A couple of months back, I read The Manuscripts Club by Christopher de Hamel, about various people who were significant in the creation, collection, and curation of manuscripts starting in medieval times. All of the people were remarkable, but the one that stuck me was the sole woman, Belle da Costa Greene, who created the Morgan Library for J.P. Morgan and presided over it until the mid-twentieth century.

On previous trips to New York, I have passed The Morgan Library with its distinguished front, but had never been tempted to go in, even though I frequently visit the New York Public Library not far away, mostly for its excellent shop and the Treasures exhibition (and because it’s free). In honor of Greene, I decided April’s visit would be to the Morgan.

As I entered, I was a little disappointed. The entryway is a spacious and glossy space with a high ceiling and lots of sunlight, and hosts an expensive café with waiters gliding around. But I headed up the steps in the back and walked into an absurd fantasy of cultivated wealth that was every bit worth the trip.

J.P. Morgan’s study, for instance, is a vast dark red space hosting an immense desk facing a fireplace, and hung on all sides with atrociously valuable artwork. Three austere Hans Memlings were the standouts, though a Holbein in the steel book-lined vault off to one side almost matched them. The wallpaper was a marvelous atrocity in a deep red tapestry-print, the ceiling was extraordinary, and ancient bits of stained glass hung in the windows. A guard lounged against the door cracking his gum, but even that couldn’t discourage me from spending half an hour in that space, listening to the narration from Bloomberg Connects.

I passed into the atrium that was the original entrance, and in contrast to the dark study it was ethereal and blazing with light, and again, the eye was drawn up against the will to the ceiling.

Greene’s study was a little disappointing, because it was basically a gallery space. Oh, the fireplace was still there, and the architectural details, but aside from a biographical section in a glass case about Greene, there was no sense of her formidable presence the way Morgan had inhabited the study.

And then I wandered into the East Room. It is almost indescribable. Yes, it’s a library, with three levels of books behind railings lining every wall. Yes, there are hidden stairways behind two of the book sections, accessible with quiet little brass handles, and a secret chamber. Yes, the ceiling was elaborately ornamented. Yes, there were perhaps 10,000 books in that room, including one of the three Gutenberg Bibles in the collection. None of that conveys how astonishing the room is.

I spent nearly an hour there.

Absurdly, I realized my husband would have loved it even more than I did. He was an odd man, with a relish for a world he never lived in. He collected only a few old books, but I knew he secretly fancied himself as some kind of Edwardian magnate.

I had an unusually good meal in the café, walked through the nice exhibits (a Caravaggio painting and its world, Mozart’s life, an exhibit on storytelling in a smallish space that contained many marvels but was too crowded to enjoy), walked through the gift shop without buying anything, and emerged blinking in the chilly April air still thinking about that East Room.