Chapter III: Part 3

Very often, as the visitor will see, the printer’s mark is, in its way, a really beautiful piece of design; many have an interest as being associated with the reputation of a famous printer like Caxton, or Aldus, or Elzevir; while others depend mainly for their point upon some special symbolical meaning, very frequently taking the form of an illustrated pun. Thus, in the West Corridor, the mark of Lotter--which means “vagrant” in German--is a mendicant supplicating alms. In the South Corridor, the mark of Geoffroy Tory commemorates the death of his little daughter--the broken vase, with a book symbolizing the literary studies of which she had been fond.

There is no necessity, however, of describing the marks in detail, for, with the exception of two or three American examples, they were all taken from Mr. William Roberts’s _Printers’ Marks_ (London, 1893), in which they are illustrated and explained. Those thought best adapted for decorative effect were chosen throughout, although the marks of as many of the better known printers as possible were included. Occasionally a border or a motto was omitted, but in the main Mr. Roberts’s engravings were pretty exactly copied. In the West Corridor the marks are mostly those of German printers; in the South Corridor, French; in the East Corridor, Italian and Spanish; in the North Corridor, English and Scottish and American.[7]

=Mr. Hinton Perry’s Bas-Reliefs.=--Mr. Perry’s bas-reliefs, at the west end of the north and south vaults, have already been referred to. They are four in number, and measure three feet eight inches from one side to another. Taken as a series they represent what may be called, for lack of a better title, _Ancient Prophetic Inspiration_. The chief figure in each is a sibyl or priestess--Greek, Roman, Persian, Scandinavian--in the act of delivering the prophetic warnings which have been revealed to her in the rapture of a divine frenzy. She is regarded as the mouthpiece of the god, and therefore as the fountain of religion, wisdom, literature, art, and success in war--all of which are typified, in one panel or another, in the figures of her auditors.

Beginning in the South Corridor, the first panel shows the Cumæan or Roman Sibyl. She is represented, in accordance with the ancient histories, as an old and withered hag, whose inspiration comes from an infernal, rather than a celestial source. Two figures, as in all the panels, complete Mr. Perry’s group, one male and the other female. The first is clad in the splendid armor of a Roman general; the woman is nude, and stands for Roman Art and Literature. At her feet is a box of manuscripts, and she takes in one hand an end of the long scroll (representing one of the Sibylline Books, so famous in Roman history) which the Priestess holds in her lap. The panel on the other side of the arch represents a Scandinavian Vala or Wise Woman, with streaming hair and a wolf-skin over her head and shoulders. She typifies, in her bold gesture and excited gaze, the barbaric inspiration of the Northern nations. To the left is the figure of a Norse warrior, and to the right a naked woman lies stretched upon the ground, personifying the vigorous life and fecundity of genius of the North.

In the North Corridor, the subjects of Mr. Perry’s two decorations are Greek and Persian Inspiration. The former is represented by the Priestess of the world-renowned Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. She is seated upon a tripod, placed above a mysterious opening in the earth, from which the sacred fumes rise to intoxicate the Priestess, and fill her with the spirit of prophecy. On one side of the panel, an old man, standing for Greek science and philosophy, takes down her words on a tablet; on the other is a nude female figure, personifying Greek art and literature. In the second panel, that of Persia, the face of the Sibyl is veiled, to signify the occult wisdom of the East. A man prostrates himself at her feet in a fervor of religious devotion, and a woman, nearly nude, stands listening in the background. With her voluptuous figure and her ornaments of pearl and gold--a fillet, anklets, armlets, and necklace--she represents the luxuriance and sensuousness of Eastern art and poetry.

=Mr. Shirlaw’s Paintings.=--The subjects of Mr. Shirlaw’s figures in the vault of the West Corridor are, on the west, beginning at the left: _Zoölogy_, _Physics_, _Mathematics_, and _Geology_; and on the east, again beginning at the left: _Archæology_, _Botany_, _Astronomy_, and _Chemistry_. Each science is represented by a female figure about seven and a half feet in height. The figures are especially interesting, aside from their artistic merit, for the variety of symbolism by which every science is distinguished from the others, and for the subtlety with which much of this symbolism is expressed. Not only is each accompanied by various appropriate objects, but the lines of the drapery, the expression of the face and body, and the color itself are, wherever practicable, made to subserve the idea of the science represented. Thus the predominant colors used in the figure of _Chemistry_--purple, blue, and red--are the ones which occur most often in chemical experimenting. In the pendentive of _Geology_, Mr. Shirlaw employs principally purple and orange; the former is the ruling color in many of the more common rock formations when seen in the mass and naturally; and the latter is the color of the ordinary lichens one finds on boulders and ledges. In the matter of line, again, the visitor will notice a very marked difference between the abrupt, broken line used in the drapery of _Archæology_, and the moving, flowing line in that of _Physics_. In both cases it will be found that the line is in very complete sympathy with the character of the science depicted. The method of archæology is largely excavation carried on among sculptural and architectural fragments. The swirling drapery of _Physics_ is suggestive of flame and heat.

_Zoölogy_ is represented with a lion seated beside her, her hands clasping his mane. She is the huntress and student of wild life, and her body is powerfully developed, like an Amazon’s. She is clad in the pelt of an animal, the head forming her cap, and in buskins of skin. She stands on a rocky piece of ground, like a desert. The chief colors employed in the pendentive are the typical animal colors, browns and yellows.

