carved inscriptions: _Public
Library_--_Built by the People_--_Free to All_.

Did I not say it was my palace? Mine, because I was a citizen; mine,
though I was born an alien; mine, though I lived on Dover Street. My
palace--_mine_!

I loved to lean against a pillar in the entrance hall, watching the
people go in and out. Groups of children hushed their chatter at the
entrance, and skipped, whispering and giggling in their fists, up the
grand stairway, patting the great stone lions at the top, with an eye
on the aged policemen down below. Spectacled scholars came slowly down
the stairs, loaded with books, heedless of the lofty arches that
echoed their steps. Visitors from out of town lingered long in the
entrance hall, studying the inscriptions and symbols on the marble
floor. And I loved to stand in the midst of all this, and remind
myself that I was there, that I had a right to be there, that I was at
home there. All these eager children, all these fine-browed women, all
these scholars going home to write learned books--I and they had this
glorious thing in common, this noble treasure house of learning. It
was wonderful to say, _This is mine_; it was thrilling to say, _This
is ours_.

I visited every part of the building that was open to the public. I
spent rapt hours studying the Abbey pictures. I repeated to myself
lines from Tennyson's poem before the glowing scenes of the Holy
Grail. Before the "Prophets" in the gallery above I was mute, but
echoes of the Hebrew Psalms I had long forgotten throbbed somewhere in
the depths of my consciousness. The Chavannes series around the main
staircase I did not enjoy for years. I thought the pictures looked
faded, and their symbolism somehow failed to move me at first.

Bates Hall was the place where I spent my longest hours in the
library. I chose a seat far at one end, so that looking up from my
books I would get the full effect of the vast reading-room. I felt the
grand spaces under the soaring arches as a personal attribute of my
being.

The courtyard was my sky-roofed chamber of dreams. Slowly strolling
past the endless pillars of the colonnade, the fountain murmured in my
ear of all the beautiful things in all the beautiful world. I imagined
that I was a Greek of the classic days, treading on sandalled feet
through the glistening marble porticoes of Athens. I expected to see,
if I looked over my shoulder, a bearded philosopher in a drooping
mantle, surrounded by be