If you are planning a trip to Boston in the next few weeks, months or even years, there is one site in the area that ought to definitely be on your 'places to visit' list - the Houghton Library at Harvard University..
Harvard, which is in the process of celebrating its 375th anniversary this year (founded 1636), is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is practically new, however, compared to the two oldest universities in the world. Can you name them?
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If you are thinking 'Oxford', you are correct. It is the second oldest university founded in 1096. The oldest university in the world is the University in Bologna in Italy - established in 1088. In 2088, it will have been offering instruction without interruption for a millennium. See you there in 77 years.
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Houghton Library (pronounced 'How-Ton') offers a free tour to the public at 2:00PM on Fridays. Rather than being given by a well-meaning novice with a memorized script, the tour is instead delivered by a scholar of Herman Melville (1819-1891, remember Moby Dick?) and administrator of the museum for more than three decades. On the tour, visitors are shown a partial copy of Johannes Gutenberg's (1398-1468) first edition Bible produced from his movable typeset in 1455 and taken to rooms housing the works of romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821), American poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925), Dr. Samuel Johnson and most memorably - the American nineteenth century poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) among others.
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The room dedicated to Dickinson contains her original dresser, writing table and chair along with portraits of her family and one of herself as a child. After being introduced and reintroduced to some of the most pivotal moments in Anglo-American history and literature through a series of incredible artifacts and vast manuscript holdings from the time of Columbus to the present, your appreciation for Harvard, education and everything worth living for will have only increased upon exiting the building ninety minutes later.
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As Emily Dickinson had a keen sense of living life, the following poem, penned by her, is dedicated to the hard-working and incredibly cordial staff at Houghton and to anyone who refuses to deny and 'outgrow' love.
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Wild Nights
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Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
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Futile the winds
To a heart in port, --
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart!
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Rowing in Eden
Ah! The sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee
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(Picture: Emily Dickinson)
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J Roquen