_Physics_ stands on an electric globe, from which emanate rays of light. She carries a torch in her left hand, and she holds up an end of her drapery in her right in such a way that it seems to start from the flame and flow in sympathy with it over her whole body, so that it conveys the idea of the unceasing motion of fire. The same colors as those used in the pendentive of _Geology_, purple and orange, are used here also, but in this case standing, of course, for the colors of flame.

_Mathematics_, the exact science, is represented as almost entirely nude,--like “the Naked Truth” of Mr. Walker’s tympanum on the floor below. Her right foot is on a stone block inscribed with the conic sections, and on a shield which she holds are various geometrical figures. Her scanty drapery is appropriately disposed in the severest lines.

_Geology_, a sculpturesque figure, stands squarely and firmly upon a mountain top, beyond which is seen the setting sun. A fold of her drapery forms a receptacle for the specimens she has gathered. In her left hand is a globe, and in her right a fossil shell. Her hair is confined by a head-dress of bars of silver and gold. The embroidered pattern of her garment has a suggestion of fossil forms and of the little lizards which are found among the rocks.

_Archæology_ is clad in the Roman costume, and wears the helmet of Minerva; the helmet is wreathed with olive, the emblem of peace, which was sacred to Minerva, and is here used with special reference to the peaceful character of the science, which can pursue its labors only in an orderly society. The figure stands on a block of stone, the surface of which is carved to represent a scroll, the ancient form of book. A vase, copied from the manufacture of the Zuñi Indians of New Mexico, stands beside her. In her right hand she holds a large book, the pages of which she examines with the aid of a magnifying glass in order to spell out its half obliterated text. Around her neck is coiled a chameleon, whose changing hues are intended to symbolize the varying nature of the theories she propounds.

The countenance of _Botany_ is expressive of a joyous sympathy with nature. She stands on the pad of a water-lily, engaged in analyzing its flower, the long stem of which coils gracefully about her body to the water. Her drapery flows and breaks as a half-opened flower might arrange itself.

_Astronomy_ holds a lens, such as is used in a telescope, in her right hand, and in her left the globe of Saturn surrounded by its rings--selected as being perhaps the best known and most easily distinguished of all the planets. She stands on the sphere of the earth, beyond which, to the left, is the quarter moon. The lines of her drapery with their slow curves are suggestive, in a way, of the orbits of the heavenly bodies. They flow in long lines, enveloping her figure in the strength which proceeds from complete harmony.

_Chemistry_ is shown with her left foot placed upon a piece of chemical apparatus and holding in her right hand a glass retort, in which she is distilling a liquid. The necessary heat, manifested by the ascending vapor which curls about the vessel, is from the mouth of the serpent--the emblem of fecundity and life, breathing the element of life, fire. The serpent is coiled about an hour-glass, which is significant of the exact measurement of time necessary in chemical experiments. The face of the figure is more worn, on account of the anxious nature of her employment, than would comport with the character of an out-of-door science like Botany or Zoölogy. She is draped somewhat in the eastern manner, like a sibyl, thus recalling the occult character ascribed to the science during the Middle Ages--when it was called alchemy--and, for that matter, the marvellousness of its results in the laboratories of to-day. A snake wound as a fillet about her hair still further emphasizes this mystic quality.

At either end of the corridor is a tablet bearing a list of names of men distinguished in the sciences which Mr. Shirlaw has depicted; at the north end: Cuvier, the Zoölogist; Linnæus, the Botanist; Schliemann, the Archæologist; and Copernicus, the Astronomer; at the south end: La Grange, the Mathematician; Lavoisier, the Chemist; Rumford, the Physicist; and Lyell, the Geologist. In the penetrations on either side of these two lists of names are the following appropriate inscriptions:--

The first creature of God was the light of sense; the last was
the light of reason.
_Bacon._

The Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth not.
_John_ 1, 5.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
_Pope._

In nature all is useful, all is beautiful.
_Emerson._

Along the centre of the vault, three medallions by Mr. William B. Van Ingen represent respectively _Sculpture_, _Architecture_, and _Painting_. In each the art is represented by a female figure engaged either in chiselling the features of a bust (that of Washington), drawing the plan of a building, or painting at an easel.

=Mr. Reid’s Paintings.=--Passing to the North Corridor, the attention is at once attracted to the brilliant coloring of Mr. Reid’s decorations in the vault and along the north wall. The former are five in number, and represent the _Five Senses_. They are octagonal in form, measuring within an inch of six feet and a half across. The order of the subjects, beginning at the westerly end, is _Taste_, _Sight_, _Smell_, _Hearing_, _Touch_. In each the sense suggested is represented by a beautiful young woman, more of the modern than the antique type of beauty, and clad in drapery which recalls contemporary fashions rather than the classic conventions which are usually followed by artists in their treatment of ideal subjects. Being painted upon a ceiling, so that the visitor is required to look directly upward in order to study them, the figures, though, in a sense, represented as seated, are rather to be imagined as poised in the air, without any special reference to the law of gravitation. They are shown as supported upon cloud-banks, and the backgrounds of the panels are sky and clouds.

