The Glory Hole 169 



to me to ask myself, "Why didn't Mrs. Chase give the Pea- 

 body Museum her gallstones?" Many other people had, for 

 there were a pint or more of miscellaneous gallstones in the 

 Peabody Museum in Salem, curiously enough in the case 

 with an old reindeer. But these were donated gallstones; 

 it was only Mrs. Chase's that were on loan. The answer 

 is, Mrs. Chase's gallstones were larger than any others in 

 the whole place and she obviously just couldn't bear to 

 part with them permanently. I bethought me, Has this sit- 

 uation ever occurred before? And then I remembered that 

 not long ago I was reading the last Annual Report of the 

 Curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 in London. This venerable institution, containing much 

 material that was priceless indeed, suffered a direct hit 

 from a German bomb. It was almost completely destroyed, 

 and the story of the catastrophe was told, sadly and meticu- 

 lously, by its distinguished curator. But if our friend in the 

 street were to read this report he might be inclined to laugh 

 heretically at the cool and unemotional statement that along 

 with the many terrific losses suffered by that venerable 

 institution were listed the facts that the jar containing 

 Napoleon's bowels was cracked and that the rib of Robert 

 the Bruce was broken. 



I have found myself justifying the preservation of ob- 

 jects which were inherently unpleasing to the eye by say- 

 ing, "That illustrates the taxidermy of a hundred years 

 ago." Or the preservation of a codfish pickled in alcohol 

 by saying, "Someone may want to dissect that fish some- 

 time," forgetting that fresh cod, infinitely preferable for 

 dissection, are plentiful in the Boston area. And so it goes. 

 The more I think of it, the more I believe that the average 



