Mr. George Merriam followed him, and he was the kindest and wisest editor I ever wrote for. He kept me rigorously up to my best work, but did so with such consideration and valuable advice, that I always felt it a great pleasure, to see how much better I could make everything I wrote for him. He did me many favors, and among them he gave me my first introduction to the dear old Astor Library. In this library I worked from morning to night. Mr. Saunders the head librarian was an Englishman, a most wonderful general scholar, particularly intimate with English literature. We soon became good friends, and he gave me the use of one of the largest and sunniest alcoves in the Hall I frequented. For fifteen years I used this alcove with its comfortably large table, its silence and sunshine, and delightful atmosphere of books and scholars.
A plan of the Astor alcoves that Mr. Saunders made for me, hangs at my right hand in my study. My alcove was the Fine Arts alcove in the South Hall, and Mr. Saunders—when I went no more to the Astor—feared I might forget it. As if I could! Though it exists no longer, I see it as plainly, as I saw it before it existed at all.
For when I was living in Penrith, a child of seven or eight years old, I began to dream of this city of books. I wandered about its pleasant alcoves, and climbed its long spiral stairs of wrought iron, and stood speechless and wondering before the white marble busts of ancient gods, and godlike men, in its entrance hall. And the building did not then exist. It is doubtful if it had ever taken form in Mr. Astor’s mind. How then could I see it in my dreams? And why did I see it? I have asked myself these questions for more than forty years, for always I saw the building full of light, though my dream came in the dark midnight, when there was neither sun, nor moon, nor candlelight for physical eyes to use. Where does the light of dreams come from? And why was it shown to me when as yet it was not?
The only solution I can find is, that my angel not only 316 foresaw the grand old library, but also that she understood the necessity and advantage of my future intimate association with it. Therefore she made me familiar with the place in my dream life, so that when in my physical life, I came to this special hostelry of mind and body, I might know that I was in the path appointed for me, and be satisfied. For I do not believe in chance. The life God guides, is not ruled by accidental events; the future is constantly shaped out of the past and all its happenings are but links in a chain.
To me it was a most astonishing experience. I walked up the white marble stairway, and into the sunny South Hall with the strangest most exulting feeling of proprietorship; and for all the purposes of study and use, this splendid library was for fifteen years really my own. Before presenting Mr. Merriam’s letter to the chief librarian, Mr. Saunders, I sat down and looked around me. Yes! It was my dream library! There was no doubt of it. I was lost in wonder and joy, and I said to my soul,
“We came not to this place by accident. It is the very place God meant for us.” And this decision was so comforting, that I at once fully accepted it.
The Astor Library was at that date a very heaven on earth to the student. I have never seen in all my life, a student’s library comparable with it. It wanted none of the great treasures of literature, and yet it was not too large to become familiar with. In the halls I frequented, I soon knew where every book dwelt, and if my eyes saw a vacant place on a shelf, I knew instantly what book was from home. Of the great reviews and magazines, I gradually made an index of all their papers, likely to be of use to me; so that if an up-to-date article on any subject, commodity, or event was needed, I had, at my finger ends, a list of all the papers that had been written concerning it.
Nor did I let the evident trade, or literary side of the subject satisfy me. I hunted up in such queer repositories of knowledge as Southey’s Doctor, Hones’ Year Book, Table Book, and Every Day Book, et cetera, all the bits of folklore, historical, poetical, and social traditions, proverbs and prophecies allied to it; and in such research I found a never-ending delight. Many writers 317 of that day said with a variety of emphasis, “What luck Mrs. Barr has!”
Once a despondent young man sitting in my alcove made this very remark to me, and as it was spoken in no unkind spirit, I answered it by showing him the indexes and notes which I had made for this very work. I pointed out that the illustration for which I was then preparing the text, had been received an hour ago, and must be turned into the paper for which it was intended early on the following morning; and I asked him—if he could find the material necessary, and have it at the office by nine o’clock? He looked gloomily at the picture. It represented an old farmer examining the almanac for the New Year.
“Now what can a fellow know about almanacs?” he asked. “What is there to know about them anyhow? I suppose I could find something in Poole——”