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FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
SAN FRAKaSCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MBLBOURNB

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

cTEej

FRIENDSHIP

OF BOORS

558

CorviaGHT, 19x1,
Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set np and electrotyped. Published September, 19x1.

Votf00O)l 9irtM

J. S. Gashing Co. — Berwick A; Smith Co.

I^onroodi Mms.^ U.S.A.

• k •■ •

FREDA

FROM HER GRATEFUL
FATHER

** How scan a tmiU of God can ckangit tho world f
How w» art made /or happinttt — how work
Grows^y, adversity a winning fight t**

Robert BxowmNG.

(

The editor gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to
The Macmillan Company, Mr. Richard Le Gallienne,
Mr. Gerald Stanley Lee, and Mr. Charles Ferguson for
their courteous permission to use extracts from their
publications and writings.

Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.

Book of Common Praybr.

Without books, God is silent.

Thos. V. Baxthoun.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction. On the Friendship of Books . . ix

Friends at Home i

Inspirers of the Heart 55

Educators of the Mind 85

Teachers in Life . . .... 123

Companions in Pleasure 171

Silent Friendly Spirits 207

If a book interests you, if it seems strong to
you, you may be sure that the man who wtot& ^,
wrote it on his knees.

THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS

INTRODUCTION

" A GOOD book," said Milton, "is the precious life-
-^^ blood of a master-spirit." A Kbrary thus takes
on the impressiveness of a wonderful salon of the great
men of the ages. Homer and Plato; iEschylus and
Aristophanes; Dante and Chaucer; Shakespeare and
Cervantes; Wordsworth and George Meredith; Goethe
and Browning; and Carlyle and Emerson, — these are no
longer dead volmnes or gilded titles, but disembodied
spirits assembled in a room to hold converse with us.
And we, poor self-satisfied creatures, we have the privi-
lege of talking with them and even of calling them our
friends ! Do we realize what this means ? I am siure
we do not. At any Tate, we do not act as if we did. It
is true we satisfy oiu: consciences and our vanity by con-
ferring on them the honorary degree of "classic"; but
even in doing so we condemn them to a permanent
seclusion in cloistral solitudes, as if they were out of place
in the hurly-biurly of oiu: every-day life, and ought truly to
have no part in it. At the bare mention of the word
"classic," a wave of boredom overcomes us, and we po-
litely turn the conversation or wonder "what the devil
he's doing in this galley." Books and life would seem to
us to be two widely separated facts, mt\i\il\i<& ox tvo x€^-
tion to each other. Life, we say, is real and ^araRsX\\sviX

Introduction

a book at best is but a help to make us forget life's troubles
and travails.

And yet could we meet Shakespeare in the flesh we
should flutter ourselves into a state bordering on imbecil-
ity did he but so much as nod a " God e'n " to us.

**0h, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you.
And did you speak to him again ?
How strange it seems and new."

What curious fellows we mortals be! We tumble over
each other to catch a glimpse of a commonplace man, rid-
ing on horseback, because he is said to be a king of a coun-
try, or a great captain of industry ; but when a real king
of men sits with us at home, we take the first opportunity
to get out of his way. I suppose it is much easier to look
at a man's imiform than to talk with a man's soul.

Still, we are not all such inhospitable beings. Some of
us, indeed, feel it even proper to be so far courteous and
urbane as to welcome the "classic" into our homes, clothe
him in fine raiment, and, though we give him only the
freedom of our Hbraries and carefully lock him up in book-
cases, yet we do occasionally look him up. Others even
go so far as to make a friend or two ; for it is said to be the
mark of a gentleman that he have a well-stocked library
and a speaking acquaintance with some good books.
Certainly, we must be gentlemen, even if we are occasion-
ally bored. There is, indeed, much to be said for a
convention which compels us to assume a virtue we have
not got. Perhaps the practice of this assumption may
breed a habit ; and a decent habit is far more desirable
than an indecent one, or than no habit at all.
I would credit a man with a great many o\iifti nViV\xss»

