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Updated: May 27, 2025
The face of this wall, close before us, is carved into numerous alcoves, and as we near its base, we observe to the right a vast double-cornered recess known as Angel Alcove. From here it is interesting to look up to the rim and observe the peculiar and varied contour of the many pinnacles cut by wind and storm out of the cherty limestone. Buddha and Manu Temples.
Buckle, Mill, and Macaulay are favorites, and Tyndall, Huxley, and Lubbock have many readers. The theft of its books is a serious drain on the library each year, but the destruction of its rare and valuable works of reference is still more provoking. Common gratitude, it might seem, would deter persons admitted to the privileges of its alcoves from injuring its property.
In noting these various objects of interest one must not lose sight of the fact that this part of the building is primarily a library, if indeed that fact did not at once impress itself by a glance at the well-filled unglazed book-shelves in the alcoves of the main floor.
Owing to the nature of the services of the day, the evening was spent in conversation among the elders, while the younger element promenaded the spacious gallery, or occupied alcoves, nooks, and corners about the grounds.
In the days when he had deemed it necessary to affect singularity, Des Esseintes had designed marvelously strange furnishings, dividing his salon into a series of alcoves hung with varied tapestries to relate by a subtle analogy, by a vague harmony of joyous or sombre, delicate or barbaric colors to the character of the Latin or French books he loved.
The exterior is typical of the period. There is a picturesque bow window on the ground floor to the left of the solid oak gateway leading into the coach yard, and over this hangs the swinging sign-board flanked on each side by two curious carved figures set in alcoves let into the wall; the whole general setting is a pleasant survival of the old-time days of the coaching era.
On the first floor, besides the large hall, is a well-lighted drawing-room, filled with periodicals in all languages, a ladies' parlor, and a conversation-room. The library-room is a large, airy, well-lighted apartment, with a series of artistic alcoves ranged about two of its sides.
In the Chapel huge stalactites and stalagmites meet each other to form arm-chairs, thrones, alcoves, pulpits, and a double niche conspicuous among its surroundings. Standing within this niche a restless pair exclaimed: "What a capital place to be married! Who will pronounce the ceremony?" "Bless you, my children!" invoked a sober-looking fellow, extending his arms in mock solemnity.
All such things are neatly folded up and stowed out of sight by day in alcoves contrived in the wall and closed with fusuma pretty sliding screen doors covered with opaque paper usually decorated with dainty designs. There also are kept those curious wooden pillows, invented to preserve the Japanese coiffure from becoming disarranged during sleep.
In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class at the School of Design. This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown stone-jugs.
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