Rich Soil

This link goes out to my wife who I hope realizes that despite the fact that new stacks seem to be randomly sprouting and growing faster than Alabama kudzu, things could always be worse:

The books and documents took over the house. The family - two wives, three daughters of the first marriage - knew their place: second best to the books and to boxes, some of which stood for several years waiting to be unpacked. They were pressed into service, unpacking, sorting, and stacking shelves. The walls of the once-fine house were stained and peeling; there was never money to pay for repairs. Regular visitors - for Sir Thomas, for all his faults, was unfailingly generous to serious scholars - noted mournfully as they escaped down the almost impassable track towards Broadway that the state of Middle Hill House was even more grievous now than the last time they'd seen it, with every room filled with heaps of paper, manuscripts, books, charters, lying on the floor or piled up against walls, on tables, chairs and beds.

His daughters took the earliest chances they could to get married and move away. That led to one of the bitterest of the baronet's many feuds. A bright young scholar called Halliwell had come to the house and been generously counselled and entertained. In time, he asked Sir Thomas for the hand of his eldest daughter, Henrietta. Sir Thomas refused his assent. Halliwell and Henrietta disappeared one morning to Broadway and came back husband and wife.

Sir Thomas was an accomplished hater. Most of all, he hated the Catholic church: the access he readily granted to most who wanted to see his collections was firmly denied to Catholics. But from now on, he hated the Halliwells with equivalent fervour. The terms under which he'd inherited Middle Hill meant that on his death the place would pass to the Halliwells. When all other attempts to prevent this failed, he simply abandoned Middle Hill and moved to a large house in Cheltenham. It took the whole of the summer of 1864 to transport his books and manuscripts. He left Middle Hill to the elements. Rain poured in through the roof. Marauders made off with whatever they fancied. Handrails, banisters, even in time the staircase, were gone. Not a pane of glass, it was said, remained in the windows.