old--at some darker corner. There is a story of the place, that once a raw
clerk having been sent to rummage in the basement, his candle tipped off
the shelf. He was left in so complete darkness that his fears overcame his
judgment and for two hours he roamed and babbled among the barrels. Nor was
his absence discovered until the end of the day when, as was the custom,
the clerks counted noses at the door. When they found him, he bolted up the
steps, nor did he cease his whimper until he had reached the comforting
twilight of the outer world. He served thereafter in the shop a full two
years and had a beard coming--so the story runs--before he would again
venture beyond the third turning of the passage; to the stunting of his
scholarship, for the deeper books lay in the farther windings.

Or it may appear credible that in ages past a jealous builder contrived the
place. Having no learning himself and being at odds with those of better
opportunity, he twisted the pattern of the house. Such was his evil temper,
that he set the steps at a dangerous hazard in the dark, in order that
scholars--whose eyes are bleared at best--might risk their legs to the end
of time. Those of strict orthodoxy have even suspected the builder to have
been an atheist, for they have observed what double joints and steps and
turnings confuse the passage to the devouter books--the Early Fathers in
particular being up a winding stair where even the soberest reader might
break his neck. Be these things as they may, leather bindings in sets of
"grenadier uniformity" ornament the upper and lighter rooms. Biography
straggles down a hallway, with a candle needed at the farther end. A room
of dingy plays--Wycherley, Congreve and their crew--looks out through an
area grating. It was through even so foul an eye, that when alive, they
looked upon the world. As for theology, except for the before-mentioned
Fathers, it sits in general and dusty convention on the landing to the
basement, its snuffy sermons, by a sad misplacement--or is there an
ironical intention?--pointing the way to the eternal abyss below.