
I sought them greedily, and ferreted them out indefatigably,
and I have been able to bring together some objects of great value.
These are my last souvenirs of that world which is dead to me.
In my eyes, your modern artists are already old; they have two or
three thousand years of existence; I confound them in my own mind.
Masters have no age."
"And these musicians?" said I, pointing out some works of Weber,
Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Meyerbeer, Herold, Wagner, Auber,
Gounod, and a number of others, scattered over a large model piano-organ
which occupied one of the panels of the drawing-room.


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