The suggestion of the subject is as simply as it is ingeniously and unconventionally conveyed. A large portion of this suggestion must be looked for, of course, in the expression of the face and the attitude as well as in the action of the figures. _Taste_ is shown drinking from a shell. She is surrounded by foliage, and a vine grows beside her laden with bunches of ripe grapes. She wears flowers in her hair, and the idea throughout may perhaps be taken as that of the autumnal feast of the wine-press. _Sight_ is looking at her reflection in a handglass, and smiling with pleasure at the evidence of her beauty. A splendid peacock, the emblem of beauty and pride in beauty, is introduced beside her. _Smell_ is represented seated beside a bank of lilies and roses. From this mass of flowers she has selected a great white rose, which she presses to her nose. _Hearing_ holds a large sea-shell to her ear, and dreamily listens to its roaring. _Touch_ is delightedly observing a butterfly which has alighted on her bare outstretched arm--the touch of its tiny feet as it walks over her flesh imparting an unaccustomed sensation to her nerves. A setter dog, which she has just ceased from caressing, lies asleep behind her.

Mr. Reid’s subjects in the four circular panels along the wall are entitled, in order from left to right: _Wisdom_, _Understanding_, _Knowledge_, and _Philosophy_. Each is represented by a half-length seated female figure--more solidly painted, but of much the same type as the figures representing _The Senses_--holding a scroll, book, or tablet. In the panel of _Philosophy_, a Greek temple is seen in the background, emblematic of the Greek origin of philosophy.

Alternating with Mr. Reid’s ceiling paintings, is a series of rectangular panels, in which are depicted, in low tones of color and in a style somewhat suggestive of a classic bas-relief, a number of ancient out-door athletic contests. Beginning at the west end of the vault, the first of these represents a group of young men throwing the discus. Then come _Wrestling_ and _Running_. In the fourth panel, the athletes are being rubbed down by attendants, to clear them of the sweat and heat of the conflict; and in the fifth, the successful contestants are kneeling to receive the crown of victory at the hands of a woman seated on a dais. The last picture represents the return home, a tripping company of youths and maidens crowned with garlands.

The visitor will remember what was said concerning the special enrichment of the penetrations in the side corridors for the sake of compensating in a way for the absence of such decorations as Mr. Shirlaw’s in the pendentives. In the present instance, this enrichment takes the form of dragons and swans, which serve as “supporters” of the panels containing the printers’ marks.

In the pendentives, tablets for inscriptions alternate with medallions containing trophies of various trades and sciences. The list of the latter, beginning at the left over the north wall, is as follows: Geometry, represented by a compass, a protractor, and a scroll, cone, and cylinder; Meteorology, the barometer, thermometer, and anemometer; Forestry, a growing tree, and an axe and pruning-knife; Navigation, the chronometer, log, rope, rudder, and compass; Mechanics, the lever, wedge, and pulley-block; and Transportation, with a piston, propeller, driving-wheel, and locomotive head-light.

The inscriptions are from Adelaide A. Procter’s poem, _Unexpressed_, and are as follows:--

Dwells within the soul of every Artist
More than all his effort can express.

No great Thinker ever lived and taught you
All the wonder that his soul received.

No true painter ever set on canvas
All the glorious vision he conceived.

No musician....
But be sure he heard, and strove to render,
Feeble echoes of celestial strains.

Love and Art united
Are twin mysteries, different yet the same.

Love may strive, but vain is the endeavor
All its boundless riches to unfold.

Art and Love speak; and their words must be
Like sighings of illimitable forests.

The only other decoration which there is space to mention is the broad, semicircular border which follows the line of the vault on the wall at either end of the corridor. At the east end, this border is ornamented with a bright-colored arabesque, mainly in violet and greens, with a medallion in the centre bearing a map of the Western Hemisphere. At the west end, the border is plainer, with five semicircular or circular tablets, two of which are ornamented with the obverse and reverse respectively of the Great Seal of the United States. The other three carry the following inscriptions:--

Order is Heaven’s first law.
_Pope._

Memory is the treasurer and guardian of all things.
_Cicero._

Beauty is the creator of the universe.
_Emerson._

=Mr. Barse’s Paintings.=--In the East Corridor, the pendentive figures of Mr. Barse represent, beginning on the east side, at the north end: _Lyric Poetry_ (entitled by the artist, _Lyrica_), _Tragedy_, _Comedy_, and _History_; and on the west, again beginning at the north, _Love Poetry_ (_Erotica_), _Tradition_, _Fancy_, and _Romance_. The subject of the entire series, therefore, may be called simply _Literature_. The figures, as the visitor will perceive, need but little explanation. All are those of women clad in graceful, classic robes, represented throughout as seated, and depicted with little attempt at dramatic expression or action. _Lyric Poetry_ is playing on the lyre. _Tragedy_ and _Comedy_ have a tragic and comic mask respectively, and _Comedy_ a tambourine. _History_ has a scroll and palm-branch, and an ancient book-box for scrolls, such as was used by the Romans, is set at her feet. _Romance_ has a pen and a scroll. _Fancy_ clasps her hands, and gazes upward with a rapt expression on her face. _Tradition_ wears the Ægis, and holds a statue of the winged goddess of Victory in her hand--both introduced as symbols of antiquity. _Erotica_ is writing on a tablet.

