The Legend of Rinth by Amy Cross

Author:Amy Cross [Cross, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Page 129

An extract from The Book of Libraries

by Claire Mathis

And what are we to make of the story of the Hidden Library? This tale has been handed down from generation to generation, and for most scholars it's just that: a tale, with no substance to it. Like many myths, it comes dangerously close to being an act of wish-fulfillment. Wouldn't it be nice if a hidden trove of hitherto undiscovered books really existed, somewhere beneath the Great Library? Wouldn't that solve so many of our problems? For the daydreamer, this prospect is enticing. For the scholar, it seems too good to be true.

If the Hidden Library exists, it could very well contain books that explain everything about our world, and about other worlds too. Is that why the Hidden Library might have been kept away from prying eyes? Is it possible that the knowledge it contains is too powerful to be read by anyone? No two versions of the myth agree as to exactly what is contained in the Hidden Library, and ultimately this is one of the reasons why it's so difficult to believe that this place might actually exist. There is no evidence for it, anywhere, so one must conclude that it is most likely a fantasy, albeit one that tells us a great deal about our own wishes. Again, it seems too good to be true.

There is, however, one scrap of information that brings me back over and over to the idea of the Hidden Library. The great scholar and adventurer James Bartleby once claimed to have found an entrance to this wondrous place. He said that he dared not go through that entrance, and he said that for the good of all creation he would never reveal where or how it had been found. Bartleby was a wise and distinguished man, and nowhere else in his body of work does he pay any attention to flights of fancy. If Bartleby believed in the Hidden Library, does that not give the rest of us pause for thought? Why, in a lifetime of rigorous work, would this scholar sprinkle in a moment of madness? Did James Bartleby really discover such an entrance? We shall never know, for he of course disappeared long ago on another expedition, but the possibility is enticing.

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