A Beautiful Act Of Vandalism -- Mysterious Bench Monument Appears In Cambridge Park

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - It's not that he's afraid of publicly honoring Virginia Woolf; it's just that he's a modest man, his lawyer said.

Attorney Donna Turley yesterday cast some light on the mystery of a finely crafted red granite bench inscribed with the writer's words, which appeared in a public park.

But she declined to identify the benefactor, saying only that the man and some friends carried the 600-pound bench into the stand of pines at Fresh Pond Reservation on Sunday.

"He likes this grove," Turley said during a news conference at the site. "It is a place he enjoys coming to, and he wants others who enjoy it to have the bench for rest and meditation, if they want."

City officials decided to allow the bench with an inscription from the 1928 novel "Orlando" to remain at the site.

"With all the negative press that's out there, to see someone do something like this is a really positive gesture," said Mike Nicoloro, managing director of the Cambridge Water Department, which owns the land.

Turley would not say how much the bench cost; some estimates said it would be several thousand dollars.

One onlooker called it a beautiful act of vandalism. Another guessed it was the work of a "rogue intellectual."

The inscription chiseled atop the 4-foot surface of the bench seems to have been written for the place: It comes from Chapter 5 of "Orlando":

"There are wild birds' feathers - the owls, the nightjars. I shall dream wild dreams. I should lie at peace here with only the sky above."