Linger for a moment to look closely at the shell in the display case. It has been there, the label claims, for more than a century. The curator who first selected it for display along with how many of the other workers who have tended to it over the years are now dead. Yet the shell continues to sit there, silently beckoning to occasional museum visitor. How many stop to appreciate its form?
Perhaps only those who might also stop in a portico to admire the form of a staircase.