Along the centre of the vault, occupying a similar position to the medallions in the opposite corridor, is another series of three paintings, executed by Mr. William A. Mackay, which represent _The Life of Man_. One will best understand the meaning of the paintings by first reading the inscriptions which are placed immediately above and below each medallion. On one side they refer to the ancient allegory of the Three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos--the first of whom spun, the second wove, and the third cut, the Thread of Life--and are as follows:--

For a web begun God sends thread.
_Old Proverb._

The web of life ... is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
_All’s Well that Ends Well._

Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.
_Milton._

On the other side the inscriptions, which compare the life of a man to the life of a tree, are taken from Cardinal Wolsey’s speech in _Henry VIII_:--

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes.

To-morrow blossoms.
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him.

The third day comes a frost, ...
And ... nips his root,
And then he falls.

Accordingly, in the present series, the first medallion shows a woman (Clotho) with her distaff and a baby lying in her lap. The sun is rising above the horizon, a sapling begins to put out its branches, and near by is a little spring. In the next picture, Lachesis has a loom and shuttle. The spring has grown into a river, and the mature man bears in his hand a basket of fruit gathered from the abundance of the full-grown tree, while the sun in the heavens marks the high noon of life. In the last medallion the sun is setting, the tree has fallen in ruin on the ground, and the stream has dried up. The man, grown old and crippled, faints by the roadside, and Atropos opens her fatal shears to sever the thread of his existence.

At each end of the corridor is a tablet containing the names of eminent American printers, and men who have contributed to the improvement of American printing machinery. At the north these names are: Green, Daye, Franklin, Thomas, Bradford; and at the south, Clymer, Adams, Gordon, Hoe, Bruce.

=Mr. Benson’s Paintings.=--Mr. Benson’s decorations in the vault of the South Corridor and along the wall below are of the same size and shape as those of Mr. Reid in the North Corridor. The arabesque ornament of the ceiling is so arranged, however, as to allow space for only three instead of five of these hexagonal panels. The subject of the paintings they contain is _The Graces_--Aglaia (at the east), Thalia (in the centre) and Euphrosyne (at the north).

The three figures are almost invariably represented in a group, in both ancient and modern art. Taken together, they stand, of course, for beauty and graciousness, and typify, also, the agreeable arts and occupations. In separating them, Mr. Benson has considered Aglaia as the patroness of Husbandry; Thalia as representing Music; and Euphrosyne, Beauty. The first, therefore, has a shepherd’s crook, the second a lyre, and the last is looking at her reflection in a hand-mirror. All are shown sitting in the midst of a pleasant summer landscape, with trees and water and fertile meadows.

For the four circular panels Mr. Benson has chosen as his subject _The Seasons_. Each is represented by a beautiful half-length figure of a young woman, with no attempt, however, at any elaborate symbolism to distinguish the season which she typifies. Such distinction as the painter has chosen to indicate is to be sought rather in the character of the faces, or in the warmer or colder coloring of the whole panel--in a word, in the general artistic treatment.

At either end of the vault is a rectangular panel painted in the same style as those depicting the ancient games in the North Corridor, but in this case representing the modern sports of _Football_ and _Baseball_. The former, occurring at the east end of the vault, is a more or less realistic picture of a “scrimmage.” The latter is more conventionalized, showing single figures, like the pitcher and catcher, in the attitude of play, and others with bats, masks, and gloves.

Instead of the swans and dragons of the North Corridor, the printers’ marks in the penetrations of the present corridor are supported between the figures of mermen and fauns, and mermaids and nymphs, the male figures, with their suggestion of greater decorative strength, occurring at the ends of the corridor, and the nymphs and mermaids alternating between. Altogether there are thirty-two figures, each painted by Mr. Frederick C. Martin.

On the pendentives, the series of trophies begun in the North Corridor is continued, giving place, as before, in every other pendentive, to a tablet bearing an inscription. Beginning on the south side, at the east end, the trophies are as follows: Printing, with a stick, inking-ball, and type-case; Pottery, three jugs of different kinds of clay; Glass-making, three glass vases of different shapes; Carpentry, a saw, bit, hammer, and right angle; Smithery, the anvil, pincers, hammer, bolt, and nut; Masonry, a trowel, square, plumb, and mortar-board.

The following are the eight inscriptions:--

Studies perfect nature and are perfected by experience.
_Bacon._

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good.
_Wordsworth._

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself.
_Love’s Labor’s Lost._

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
_Pope._

The universal cause
Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.
_Pope._

Vain, very vain, [the] weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind.
_Goldsmith._

Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!
_Goldsmith._

The fault ... is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
_Shakespeare (Julius Cæsar)._

The semicircular borders at either end are practically the same in color and design as in the North Corridor. At the east end, the Eastern is substituted for the Western Hemisphere, and at the west end, a caduceus and a lictor’s axe for the United States Seal. The accompanying inscriptions are as follows:

Man raises but time weighs.
_Modern Greek Proverb._

Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.
_Bulwer Lytton._

The noblest motive is the public good.
_Virgil._

=The Decoration of the Walls.=--The decoration of the vaults of the four corridors is distinctly Renaissance in character; the walls beneath, however, are colored and decorated in accordance with a Pompeiian motive. It may seem at first thought illogical thus to join two styles so remote from each other in point of time, but it must be remembered that, in both art and literature, the Renaissance was literally, as has been pointed out, the _new birth_ of Greek and Roman forms, in the course of which the Italian painters adapted to their use and subdued to their style the sort of wall decoration which we know as Pompeiian, from the discovery of so many examples of it in the excavations at Pompeii. The two styles, as used in conjunction in the Library of Congress, not only in these corridors but throughout the building, are perfectly harmonious in color and design; from the explanation just given the visitor will see that they have long ago been brought into a historical unity as well, through the conventions established by the great and authoritative school of the Renaissance artists.

