LYRIC POETRY.—BY H. O. WALKER.
Mr. Alexander’s Paintings.—In the East Corridor are six tympanums of the same size as the smaller panels of Mr. Walker and Mr. Pearce, by Mr. John W. Alexander, illustrating The Evolution of the Book. The subjects are, at the south end, The Cairn, Oral Tradition, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics; and at the north end, Picture Writing, The Manuscript Book, and The Printing Press. In the first of these, a company of primitive men, clad in skins, are raising a heap of stones on the seashore, perhaps as a memorial of some dead comrade, or to commemorate some fortunate event, or, perhaps, merely as a record to let others know the stages of their journey. In the second panel, an Arabian story-teller stands relating his marvellous tales in the centre of a circle of seated Arabs. The third shows a scaffolding swung in front of the portal of a newly erected Egyptian temple. A young Egyptian workman is cutting a hieroglyphic inscription over the door, while an Egyptian girl, his sweetheart, sits watching the work beside him. Picture Writing represents a young American Indian, with a rudely shaped saucer of red paint beside him, depicting some favorite story of his tribe upon a dressed and smoothed deer-skin. An Indian girl lies near him, attentively following every stroke of his brush. The next panel gives the interior of a convent cell, with a monk, seated in the feeble light of a small window, laboriously illuminating in bright colors the pages of a great folio book. The last of the series shows Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, in his office: the master, with his assistant beside him, examining a proof-sheet, and discussing the principle of his great invention. To the right is an apprentice, swaying upon the handle-bar of the rude press.
Mosaic Decorations of the East Corridor.—The various trophies already spoken of as ornamenting the mosaic of the vault of the East Corridor are ten in number, each occurring in one of the pendentives, at the ends and along the sides. Below each are the names of two Americans (only those actually born in the United States being included) eminent in the art or science typified. The list of trophies, with the names, is as follows: Architecture (the capital of an Ionic column, with a mallet and chisel), Latrobe and Walter; Natural Philosophy (a crucible and pair of balances, etc.), Cooke and Silliman; Music (a lyre, flute, horn, and music-sheet), Mason and Gottschalk; Painting (a sketch-book, palette, and brushes), Stuart and Allston; Sculpture (the torso of a statue), Powers and Crawford; Astronomy (a celestial globe), Bond and Rittenhouse; Engineering (including an anchor, protractor, level, etc.), Francis and Stevens; Poetry (a youth bestriding Pegasus), Emerson and Holmes; Natural Science (a microscope and a sea-horse), Say and Dana; Mathematics (a compass and counting-frame), Peirce and Bowditch. In the vault proper is inscribed a list of names of Americans distinguished in the three learned professions: under Medicine, Cross, Wood, McDowell, Rush, Warren; under Theology, Brooks, Edwards, Mather, Channing, Beecher; and under Law, Curtis, Webster, Hamilton, Kent, Pinkney, Shaw, Taney, Marshall, Story, and Gibson.
THE MANUSCRIPT BOOK.—BY JOHN W. ALEXANDER.
From the East Corridor, entrance to the basement may be had through a little lobby with a domed mosaic ceiling under either of the main staircases. At the north end of the corridor is the Librarian’s Room, and at the south end are a toilet-room for ladies and a cloak-room. The little lobby of the latter is especially bright and attractive, with deep, velvety red walls, a high arabesque frieze, and ceiling decorations of lyres and a disc containing a large honeysuckle ornament.
The Librarian’s Room.—The Librarian’s Room is one of the most beautifully finished of any in the Library. It is divided into two by a broad, open arch, leaving the office proper on one side, and a smaller, more private office, with a gallery above, on the other. The fittings are in oak, with oak bookcases. The windows look out upon the Northwest Court. The gallery has a groined ceiling, and over the main office is a shallow dome, with stucco ornamentation in low relief by Mr. Weinert. Standing in a ring around a central disc are the figures of Grecian girls, from two slightly differing models, holding a continuous garland. Other ornaments are gilded tablets and square or hexagonal panels, bearing an owl, a book, or an antique lamp. The central disc is occupied by a painting by Mr. Edward J. Holslag, already spoken of as the foreman of Mr. Garnsey’s staff, representing Letters—the seated figure of a beautiful woman holding a scroll in her hand and accompanied by a child with a torch. The following Latin sentence is inscribed in a streamer: Litera scripta manet.
THE PRINTING-PRESS.—BY JOHN W. ALEXANDER.