In the centre of the reading-room at the British Museum sit four men fenced about by a
The four men know those volumes as a good courier knows the Continental Bradshaw,
and all day long, from early morning, when the attendants, self-propelled on wheeled
stools, run round the rings arranging and aligning the huge blue tomes, to late afternoon,
(London, 1919), pp. 1-48.
10
The Reading Room in Literature
eBLJ 2019, Article 5
when the immense dome is like a dark night and the arc lamps hiss and crackle in the
silence, they answer questions, patiently, courteously; they are seldom embarrassed and
less seldom in the wrong.
Radiating in long rows from the central fortress of learning, a diversified company
of readers disposes itself: bishops, statesmen, men of science, historians, needy pedants,
popular authors whose broughams are waiting in the precincts, journalists, medical
students, law students, curates, hack-writers, women with clipped hair and black aprons,
idlers; all short-sighted and all silent.
Every few minutes an official enters in charge of an awed group of country visitors,
and whispers mechanically the unchanging formula: ‘Eighty thousand volumes in this
room alone: thirty-six miles of bookshelves in the Museum altogether.’ Whereupon the
visitors stare about them, the official unsuccessfully endeavours not to let it appear that
the credit of the business belongs entirely to himself, and the party retires again.
Vague, reverberating noises roll heavily from time to time across the chamber, but no
one looks up; the incessant cannibal feast of the living upon the dead goes speechlessly
forward; the trucks of food are always moving to and fro, and the nonchalant waiters
seem to take no rest.
16
It was in the 1890s that the Superintendent one day encountered a ragged and dirty man
walking about the room without his shoes on. When told that it was not proper to behave in
this way, he was quite unabashed and replied that he could not help it if his feet were tender. It
would be a brave librarian today who would venture to remonstrate with any reader about his
style of dress or undress.
The next reading is from E. M. Forster’s favourite among his own works –
The Longest
Journey
, published in 1907.
Ansell was in his favourite haunt – the reading-room of the British Museum. In that
book-encircled space he always could find peace. He loved to see the volumes rising
tier above tier into the misty dome. He loved the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and
the radiating desks, and the central area, where the catalogue shelves curve round the
superintendent’s throne. There he knew that his life was not ignoble. It was worth while
to grow old and dusty seeking for truth though truth is unattainable, restating problems
that have been stated at the beginning of the world. Failure would await him, but not
disillusionment. It was worth while reading books, and writing a book or two which few
would read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, and he knew it. […]
In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, engaged in his historical research. His desk
was edged with enormous volumes, and every few moments an assistant brought him
more. They rose like a wall against Ansell.
17
Political refugees have always made much use of the Reading Room, and so when Ivan
Maisky (later Soviet Ambassador to the UK from 1932 to 1943) came to London in 1912 he
soon made for the place which had provided sanctuary for, amongst others, Marx, Lenin and
Kropotkin, the anarchist.
When you have shown the attendant your reader’s ticket, passed through the narrow
corridor separating the Reading Room from the entrance and found yourself under
its semicircular vault, you feel that you have entered a world of its own. Above your
head is the high, beautiful dome, below which are twenty fine rectangular windows and
underneath each the name of some great figure in English culture. […]
16
E. A. Bennett,
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