No longer could I postpone this most eagerly anticipated journey to a scholar's mecca - the British Library. As best reflected by C. S. Lewis, "you can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." I planned a Sabbath afternoon outing but could have lingered for days.
Among the 25 million books and manuscripts (388 miles of books with 3 million books added per year) are items of historic, religious and literary import such as the Magna Carta, the Gutenberg Bible, the journals of Captain Cook. Almost every major author - Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Keats, and hundreds of others - is represented in the section devoted to English literature located in the most magnificent Humanities Reading Room where, with relative ease and relish, I could have taken up permanent residence.
Particularly enjoyable to me was the section known as 'Turning the Pages'. By use of headsets you are electronically read to from Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, The Canterbury Tales from 1410 and Beowulf (ca 1000). In the Historical Documents section are letters from Henry VIII to Napoleon and from Elizabeth I to Churchill. One can also view the 45,000 books belonging to King George III with some works in the British Library dated as early as 300 BC.
Did I mention that all this is free?!!!
As I thought of the knowledge we, at Newbold College, attempt to impart to young scholars, I prayed that we might also be able to ignite within our students the same passion found in those whose works are now on display at the British Library.
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