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As to marbles, if they are cheaper than stone or brick, all right. But if additional expense for marble will cripple or dwarf a single feature of convenience or service, I would fight it to my last breath. Perhaps I am prejudiced, by an early experience. Being in Washington some years ago, I wandered into the new Navy Department Building. Asking to see the library I was shown to a lofty, bare room paneled in marble from floor to ceiling. “Here you see specimens of all the marbles of the world, brought by vessels of the navy direct from their quarries,” said the custodian. “But where are the books to be?” I queried. “Oh, the books!” he answered, rather contemptuously; “in here;” and he showed me two slices of space, just the length of the main room, shelved on both sides thirty feet high, lighted only by a tier of single windows at one end, and each space only eight feet wide. Since then, marbles outside or inside a library have been associated for me with vulgar show, not with appropriate venustas.