=Mr. Maynard’s Pompeiian Panels.=--The frequent occurrence of windows, doors, and pilasters cuts the wall into narrow spaces, which, at the north and south, are colored a plain olive, and at the east and west the familiar rich Pompeiian red, ornamented with simple arabesques and, at the ends, with female figures representing _The Virtues_, by Mr. George Willoughby Maynard. There are eight of these figures in all, two in each corner of the hall. Each figure is about five and a half feet high, clad in floating classic drapery, and represented to the spectator as appearing before him in the air, without a support or background other than the deep red of the wall. The style of the paintings is Pompeiian; the general tone is somewhat like that of marble, although touched with color so as to remove any comparison with the marble framing.

Beginning at the left in each case, the names and order of the Virtues are as follows: At the northeast corner, _Fortitude_ and _Justice_; at the southeast corner, _Patriotism_ and _Courage_; at the southwest corner, _Temperance_ and _Prudence_; at the northwest corner, _Industry_ and _Concord_. The number of virtues to be represented was determined beforehand, of course, by the number of spaces at the disposal of the painter. The selection, therefore, was necessarily somewhat arbitrary.

Each figure is shown with certain characteristic attributes. In the case of _Industry_, _Courage_, and _Patriotism_, Mr. Maynard has himself selected these attributes; in the other five figures he has followed the usual conventions.

_Fortitude_ is shown fully armed--the mace in her right hand and the buckler on her arm, and protected by cuirass, casque, and greaves. She is thus represented as ready for any emergency--living in continual expectation of danger, and constantly prepared to meet it. _Justice_ holds the globe in her right hand, signifying the extent of her sway. She holds a naked sword upright, signifying the terribleness of her punishment. _Patriotism_ is feeding an eagle, the emblem of America, from a golden bowl--an action which symbolizes the high nourishment with which the Virtue sustains the spirit of the country. _Courage_ is represented as armed hastily with the buckler, casque, and sword--not, like _Fortitude_, continually on guard, but snatching up her arms in the presence of an unforeseen danger. _Temperance_--figured as the classic rather than the modern virtue--holds an antique pitcher in her right hand, from which a stream of some liquor, whether wine or water, descends into the bowl she holds in her left. Her buoyancy and air of health betoken her moderation of living. _Prudence_ looks in a hand-glass to discover any danger which may assail her from behind. In her right hand she holds a serpent--the emblem of wisdom. _Industry_ draws the flax from a distaff, the end of which is stuck in her girdle, and twists it into thread, to be wound upon the spindle which hangs at her side. _Concord_--the Roman goddess Concordia--illustrates the blessings of peace. In her right hand she bears an olive-branch, and in her left she carries a cornucopia filled with wheat.

=The Inscriptions along the Walls.=--Before taking leave of the corridors of the Entrance Hall, one more feature of the decoration requires notice, namely the twenty-nine inscriptions occupying the gilt tablets below the stucco frames which surround the circular windows and the wall-paintings of Mr. Benson and Mr. Reid. They are as follows:--

Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
_Young._

There is but one temple in the Universe and that is the Body of
Man.
_Novalis._

Beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still
air of delightful studies.
_Milton._

The true university of these days is a collection of books.
_Carlyle._

Nature is the art of God.
_Sir Thomas Browne._

There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of
mankind.
_Lowell._

It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigor is in our
immortal soul.
_Ovid._

They are never alone that are accompanied by noble thoughts.
_Sidney._

Man is one world and has
Another to attend him.
_Herbert._

Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
_As You Like It._

The true Shekinah is man.
_Chrysostom._

Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
_Shirley._

Art is long, and Time is fleeting.
_Longfellow._

The history of the world is the biography of great men.
_Carlyle._

Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch.
_Bacon._

Glory is acquired by virtue but preserved by letters.
_Petrarch._

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
_Dionysius._

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
_Dr. Johnson._

There is only one good, namely knowledge, and one only evil,
namely ignorance.
_Diogenes Laertius._

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
_Tennyson._

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with
all thy getting get understanding.
_Proverbs iv, 7._

Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
_2 Henry IV._

How charming is divine Philosophy!
_Milton._

Books must follow sciences and not sciences books.
_Bacon._

In books lies the Soul of the whole past time.
_Carlyle._

Words are also actions and actions are a kind of words.
_Emerson._

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing
an exact man.
_Bacon._

Science is organized knowledge.
_Herbert Spencer._

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
_Keats._

THE ENTRANCE TO THE ROTUNDA.

The vaulting of the broad passageway leading to the Reading Room consists of a series of six small domes, the ornamentation of which is similar, in its more modest way, to that of the vaulted corridors which the visitor has just left. The colors are light and bright, and the three different patterns employed consist mainly of garlands and ribbons, and of simple bands of color radiating from a central medallion. Swans, eagles, or owls are introduced both in the domes and as the ornament of the pendentives, and eagles occur between the double consoles which receive the weight of the domes upon the east wall. In the medallions just referred to are various objects symbolizing the Fine Arts--tragic and comic masks, for Acting; a lyre, for Music; a block of marble, half shaped into a bust, and sculptors’ tools, for Sculpture; a lamp, scrolls, and an open book, for Literature; and the capital of an Ionic column, a triangle, and some sheets of parchment, for Architecture.

