sacrificed, whereas in Dublin, All Souls, and
many other libraries the bookcases ascend
very high, and magnificent apartments walled
with books may in this way be constructed.
Access may be had to the upper portions by
galleries; but we cannot have stairs all round
the room, and even with one gallery of books
a room should not be more than from
sixteen to eighteen feet high if we are to act on
the principle of bringing the largest possible
number of volumes into the smallest possible
space. I am afraid it must be admitted that
we cannot have a noble and imposing
spectacle, in a vast apartment, without sacrificing
economy and accessibility; and vice versa.

The projections should each have attached
to them what I rudely term an endpiece (for
want of a better name), that is, a shallow
and extremely light adhering bookcase (light
by reason of the shortness of the shelves),
which both increases the accommodation, and
makes one short side as well as the two long
ones of the parallelopiped to present simply
a face of books with the lines of shelf, like
threads, running between the rows.

The wall-spaces between the projections
ought also to be turned to account for
shallow bookcases, so far as they are not