Some nights up on the mezzanine and looking down into the first floor where the marbeled floor lay raped by moonlight into strips of life and death, there is a silence that screams to be heard. It is the true song of the library, the silent scream of all the words ever written in every language.

At night I walk barefoot through the paths of knowledge. Man's indiscretions wrapped in bindings, muffled by the carpets to keep the somber stillness of the quiet centuries. I breathe in its peace and unrest, exhale its history.