The trophies of Sculpture and Architecture, it should be added, are accompanied by appropriate names--comprising those of cities, statues, and buildings--inscribed both in the arabesques and in the pendentives of certain of the domes. For Architecture, the buildings commemorated are the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, and the Pyramids; while the cities are those with whose fame these four great monuments are connected--Rome, Agra, Athens, and Gizeh. The sculptures are the Farnese Bull, the Laocoön, the Niobe, and the Parthenon Pediment, and in the bordering arabesques are the names of the four divinities often taken as the subject of ancient statuary--Venus, Apollo, Hercules, and Zeus.

=Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings.=--In the centre of the passage a marble staircase, dividing to the right and left at a landing halfway up, leads to the gallery of the Reading Room. Beneath, on either side, is a little bay, giving access to the elevators. In the decoration of the ceiling the effect aimed at is that of an arbor, with a vine, climbing over a trellis, painted against a sunny yellow background. Each contains a small tympanum, in which Mr. Van Ingen has suggested the subjects of Milton’s well-known companion poems, _L’Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_--Mirth, and Melancholy or Thoughtfulness. The decorations are not illustrations, as the word is usually understood, like some of Mr. Walker’s panels, already described; they have no reference to any particular scene or incident in the poems, but are intended as an interpretation of their general spirit and meaning. In the first, _Il Penseroso_, the time of year is autumn; in the other it is spring. Similarly, in _L’Allegro_ the landscape is shown in morning light, while in _Il Penseroso_ the time is evening. The latter panel is in the bay to the north of the staircase. A single figure, that of a beautiful woman with dark hair and soft, pensive eyes, is shown at half length, leaning her head upon her hand in an attitude and with an expression of deep contemplation. _L’Allegro_ is represented by a young woman, light-haired and sparkling with laughter, who is playing under the trees with two little children.

In the pendentives of the bays are inscribed portions of the two poems illustrated. The lines from _L’Allegro_ are as follows:--

... Come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;

* * * * *

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek.

The lines from _Il Penseroso_ are:--

Hail! thou Goddess, sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!

* * * * *

Come; but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble....

=Mr. Vedder’s Mosaic Decoration.=--The wall of the landing of the staircase is occupied by an arched panel, fifteen and a half feet high and nine feet wide, containing a marble mosaic by Mr. Elihu Vedder.[8] The artist has chosen for his subject Minerva, her armor partly laid aside, appearing as the guardian of civilization. She is the Minerva of Peace, but Mr. Vedder indicates that the prosperity which she now cherishes has been attained only through just and righteous war, whether waged against a foreign enemy or against the forces of disorder and corruption within. Beside her is a little statue of Victory, such as the Greeks were accustomed to erect in commemoration of their success in battle. The figure is that of a winged woman standing on a globe, and holding out the laurel-wreath and palm-branch to the victors. In the sky the clouds of disaster and discouragement are rolled away and about to disappear, while the sun of reappearing prosperity sends its rays into every quarter of the land. Although her shield and helmet have been laid upon the ground, the Goddess still retains the Ægis, and holds, in one hand, like a staff, her long, two-headed spear, showing that she never relaxes her vigilance against the enemies of the country which she protects. For the present, however, her attention is all directed to an unfolded scroll which she holds in her left hand. On this is written a list of various departments of learning, science, and art, such as Law, Statistics, Sociology, Botany, Bibliography, Mechanics, Philosophy, Zoölogy, etc. To the left of Minerva is the owl, perched upon the post of a low parapet. Olive trees, symbolizing peace, grow in the field beyond. The armor of the Goddess is carefully studied from ancient sculptures. The character of the Ægis can here be more easily made out than in any of the other representations of Minerva to be found in the building. Traditionally a cape of goat-skin, the Greek artists finally came to overlay it with metal scales, like scale-armor. The border is composed of twisting serpents. The head of the Gorgon Medusa, which forms the central ornament, is used also as the decoration of the large shield lying in the foreground of the picture. The helmet is decorated with a pair of rams’ heads. Mr. Vedder’s whole design is surrounded by a border containing, on either side, a conventionalized laurel-tree displayed like a vine.

THE ROTUNDA.

Entering by either of the doors at the head of the staircase, the visitor at once steps out upon an embayed gallery, affording a spacious and uninterrupted view of the great domed Reading Room, or Rotunda, which, in every sense, is the central and most important portion of the Library. As such, it is marked by a magnificence of architecture and decoration nowhere else to be found in the building. Outside, from whatever direction one approaches, the gilded dome which forms its outer shell is the first thing to catch the eye; and the golden flame of the torch which surmounts the lantern indicates to the passer-by at once the central and the highest point of the whole structure. Within, richer materials have been used, and decoration has been more freely employed than in any other part of the Library. Sculpture and paintings, rare marbles, and a broad scheme of color and of ornamentation in stucco relief unite with a lofty architectural design to form what is one of the most notable interiors in the country.

