The Senior Scholar

The title character of Sir Walter Scott's The Antiquary is a mature gentleman, Jonathan Old(en)buck (his last name is often contracted), who although a bit cranky is utterly devoted to his studies, with a "resolution to lose no moment of instruction." He has taken "a pleasure in the personal labour of forming his library, [saving] his purse at the expense of his time and toil." The library is housed in a delightful room at his home on the Scottish sea-coast:

It was a lofty room of middling size, obscurely lighted by high narrow latticed windows. One end was entirely occupied by book-shelves, greatly too limited in space for the number of volumes placed upon them, which were, therefore, drawn up in ranks of two or three files deep, while numberless others littered the floor and the tables, amid a chaos of maps, engraving, scraps of parchment, bundles of papers, pieces of old armour, swords, dirks, helmets, and Highland targets. Behind Mr. Oldbuck's seat (which was an ancient leathern-covered easy-chair, worn smooth by constant use) was a huge oaken cabinet, decorated at each corner with Dutch cherubs, having their little duck-wings displayed, and great jolter-headed visages placed between them. The top of this cabinet was covered with busts, and Roman lamps and pater, intermingled with one or two bronze figures. The walls of the apartment were partly clothed with grim old tapestry, representing the memorable story of Sir Gawaine's wedding, in which full justice was done to the ugliness of the Lothely Lady; although, to judge from his own looks, the gentle knight had less reason to be disgusted with the match on account of disparity of outward favour, than the romancer has given us to understand. The rest of the room was panelled, or wainscotted, with black oak, against which hung two or three portraits in armour, being characters in Scottish history, favourites of Mr. Oldbuck, and as many in tie-wigs and laced coats, staring representatives of his own ancestors. A large old-fashioned oaken table was covered with a profusion of papers, parchments, books, and nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have little to recommend them, besides rust and the antiquity which it indicates. In the midst of this wreck of ancient books and utensils, with a gravity equal to Marius among the ruins of Carthage, sat a large black cat...

Oldbuck is, some crochety characteristics aside, what I aspire to be in the second half of my life -- a senior scholar! -- and how he lives is just how I wish to live. I reject much, but this is what I reach toward. And, I've got the cat angle covered.

Scott's description of Oldbuck's study reminds me of Kevin McDermott's book of photographs of the late Edward Gorey's home, Elephant House on Cape Cod, every bit as odd a residence as one would expect of Gorey, chockful of books, LPs, unusual objets d'art, strange collections, and cats (emphasis on the plural).

POSTSCRIPT: Claire is delighted to be a "scholar's cat," but reminds me that she is, in her own right, a scholarly cat; her hero is Dewey Readmore, the late famous library cat in Spencer, Iowa.