The study bay, as the name suggests, was
originally a projecting window built to provide a place for reading. Over the years it came to be regarded as no more than a source of light for the alcove; but most often it serves not so much to illuminate the alcove as to soften the sidelong rays from without, to filter them through paper panels.

There is a cold and desolate tinge to the light by the time it reaches these panels.

The little sunlight from the garden that manages to make its way beneath the eaves and through the corridors has by then lost its power to illuminate, seems drained of the complexion of life. It can do no more than accentuate the whiteness of the paper.

I sometimes linger before these panels and study the surface of the paper, bright, but giving no impression of brilliance.