Then, opposite each photograph, an entry was made, indicating the number of the article, the number of the room in which it was kept, its exact position in the room and all its principal characteristics.

The fate of every object which had undergone this process was henceforth irrevocably sealed.

The whole multitude, once and for all, took up its steadfast station.

And Victoria, with a gigantic volume or two of the endless catalogue always beside her, to look through, to ponder upon, to expatiate over, could feel, with a double contentment, that the transitoriness of this world had been arrested by the amplitude of her might.
Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields of consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of instinct, became one of the dominating influences of that strange existence.

It was a collection not merely of things and of thoughts, but of states of mind and ways of living as well.