Introduction

if he surprised me with an apt quotation from Horace in
reply to my question as to the state of the market or the
condition of crops. I am afraid, however, that I am not
likely to be so surprised. The good people up in New
Hampshire, where I sometimes seek cooler breezes than
the siunmer-heated city affords, think me but a simple-
minded citizen. They welcome me with broad smiles,
and proceed at once to explain the real meaning of life,
which is not to be found in books. I listen amused and
gladly pay the tolls. They have been " sitting up nights "
half the winter to think out new ways of explaining the
meaning of life, as they imderstand it, to "city folk," and
when the simmier comes they are so agog with the op-
portimity to be seized that they forget all about their
farms. When I catch them unawares, as is not often the
case, I mildly suggest, that this is not the way to prosper.
This is but hastening the ills which make men decay.
"Read a good book," I say, "during the winter, instead of
planning foolish methods; a book that will teach you
how to do your business, how to be decent and fair-dealing,
and make you imderstand how to manage your farm, if
you are not too lazy to manage it. What you want," I
add, "is a friend who can be honest and sincere with you.
You don't believe that your neighbor would be that kind
of a friend ? You think he is like yourself ? Well, don't
go to him ; go to a book. That, at any rate, you cannot
accuse of either insincerity or dishonesty." My Uncle
Rube looks, perhaps, even more foolish than ordinarily
and laughs. He would like to say that it is much easier
to make two cents extra by selling a quart of milk to
"city folk" than learn the science of agricvdluife at >iJafc
ways of a true heart; but he rubs his scTu\ibv \ieax^\s\.-

Introduction

stead, while a cunning look comes into his eyes. What
he does say but shows his narrowness of vision and limited
understanding: "Books! why books is only for school-
masters and preachers and writing-men ! "

Well, a good many of us are like Uncle Rube, in this
respect. We do not take much account of books in this
game of life we are playing. We prefer learning wisdom
at first hand; with the result that half our Hfetime is
wasted in finding out for ourselves that which books could
have taught us in a few years, had we the temper to sit at
the feet of the really wise men. I am not undervaluing
the virtue of experience ; but I do feel strongly that we
miss the real virtue of books. Literature is less than life,
but literature is one of the most potent teachers in life.
We go to wise friendly men for their wisdom of experience ;
but what, after all, are books if they are not the embodied
thoughts of men's deepest experiences ? Surely the man
who will write a book, that is his precious life-spirit, is
the best friend any of us can have in life I Let us leave
out of consideration the mere pleasure of reading, the
mere amusement afforded us by books to pass away time
that is heavy or sorrow-freighted, the mere instruction
they give us of the facts of nature's phenomena, there yet
remains in books that splendid offering of the hearts of
men which is given in real life, as friendship, to but very
few of us. When, in life, we have been blessed, after
many years, with the gift of one true friend, we grapple
him to our souls with hooks of steel. He is a stay and
a comfort and a sympathizer; he is our adviser, our
helper in difl5culties, our true-hearted and brotherly
counsellor. We cannot love him too much. Yet when
we are offered this blessing, not once but many times

Introduction

over in books, we pass by and decline it. And we wonder
why we are foolish, and poor, and fearful, and unhappy.
"Oh, but," you say, "it's not the same thing to read
cold unsympathetic print as to hear the word from a liv-
ing friend. The friend I imderstand ; but the print is so
impersonal. And besides, the people who wrote these
books did not write for me, they wrote in a general way."
I know a book does not touch you immediately as does a
friend's dear face; but that is your fault. You have but
to read with feeling and the book will become a living
person to you. It will not then be "the plays of
Shakespeare," you are reading, but your friend Shake-
speare to whom you are listening. Take a few sentences
out of any of the plays and test what I say.

''But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties
And pour out treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us.
Or scant our former having in despite ;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace.
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them ; they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others ? Is it sport ?
I think it is. And doth affection breed it ?
Ithmkitdoth. Is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too. And have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well ; else let them know
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so."

Do we want a. wiser or a more intimate friend \]ba.\i\i»s,

to tell us how to behave to our wives •, ot \.o pAxX. \}!afc ca.^'t

•••

XIU

Introduction

for women more fairly and more finely ? And how appeal-
ing is the voice of the lady who is speaking for her sex !
"Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou 'It
catch cold shortly." That's a friend's advice ; and a good
friend's too. This is not the cold language of print ; the
ring of a human voice is in it — and think on it, Shake-
speare's voice !

