I well remember the large room of the Royal Library which extended through a whole wing of the Castle, with its beechen wainscoting, brown with age like the meerschaum of a much-used cigar-holder. The enormous room, with its rococo headings, garlands, chains and armorial bearings, round which, at the height of the first floor, ran a gallery supported by Tuscan columns, was yawning like a great chasm underneath my feet; with its hundred thousand volumes it resembled a gigantic brain, with the thoughts of long-forgotten generations neatly arranged on shelves. A passage running from one end of the room to the other divided the two principal parts, the walls of which were completely hidden by s…
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