=The Importance of the Rotunda.=--The detailed description of the Rotunda may be deferred a little, however, in order to explain its relation to the rest of the building, and, especially, the reason for its central position. Besides accumulating books and providing the student with proper accommodations for his work--such as good light and convenient chairs and tables--it is the business of every well managed library to supply its readers with the books they desire in the shortest possible time and with the least possible amount of friction. A well digested catalogue is the first requisite; the second is that the books should be stored in a place as closely accessible to the reading room as may be. In a small library this is a simple matter; the same room will be sufficient for both books and readers. When the number of volumes increases it is necessary to shelve them in a compact system of bookcases called a “stack”--or, as in the Library of Congress, in a series of stacks--which must occupy a portion of the building by itself. The reading room and the stacks being thus separated, it is still the aim of the architect to place them in such a way as to retain as far as possible the practical convenience of the smaller library, where every reader is almost within reaching distance of every book. This end is most easily attained by adopting what is called the “central system” of library construction, which is the system followed in the Library of Congress. It has already been seen that the building is in the form of a cross enclosed within a rectangle, thus allowing space for four courts for light and air. At the intersections of the arms of the cross is the Rotunda, the main entrance to which is through the west arm of the cross. The other three arms are occupied by the stacks; the East Stack, directly opposite, is the second short arm; the North and South Stacks, each the same length, are the two long arms. It is obvious that by this arrangement the books can be more easily reached than in any other way. The axes of the stacks are continued radii of the Rotunda, and, so far as the ground plan is concerned, the shortest way from any part of the cross to the Distributing Desk which the visitor sees below in the centre of the room is always along a straight line. This Distributing Desk, of course, being in the exact centre of everything, is the vital point, the kernel, of the whole arrangement. No part of the stack, it will be noted, is far enough away from it to delay the transmission of a book unreasonably, as might very well be the case if the three stacks were in one. Moreover, by the use of a mechanical contrivance, which will be explained later, even this distance is in effect very greatly reduced.

Another thing may well be noted in this connection although it has already been referred to in the preliminary description of the building--and that is, the comparative unimportance, from the standpoint of the real requirements of the Library, of the great Rectangle which encloses the stacks and the Rotunda, and necessarily appears from the street to be the main portion of the building. It contains rooms which, at present, are very convenient for clerical work or as art galleries and special reading rooms, and which may in time be necessary to accommodate an overflow of books; but it must steadily be borne in mind that the Rotunda and the stacks contain the real life of the institution. They are the only really essential and vital portion of the building; without them, there could hardly be a library; and by themselves they would be sufficient for almost every present need.

=The General Arrangement.=--The character of the Rotunda is warm and rich in ornament as befits a room where people remain to read. It is naturally not so formal as the Rotunda of the Capitol. The height of the room from the floor to the top of the dome, where it converges upon the lantern, is one hundred and twenty-five feet, and from the floor to the crown of the domed ceiling of the lantern itself, one hundred and sixty feet. This latter point, however, is quite shut off from the view of a person standing in the gallery and can be seen only from a position near the centre of the room. The ground plan of the room is octagonal in shape, measuring one hundred feet from one side to another. Eight massive clustered piers, each set some ten feet forward from a corner of the octagon, support a series of heavy arches running entirely round the room. These piers serve, as it were, to stake out the limit of the Reading Room proper; between them are marble screens arcaded in two stories, and behind they are connected with the outer wall by partitions which divide the octagon into eight bays or alcoves, each fourteen feet deep and thirty wide. In each alcove, at the height of the screen, is a gallery like that which the visitor has already entered, one connecting with another, through doors pierced in the partition walls, so as to form a continuous promenade--as it may be called, considering its purpose--in which the sightseer may walk without fear of disturbing the readers below.

The alcoves are arched and enclose great semi-circular windows filled with stained glass, which furnish the greater part of the light needed for the room. The arches springing from the piers support a heavy circular entablature, immediately above which is the dome, arched in the line of an exact circle and supported upon eight ribs dividing it into eight sections or compartments. The ribs are the essential feature of the dome construction, and continue naturally the line of support of the great piers which are the ultimate support of the whole interior--a fact which is more clearly brought out to the eye by paired consoles or brackets introduced in the entablature between the two and seeming to carry the weight from one to the other.

The surface of the dome is of stucco, attached to a framework of iron and steel filled in with terra cotta, and richly ornamented with coffers and with a very elaborate arabesque of figures in relief. At the top, where the dome prepares to join the lantern, the ribs terminate against a broad circular “collar,” so called, containing a painted decoration by Mr. Edwin Howland Blashfield. Finally comes the lantern, thirty-five feet in height, and pierced by eight windows, recalling the octagonal arrangement with which the construction began. The shallow dome which covers the lantern is ornamented with a second painting by Mr. Blashfield, summing up the idea of his decoration in the collar.

At the risk of some tediousness, perhaps, but thinking that afterwards the connection between the decoration and the architecture would be more clearly understood, the writer has given this general description of the Rotunda, in order that the visitor might immediately see what portion of the whole was essential and what not essential; what was “structural” and vital, in other words, and what not. It will have been observed that we have, on the outside, an octagon supporting a shallow dome, on which rests the lantern. Well within this is an octagonal arrangement of piers carrying a much steeper dome. Alcoves occupy the space between the inner and outer octagons. Between the two domes--the inner shell and the outer--is vacancy. The whole exterior--walls, dome, and lantern--the partitions back of the piers, and the connecting screens: all could be torn away and the inner dome still remain secure on its eight massive piers.