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear.
Seeing that death, a necessary end.
Will come when it will come."

"Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither :
Ripeness is all."

But these citations could be multiplied to the volume of a
cyclopaedia.

As to the second objection against books, that the writ-
ers of them write in a general way and not for the individual,
that remark is as shallow as it is common. As if any one
of us were of a new order of being, or were not living the
life of this earth ! What is it, indeed, that constitutes
the genius of a Shakespeare or a Homer or a Dante or a
Cervantes if it be not that quality of soul which ripens
and grows to fullness on the wrecks of such experiences
as we poor lesser mortals daily encounter and rarely over-
come ? These little questionings of our souls, these httle
difl5culties in our ways, that look so important for us,
have long since been solved by the master-knowers of the
problems of life. Or, if they have not all been solved, they
Imve been attacked and suffered ; and here, in their books,

xiv

I
I

Introduction

ate the experiences of the trials told which, if they make
nbt straight the crooked ways, are yet heartening to read

^ ' ikf and show us, at least, how to wear a brave and debonair
grace, and to "out frown false fortune's frown" despite

^ I everything. And this also is a friend's part, is it not ?

I Why is it that we have that sense of detachment toward
I a book we do not have toward a friend? I cannot find any
justification for it. We would give heed to a friend's let-
ter ; why is it we are so indifferent to a wise man's book,
which is but his letter to us ? That we are indifferent is
undoubted, or we should not be still doing the foolish
things that Montaigne, for instance, has long since shown
us it is not well for us to do. I think this attitude of ours
must be due to a wrong point of view. We read books not
so much for what they can teach us as for the amusement
they can give us. We find the business of life to be so
exacting that we are too tired to further employ ourselves
in theoretical reflections on its problems, and ask only
for what will please us and make us forget ourselves. It
is the same with our attitude toward the theatre. We
ask it to amuse us, to make us laugh, or to interest us by
arousing pleasing sensations. We want the theatre of
entertainment and not the theatre of enlightenment. I
cannot help feeling that this excessive demand for amuse-
ment is a fatal weakness in our nature. We run to ex-
tremes. We are either always working or always playing.
And that is a mark of an unhealthy condition of both
mind and body. If we worked less, we might play more
sanely; and if we played more sanely, we might work
more wisely. As it is, our play and work are both feverish,
and the virtues of each are lost to us.

i Now ask of your friends, the books, and Wslea \.o ^^^^

Introduction

they will tell you of this waywardness of temper. And
you will know they are right.

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume."

"Then welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness xx>ugh.
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go !

Be our joys three parts pain !

Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe 1"

And if you wonder how it is that the poets know all this,
and why you should give heed to them, Shelley will tell
you, and, I can assure you, he knew.

"Weep no more I Oh, weep no more I
Young buds sleep in the root's white core.
Dry your eyes ! Oh, dry your eyes I
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies."

And Cariyle, who was himself a tough fighter in life, he
had a great respect for this same poet. "How does the
poet," he says, "speak to men with power, but by being
still more a man than they."

There you have it. The book that lives is the book that
we dare not let die, for our souls' sakes. The man who
wrote it was more of a man than we who read it. We
know this instinctively, and we know it undoubtedly.
Those of us who are really doing the things that count
have drunk inspiration from such a book, and because of
this they keep the flame of a great man's spirit burning.
They, in their turn, are more of men than we who have
not sought the £ne friendship of books. They have lis-

xvi

Introduction

tened to the poets' songs "which always find ns young
and always keep ns so."

And if we dare not let such books die, what does this
mean ? It means that we cannot live without their friend-
ship. It means that the wisdom of the men who were
more of men than we are is necessary for us in order that
we may be even the decent men we are.

