The hall was high and cool and dim, the lights set carefully to age the paintings as little as possible. Between the stone walls, the air filled up with centuries. She thought sometimes of an Egyptian tomb, and not only when she stood in the hall of the scribes. A sort of time-capsule or reliquary in which they’d shut up all of the precious things for their voyage to the next life. A stone ship sailed the waters of the afterlife and she and Florence rode deep in its hold, looking up at the circuit diagrams of the procession to judgment and thence to the land of the dead.
The dead, whose works pressed on her from within, behind the eyes and in the chest, but most importantly in the hands.
L. A. (Angie) Stavros and her mentor Florence, in the Metropolitan Museum.
E. P. Beaumont 
Ooo, I love the haunting lyricism of your description here. Great six!
Beautiful writing, great description!
Beautifully written. Love this: “Between the stone walls, the air filled up with centuries.”
A great snippet. thanks for sharing.
Wonderful writing. Such a richly descriptive piece.
Love this – such lyrical description. Wonderful setting and atmosphere.
Deep and thoughtful. I like her pensiveness. Great six!
the air filled up with centuries. – one of the wonderful lines – though the snippet taken in its entirety is poetry
Wonderful phrases here. Great writing. Love the air filling up with centuries, riding in the hold of the stone ship to the afterlife. Well done.
The imagery here has several sources: the Egyptian ships included in the pharaoh’s grave-goods and Viking ship-burials, of course; another influence, pointed out by my partner: the closing lines of the contemporary film ‘Russian Ark’ (the final scene of which can be viewed (with subtitles) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbkgAx8jdmc&feature=related; the closing lines, echoed in this piece, begin at 3:05 on the video clip).
Love ‘the air filled up with centuries.’ That holds so much depth and carries the reader from past to present to future. Beautiful.
I loved the prose, E.P. Great six!
Great description.
Beautiful. Simply amazing description.
Lovely description and a beautiful voice!
Very cryptic! Loved the imagery here!