The piers are constructed of brick, veneered with marble from Numidia in Africa, curiously mottled and in color a sort of dusky red. The high base on which the pier rests is sheathed with a chocolate brown variety of the familiar close-grained Tennessee marble. The height of the piers, including base and capital, is forty-four feet.

The screens are built solidly of marble from Sienna, Italy, which encloses in its rich black veining almost every variety of yellow, from cream color to dark topaz. Like the piers, the screens are erected upon a Tennessee marble base, in this case, however, very much lower--four feet to the other’s eleven. The arcading of the screens is in two stories, the first of three and the second of seven arches. At the top of each screen the gallery is railed in by a heavy balustrade--still of the same Sienna marble--connected with which are two marble pedestals which bear bronze statues of illustrious men. The screens are alike on every side of the octagon but two, the west and the east--the former the entrance from the Staircase Hall, and the latter affording a way through to the east side of the building. In both instances, therefore, the central arch is accentuated by free standing columns. In the second story of the west screen, also, still another modification has been made in order to allow space for a large clock--the three middle arches giving place to a rich architectural setting ornamented with bronze statuary.

=The Alcoves.=--The alcoves behind the screens are in two stories, like the arcading, and are intended to contain a collection of the most necessary standard books on all important topics. The entrance from the floor of the Reading Room is through the central arch of the screen. One may pass through doors in the partitions from one alcove to another, on either floor; and by means of a winding staircase inside each of the piers one may go up or down, not only from story to story, but, on the one hand, into the basement below, and, on the other, to the space between the inner and the outer dome above.

Altogether, the alcoves have a capacity, with their present shelving, of 130,000 volumes. The cases are of iron, and similar in a general way to those in the large stacks, to be described later; but they are built against the walls, according to the older method of library arrangement, and with very little attempt to combine them in a real stack system, properly so called. The upper shelves in the lower story are reached from a small iron gallery; in the second story a step-ladder must be used--the only instance in the whole building where a book-shelf cannot be reached by a person standing on the floor.

In front of each of the great piers of the Rotunda is an engaged column, so called because it is not quite clear of the mass behind it, which serves as the ultimate support of a statue placed between the arches upholding the dome. In height, base, and capital, it is the same as the pier with which it is connected, and, like it, is sheathed in Numidian marble, but not so dark in tone, since the burden resting on the column includes no part of the dome, and is therefore much lighter than that borne by the pier.

The engaged columns, however, join with the piers to carry an elaborate entablature some seven feet in height, which, finding its way in and out of the alcoves from pier to pier, completely encompasses the room. The color of the entablature, which is entirely of stucco, is a cream or ivory white, like the dome, touched sparingly with gold. The mouldings, which are of the usual Greek patterns employed in Renaissance architecture, are very rich and heavy. The topmost member of the cornice is boldly projected upon a series of modillions, the soffits between being ornamented with rosetted coffers--gilt on a blue ground. The frieze is enriched with an arabesque of Renaissance ornament in relief, including antique urns and lamps; garlands enclosing tablets; and winged half-figures. The general design of the frieze, as of all such work in the Library, is by Mr. Casey as architect; the individual figures, however, were modelled by Mr. Weinert.

=The Symbolical Statues.=--The eight statues set upon the entablature over the engaged columns represent eight characteristic features of civilized life and thought. From the floor to the plinth or base on which they stand is a distance of fifty-eight feet; each is ten and a half feet, or, including the plinth, eleven feet high. All are of plaster, toned an ivory white to match the general tone of the stucco decoration throughout the room, and are effectively placed against the plain red pendentives of the dome as a background. The title of each is inscribed in gilt letters in a tablet in the frieze below. Beginning with the figure directly to the right as one enters the west gallery of the Rotunda, the order is as follows: _Religion_, modelled by Mr. Theodore Baur; _Commerce_, by Mr. John Flanagan; _History_, by Mr. Daniel C. French; _Art_, by a French artist, Mr. Dozzi, after sketches by Mr. Augustus St. Gaudens; _Philosophy_, by Mr. Bela L. Pratt, who modelled the granite spandrels of the Main Entrance; _Poetry_, by Mr. J. Q. A. Ward; _Law_, by Mr. Paul W. Bartlett; and _Science_, by Mr. John Donoghue.

Nearly all bear some appropriate and distinguishing object. _Religion_ holds a flower in her hand, seeming to draw from it the lesson of a God revealed in Nature. _Commerce_, crowned with a wreath of the peaceful olive, holds in her right hand a model of a Yankee schooner, and in her left a miniature locomotive. _History_ has a book in her hand, and with an obvious symbolism holds up a hand-glass so that it will reflect things behind her. _Art_ is unlike the other figures in being represented as nearly nude. She is crowned with laurel, and bears a model of the Parthenon. Beside her is a low tree, in the branches of which are hung a sculptor’s mallet and the palette and brush of the painter. _Philosophy_ is a grave figure with downcast eyes, carrying a book in her hand. The garment of _Poetry_ falls in severe lines, which suggest the epic and the more serious forms of the drama, rather than the lighter aspects of the Muse. _Law_ has a scroll in her hand; a fold of her robe is drawn over her head to signify the solemnity of her mission; and beside her is the stone Tablet of the Law. _Science_ holds in her left hand a globe of the earth, surmounted by a triangle. In her right hand is a mirror, not, like _History’s_, turned backward, but held forward so that all may perceive the image of Truth.