Patrick O’Brian on Unsuccessful Interior Design

Lord Clonfert had the cabin of his sloop-of-war decorated in the Eastern style; now he has been promoted to a post-ship, and has brought his belongings with him:

When he led Stephen to his cabin he showed its furnishings with a somewhat tiresome exultation, though insisting that this arrangement was merely temporary: ‘not quite the thing for a post-captain – passable in a sloop, but a trifle shabby in a frigate.’ The cabin, like most of those in rated ships, was a strikingly beautiful room: in Corbett’s time it had been bare scrubbed wood, gleaming brass, shining windows, and little more; now that Spartan interior, rather too large for Clonfert’s possessions, looked as though a brothel had moved into a monastery, and as though it had not yet settled down.

— Patrick O’Brian, The Mauritius Command