You cannot grapple with uncials, cursives, and the
like in a domestic environment. The preparation of facsimiles,
transcripts, and palaeographical observations, reports of excavations and
catalogues, demands isolation and complete immunity from the trivialities
of social existence.
In a large Bloomsbury studio he found a retreat suitable to his
requirements. The uninviting entrance, up a stone staircase leading
immediately from the street, was open till nightfall, the rest of the
house being used for storage by second-hand dealers in Portland Street.
No one slept on the premises, but a caretaker came at stated intervals to
light fires and close the front door; for which, however, the Professor
owned a pass-key, each room having, as in modern flats, an independent
door that might be locked at pleasure. The general gloom of the building
never tempted casual callers. The Professor purposely abstained from the
decoration or even ordinary furnishing of his chamber. The whitewashed
walls were covered with dust-bitten maps, casts of bas-reliefs,
engravings of ruins. Behind the door were stacked huge packing-cases
containing the harvest of a recent journey to the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean. Along one wall mutilated statues and torsos were
promiscuously mounted on trestles or temporary pedestals made of inverted
wooden boxes. Above them a large series of shelves bulging with folios,
manuscript notebooks, pamphlets, and catalogues ran up to the window,
which faced north-east, admitting a strong top-light through panes of
ground glass; the lower sash was hidden by permanent blinds in order to
shut out all view of the opposite houses and the street below.
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