The Count of Monte Cristo

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her father might be seated, "and in fact your two questions suggest
fully the theme of our conversation. I will answer them both, and
contrary to the usual method, the last first, because it is the least
difficult. I have chosen the drawing-room, sir, as our place of meeting,
in order to avoid the disagreeable impressions and influences of a
banker's study. Those gilded cashbooks, drawers locked like gates of
fortresses, heaps of bank-bills, come from I know not where, and the
quantities of letters from England, Holland, Spain, India, China, and
Peru, have generally a strange influence on a father's mind, and make
him forget that there is in the world an interest greater and more
sacred than the good opinion of his correspondents. I have, therefore,
chosen this drawing-room, where you see, smiling and happy in their
magnificent frames, your portrait, mine, my mother's, and all sorts
of rural landscapes and touching pastorals. I rely much on external
impressions; perhaps, with regard to you, they are immaterial, but I
should be no artist if I had not some fancies."