The Public Sees

"One soiled thumb could undo the work of 900 years, and a misplaced cough could be a disaster." So said J. Pierpont Morgan when, in 1924, his and his father's great Morgan Library in Manhattan was incorporated as a semi-public institution--its treasures available not to just anybody, but to a few students, to people who took the trouble to write for an admission card. Last week, for the first time, the great Morgan Library's grille-work gates were with due precaution thrown open to the public, for the duration of the New York World's Fair.

From the Morgan treasures, energetic Librarian Bell da Costa Greene put on show eye-catching examples in all the fields in which the Library is preeminent. Oij view was a Gutenberg Bible, one of the first printed with movable type (see p. 30). There were some 60 illuminated books and manuscripts, opulent and glowing psalters, gospels, books of hours. There were a series of Rembrandt etchings, some prints showing the development of the mezzotint, many a print and drawing by the great masters. There were letters and manuscripts galore--Milton, Cromwell, Swift, Dickens, Kipling, etc.

The public could even troop through Mr. Morgan's study, with its Bellini and Memling paintings on the walls, its desk ready to write a letter or sign a check at, its fire neatly laid for the next chill night. Nothing was said about coughing, but Library guards looked as if they could spot a soiled thumb a mile off.

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