ks severe. She belongs to an office, and
has been sent down here to write out some quotations from a book that
cannot be got anywhere else than at the Museum. She earns her living by
working for the office, and she likes it very much, and would not change
her life with another girl who drives about in a carriage dressed in
fifty-guinea frocks, and pays calls on rich people, even if she could.
Near her there is a dark-skinned man, a negro. What can he want? Perhaps
he is working up to pass an examination. And near him is a worn,
tired-looking old fellow, who has gone to sleep over his books. He was
well-off once and enjoyed his life, and many people were glad to be
invited to his house. But he was foolish and lost all his money, and now
he comes up and asks for a few books just as a pretence, so that he can
sit there in the warmth and comfort for a little while. There are many
authors in the room busy making books, books, still more books, out of
those that have been already written. When will it stop?

A copy of every book that is published has to go to the British Museum.
The publishers are bound by law to send a copy here, and so hundreds of
books pour in continually; there is no end to them. Even in the days of
Solomon it was said: 'Of making many books there is no end, and much
study is a weariness of the flesh.' But the books that were then written
were as nothing to those that have since been written, and every year
brings forth more than the one preceding.

You have noticed that round this vast room the walls are covered with
books looking gloomy and grey. But these are only a tiny part of the
books stored here. If you ask the attendant in charge he will take you
behind those walls, where you will think you have stepped straight into
a dream-world, for there are passages and passages all lined with books.
You might lose yourself, and wander on and on between streets of books
higher than your head for many and many an hour. But the storage of
books is not the only difficulty the librarian has. He has to keep
copies of all the principal newspapers, too. Now, a newspaper in itself
is a little thing, small and thin; but when you think of newspapers by
the hundred, newspapers by the thousand, going on growing and
accumulating, then you can understand how difficult it must be to find
room for them all.

Well, we can leave the book-room and go to other parts of the Museum. We
can wander down corridors filled with beau