A Perfect Library

I have picked up where I left off in Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim. Here is a lovely bit I read today. Elizabeth has just gotten home from a journey:

When I got to the library I came to a standstill, -ah, the dear room, what happy times I have spent in it rummaging amongst the books, making plans for my garden, building castles in the air, writing, dreaming, doing nothing!

There was a big peat fire blazing half up the chimney, and the old housekeeper had put pots of flowers about, and on the writing-table was a great bunch of violets scenting the room.

...It looks, I am afraid, rather too gay for an ideal library; and its colouring, white and yellow, is so cheerful as to be almost frivolous. There are white bookcases all round the walls, and there is a great fireplace, and four windows, facing full south, opening on to my most cherished bit of garden, the bit round the sun-dial; so that with so much colour and such a big fire and floods of sunlight it has anything but a sober air, in spite of the venerable volumes filling the shelves, Indeed, I should never be surprised if they skipped down from their places, and, picking up their leaves, began to dance.