Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881),
Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books, Book I, Chapter III:
It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, 'united in a common element of dust.' Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttered a sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily thrown aside; ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee-pots, tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and Blücher Boots.
A friend's apartment:
