Sunday, January 08, 2012
Yesterday I went to the Morgan Library. The “Morgan” is for J.P. Morgan, the financier who, 100 years ago, was one of the richest men in the world. Morgan loved books and became the world’s foremost collector. His library grew to the point where he commissioned a three-story building to house it. From books, Morgan branched out to other documents such as authors’ manuscripts, composers’ worksheets, and letters, along with objects d’art from the Renaissance. The Morgan Library and Museum is now a world-renowned repository of documents.
It is impressive to walk into Morgan’s private office, lined with red linen wallpaper and populated with religious paintings, to see shelf after shelf of books. Shakespeare plays printed in the 1700s, Dickens’ classics in first edition, and hundreds of reference books like “Lives of British Admirals, 1775-1777.” Many of them are elaborately bound, but others look like he picked them up at garage sales. The office has a steel-lined, walk-in vault where Morgan kept his most valuable books. How often do you see a two-story safe with shelves to the roof?
That, however, is not the most impressive aspect of this museum. Morgan had built a massive three-story room housing his library and containing thousands of books, manuscripts, artwork, and other collectible items. It is stunning to walk into a room with an elaborately-painted ceiling, gigantic fireplace, wall hangings the size of area rugs and three-full stories of books bound in all colors of the rainbow. On display are some of Morgan’s most valuable pieces, hand-written bibles with detailed and colorful illustrations created by monks, some of them more than 1000 years ago. Amazingly the words are still clear and the colors still vibrant even after all this time. I have no idea what kind of paper they used or how ink can survive this long.
Also on display were classic documents: the only complete manuscript in existence of a Jane Austen novel (the rest apparently have been destroyed), a symphony composed by Beethoven, and a letter from Thomas Jefferson. The museum was having an exhibit in honor of Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday this year which contains dozens of letters, manuscript pages, artwork, and first editions. Seeing pages from “A Christmas Carol” in Dickens’s tiny handwriting is pretty cool, although I could barely make it out. (Jefferson I could not make out at all.)
What struck me about the entire library is how it represents a past which is gone forever. When Dickens wanted to edit his work he simply crossed out parts and wrote in the margins. Not even white out in those days. Trying to make out what he was trying to say was difficult. I assume people then could more easily read cursive writing. Now, I believe schools have stopped teaching penmanship for obvious reasons. I can’t recall the last time I sat down to write in cursive, nor even the last time I read a hand-written document of any length.
We know much about historical figures from their letters. Without the distraction of modern media as entertainment, and the convenience of the telephone, our ancestors corresponded extensively. Amazingly, many of these letters still exist. I have no idea why the recipients didn’t simply trash them once they were read, but perhaps in an age when round-trip correspondence could take months, people would save the letters for repeated readings. Modern historians are the beneficiary of this proclivity to write expansive letters, allowing us insight into the private thoughts of history’s public figures.
Future historians, however, will have no such advantage. Will they examine Obama’s e-mails or Sarah Palin’s tweets? Steven King is regarded as the first author to embrace word processing. Is there an old-time floppy disk containing “The Shining?” One of the curators of the Morgan was quoted in the film the museum shows as saying the documents they have collected are special in that not only were they handled by the person, but they show how the work evolved. Painters give us only the finished product (although sometimes x-rays can be used to look under the paint). Bob Dylan’s legal pad with the words to “Blowin’ in the Wind” show how he worked the lyrics before giving us the classic.
My blogs exist only on blogspot. I write them on my computer in Microsoft Word and save the draft, but any changes are done only on the website. There is no record of anything except there. When blogspot lost some they were gone forever. No big loss, but what about works of more interest and importance? How will the future regard and consider our times without the benefits of long hand-written letters (does anyone write letters?), original unique manuscripts, and one-time documents? We have gained so much by the use of modern technology, but in return some things are inevitably lost.
It is impressive to walk into Morgan’s private office, lined with red linen wallpaper and populated with religious paintings, to see shelf after shelf of books. Shakespeare plays printed in the 1700s, Dickens’ classics in first edition, and hundreds of reference books like “Lives of British Admirals, 1775-1777.” Many of them are elaborately bound, but others look like he picked them up at garage sales. The office has a steel-lined, walk-in vault where Morgan kept his most valuable books. How often do you see a two-story safe with shelves to the roof?
That, however, is not the most impressive aspect of this museum. Morgan had built a massive three-story room housing his library and containing thousands of books, manuscripts, artwork, and other collectible items. It is stunning to walk into a room with an elaborately-painted ceiling, gigantic fireplace, wall hangings the size of area rugs and three-full stories of books bound in all colors of the rainbow. On display are some of Morgan’s most valuable pieces, hand-written bibles with detailed and colorful illustrations created by monks, some of them more than 1000 years ago. Amazingly the words are still clear and the colors still vibrant even after all this time. I have no idea what kind of paper they used or how ink can survive this long.
Also on display were classic documents: the only complete manuscript in existence of a Jane Austen novel (the rest apparently have been destroyed), a symphony composed by Beethoven, and a letter from Thomas Jefferson. The museum was having an exhibit in honor of Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday this year which contains dozens of letters, manuscript pages, artwork, and first editions. Seeing pages from “A Christmas Carol” in Dickens’s tiny handwriting is pretty cool, although I could barely make it out. (Jefferson I could not make out at all.)
What struck me about the entire library is how it represents a past which is gone forever. When Dickens wanted to edit his work he simply crossed out parts and wrote in the margins. Not even white out in those days. Trying to make out what he was trying to say was difficult. I assume people then could more easily read cursive writing. Now, I believe schools have stopped teaching penmanship for obvious reasons. I can’t recall the last time I sat down to write in cursive, nor even the last time I read a hand-written document of any length.
We know much about historical figures from their letters. Without the distraction of modern media as entertainment, and the convenience of the telephone, our ancestors corresponded extensively. Amazingly, many of these letters still exist. I have no idea why the recipients didn’t simply trash them once they were read, but perhaps in an age when round-trip correspondence could take months, people would save the letters for repeated readings. Modern historians are the beneficiary of this proclivity to write expansive letters, allowing us insight into the private thoughts of history’s public figures.
Future historians, however, will have no such advantage. Will they examine Obama’s e-mails or Sarah Palin’s tweets? Steven King is regarded as the first author to embrace word processing. Is there an old-time floppy disk containing “The Shining?” One of the curators of the Morgan was quoted in the film the museum shows as saying the documents they have collected are special in that not only were they handled by the person, but they show how the work evolved. Painters give us only the finished product (although sometimes x-rays can be used to look under the paint). Bob Dylan’s legal pad with the words to “Blowin’ in the Wind” show how he worked the lyrics before giving us the classic.
My blogs exist only on blogspot. I write them on my computer in Microsoft Word and save the draft, but any changes are done only on the website. There is no record of anything except there. When blogspot lost some they were gone forever. No big loss, but what about works of more interest and importance? How will the future regard and consider our times without the benefits of long hand-written letters (does anyone write letters?), original unique manuscripts, and one-time documents? We have gained so much by the use of modern technology, but in return some things are inevitably lost.
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