| | 1 | Author: | Cather, Willa Sibert | Add | | | Title: | The Professor's Commencement  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE professor sat at his library table at six
o'clock in the morning. He had risen with the sun, which is up
betimes in June. An uncut volume of "Huxley's Life and Letters" lay
open on the table before him, but he tapped the pages absently with
his paper-knife and his eyes were fixed unseeingly on the St. Gaudens
medallion of Stevenson on the opposite wall. The professor's library
testified to the superior quality of his taste in art as well as to
his wide and varied scholarship. Only by a miracle of taste could so
unpretentious a room have been made so attractive; it was as dainty as
a boudoir and as original in color scheme as a painter's studio. The
walls were hung with photographs of the works of the best modern
painters,—Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Corot, and a dozen others. Above
the mantel were delicate reproductions in color of some of Fra
Angelica's* most beautiful paintings. The rugs were exquisite in
pattern and color, pieces of weaving that the Professor had picked up
himself in his wanderings in the Orient. On close inspection, however,
the contents of the book-shelves formed the most remarkable feature of
the library. The shelves were almost equally apportioned to the
accommodation of works on literature and science, suggesting a form of
bigamy rarely encountered in society. The collection of works of pure
literature was wide enough to include nearly all the major languages of
modern Europe, besides the Greek and Roman classics. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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