Matters Literate and Literary
Roth is the . . . well, as many times as you've visited the estate, you still aren't sure how to describe who Roth is. "Butler" seems demeaning, somehow, though you know too well how essential butlers are in domestic estates as large as this one. They administer the household finances, supervise the staff, attend to guests (such as yourself), and see to the myriad details that keep an estate like this one running for the comfort of its owner. Still, calling Roth a "butler" is like calling El Greco's view of Toledo a "cityscape." It's accurate enough, you suppose, but it fails to do its subject justice. Roth is simply Roth, as inherent a part of the estate as its gardens, or its walls, or its roof . . . or as the El Greco that hangs in the sitting room, where you are waiting.
Whatever he is--whoever he is--Roth appears, carrying a small cordial glass. "A miserable day out today, sir. I thought you might like something to warm you up," he says in that clipped, precise speech that is as much a part of him as his snowy hair. "Now, the Master will be meeting with you in the library. If you will be so kind?" He steps to the side, clearing the doorway, and beckons with a gesture that is part polite suggestion, mostly subtle command.
You're more than happy to accept the invitation. The library is one of your favorite places at the estate. You've been a book lover since before your could read, and sometimes it pains you that your days have become so full that what you end up spending more time in front of a phosphor screen, or listening to a radio, than holding of a leatherbound volume in your hands, enjoying the smell of the binding, the sound of the crisp leaves turning as you read . . . the images your mind creates as the words pass under your eyes.
Not here, though. Here, you can indulge yourself. And, what an indulgence! The library is a huge room at the end of the southern wing, almost at the edge of the promontory on which the noble house stands. Bookshelves, hand-wrought of the finest wood, run from floor to high ceiling, broken only by the vast picture windows that punctuate the shelves. An antique railing, brass and polished wood, guards the walkway that lets you reach the higher shelves, accessible by spiral staircases with the same appointments at either end of the curved room.
Jess, dangerously beautiful as always, is in a plush chair near the crackling fire, completely engrossed in the elegant, leather-bound volume in her hands. A first-edition, you're sure, though you cannot make out the title. The way she almost caresses the pages as she turns them, the air of frank reverence she displays as she holds the magnificent tome, tells you that you two are kindred spirits in your admiration of things literary.
Unwilling to disturb her solitude, you turn your attention to the window. Night is falling, turning the water below you into a sable blanket. Across Sinclair's Bay, the lights from Noss Head and Castle Sinclair gleam like flickering beads, distorted by the soft, chill drizzle outside the windows. Behind you, Roth motions to a houseman, who adds a log to the fire. This is the kind of night made for a good book, and here in the library, you have more than a few choices to fit that requirement. The lure pulls you from the Caledonian twilight back into the room. To the books.
They stand in silent expectation on their shelves: Antique folios cozy near newly-released tomes. Best-sellers are neighbors to remainder works whose sales records sadly overshadowed their quality, and leather-bound first editions keep civilized company in the same room as trade paperbacks. Atlases, encyclopedias, anthologies, all sort of nonfiction works stand in quiet ranks. Martial's epigrams, Grant's memoirs, Bennett's anthologies, Clancy's adventures, even Cornwell's melodramas, all have a place here, for all contribute to the shared legacy, the collective accomplishment that is civilization.
"The Master will be down as soon as he finishes speaking with Major Rusher," Roth advises. He cocks one eyebrow scant millimeters out of alignment with the other, which is for Roth something akin to a beaming smile. "I am sure you may find something here to hold your interest in the meantime?"
It isn't really a question; Roth knows you too well. As he banishes the houseman and then leaves, closing the door behind him, you ponder the lights across the dimming bay for a few seconds, then turn your attention to the patiently waiting books . . . .
I welcome your suggestions on literary matters to add to the Library.
Would you like to know more about this crest?
"'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude (1870)
"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object."
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)