Jacob walked off much as if he had been in the country; and late that night there he was sitting at his table with his pipe and his book.
The rain poured down.

The British Museum stood in one solid immense mound, very pale, very sleek in the rain, not a quarter of a mile from him.

The vast mind was sheeted with stone; and each compartment in the depths of it was safe and dry.

The night-watchmen, flashing their lanterns over the backs of Plato and Shakespeare, saw that on the twenty-second of February neither flame, rat, nor burglar was going to violate these treasures--poor, highly respectable men, with wives and families at Kentish Town, do their best for twenty years to protect Plato and Shakespeare, and then are buried at Highgate.
Stone lies solid over the British Museum, as bone lies cool over the visions and heat of the brain.

Only here the brain is Plato's brain and Shakespeare's; the brain has made pots and statues, great bulls and little jewels, and crossed the river of death this way and that incessantly, seeking some landing, now wrapping the body well for its long sleep; now laying a penny piece on the eyes; now turning the toes scrupulously to the East.