trade, are the desks and tables of the
distributing librarian and his assistants. The ladies' reading-room is
in the rear. On the left and right arched passages give access to the
North and South Halls, in which the main reading-rooms are situated. The
ceiling above is the skylight of the roof, and the alcoves, filled with
the wealth of learning of all ages and peoples, rise on either hand
quite to the ceiling. At long, green-covered tables, ranged in two
parallel lines through the halls, are seated the readers, in themselves
an interesting study. Scientists, artists, literary men, special
students, inventors, and _dilettante_ loungers make up the company. They
come with the opening of the doors at nine in the morning, and remain,
some of them, until they close at five in the evening. There are daily
desertions from their ranks, but always new-comers enough to fill the
gaps. Their wants are as various as their conditions. This well-dressed,
self-respectful mechanic wishes to consult the patent-office reports of
various countries, in which the library is rich. His long-haired Saxon
neighbor is poring over a Chinese manuscript, German scholars being the
only ones so far who have attacked the fine collection of Chinese and
Japanese works in the library. Next him is a _dilettante_ reader
languidly poring over "Lothair:" were the trustees to fill their shelves
with trashy fiction, readers of his class would soon crowd out the more
earnest workers. Here is a student with the thirty or more volumes of
the "New England Historic Genealogical Register" piled before him,
flanked on one side by the huge volumes of Burke's "Peerage" and on the
other by Walford's "County Families." There are many readers of this
class, the library's department of Genealogy and Heraldry being well
filled. There is a lady here and there at the tables working with a male
companion, but, as a rule, they are to be found at the ladies' tables in
the Middle Hall. There seem to be but two classes of readers here,--the
lady in silken attire, engaged in looking out some item of family
history or question of decorative art, and the brisk business-like
literary lady, seeking material for story or sketch. Any student or
literary worker who can show to the satisfaction of one of the trustees
that he is engaged in work requiring free access to the library receives
a card from the superintendent which admits him to the alcoves and
places all the treasures of the libra