I have come to the realization that all exit signs should — no, MUST — be surmounted with a bust of Poe. This shall be my life’s work.

This pithy moment of enlightenment was occasioned by my sudden translation for a few hours to Providence, Rhode Island once again. This time, I discovered that the famous Athenaeum (1836, Greek Revival building 1838, architect William Strickland), the haunt of H. P. Lovecraft, Sarah Whitman, and of course Edgar Allan Poe, was actually open for visitors. 

This place: it’s like your favorite eccentric bibliophile-uncle’s library magnified and then stuffed willy-nilly into a small Doric building with creaking floors, slightly-creepy plaster casts of goddesses and literary greats, overstuffed chairs, rickety desks, and a card catalogue in “Librarian’s Hand” bookcards to keep it all organized. There’s also a cabinet-table in the basement, built in 1840 to hold a double “elephant” folio of Description de l’Egypte, a 25-volume set documenting Napoleon’s 1798-99 expedition to Egypt. And it would be perfect for laying out a mummy, too, if you would like to wake one up and have a good talk (cf. Some Words with a Mummy, Poe, 1845).

I mentioned to the librarian that if I lived in Providence, my cats would die of loneliness because I would never leave the Athenaeum. “No worries,” she replied. “Some people have been known to bring their cats with them. We’re used to that.”