The Jews have a beautiful Rabbinical legend which
tells that the world is kept from utter depravity and even
physical destruction by the existence of Thirty-Six
righteous men. Who they are or where they are is not
known, nor, says the legend, are they themselves aware of
their own value to mankind. When one of their number
dies, there is always, so long as it shall please the Omnip-
otent, a righteous man bom to take his place so that
the required Thirty-Six shall never be wanting. In this
wise does the Divine Spirit become active among mortals
and His Presence made manifest to those who have ears
to hear and eyes to see.

I think of this legend as I ask myself how it comes
about, in the midst of so large an indifference to the friend-
ship of books, that the great traditions of wisdom and love
are still kept alive to help us in spite of oiurselves. I
please myself with applying this legend by way of an
explanation and to say of the World of Literature as the
Jews said of the moral world, that it is kept lovely and
inspiring by a number of fine sotds who devote themselves
and their Uves to the perfect expression in words of the
thoughts and visions vouchsafed them; that those who
so devote themselves work unknown for a space and are
not themselves aware of the profound impoil ol \3afc\i ^tl-
iStence; and that only after they have passed Iiotcl ^xassc^

zvii

Introduction

us do we, the dull' and the blind, begin to suspect that a
great man dwelt in our midst and is now no more.

Nay, not no more, for " the idle singer of an empty day "
has this advantage over the Thirty-Six, that he has left
his songs to Uve for him. The echoes these awaken in
our hearts, the impulses they arouse to new effort, the
revealing magic of their medicinal music, are forms of his
energizing spirit which are ever Uving. They abide and
keep the world young by their urging power to newer ex-
pressions of Will ; for only through the recurring springs
may each year's harvests be garnered. Did we meet such
Shelleys face to face, we should, in all probabiHty, pass
by with a contemptuous glance those queer-looking, ill-
kempt, badly-clothed fellows, seeming somewhat like
those strange beings we read of in the Bible who were
wont to go about prophesying to the people. Yet may
we be thankful that they ''walk the earth unguessed at,"
untroubled by our overwhelming attentions, if they will
but leave us "the precious life-blood" of their master-
spirits in books. Our deepest gratitude, and our deepest
life also, will be best expressed in the freer and fuller life

of their fine friendship.

Temple Scott

•••

XVUl

FRIENDS AT HOME

TJ/'ITH decUhless minds which leave where they have

past
A path of light J my soul communion knew;
Till from that glorious intercourse, at last,
As from a mine of magic store, I drew
Words which were weapons ; round my heart there grew
The adamantine armour of their power.
And from my fancy wings of golden hue
Sprang forth,

Percy Bysshe Shelley

RevoU of Islam

To My Books on Parting with Them <:> <:>

/IS one who, destined from his friends to Part,
Regrets his loss, yet hopes again erewhile
To share their converse and enjoy their smile,
And tempers as he may affliction's dart, —
Thus, loved associates I chiefs of elder Art!
Teachers of wisdom 1 who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,
I now resign you : nor with fainting heart;
For pass a few short years, or days, or hours,
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold.
And all your sacred fellowship restore ;
When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers.
Mind shall with mind direct communion hold.
And kindred spirits meet to part no more,

William Roscoe

The Friendship of Books

TN reading this book [the lost dialogue of Horiensius
^ by Cicero] I felt myself become a new man. All the
vain hopes I had pursued up to that time withdrew from
my mind, and I experienced an incredible passion to con-
secrate myself to the search after wisdom and to conquer
in that way immortality. I rose, Lord, to direct my steps
toward Thee.

St, Augustine
Confessions, UL, 4

TN Books we find the dead, as it were, living ; in Books
^ we foresee things to come ; in Books warlike affairs
are methodized ; the rights of peace proceed from Books.
All things are corrupted and decay with time. Saturn
never ceases to devour those whom he generates; inso-
much that the glory of the world would be lost in oblivion
if God had not provided mortals with a remedy in Books.
Alexander the ruler of the world ; Julius the invader of
the world and of the city, the first who in unity of person
assumed the empire in arms and arts ; the faithful Fabri-
dus, the rigid Cato, would at this day have been without
a memorial if the aid of Books had failed them. Towers
are razed to the earth, cities overthrown, triumphal arches
mouldered to dust ; nor can the King or Pope be found,
upon whom the privilege of a lasting name can be con-
ferred more easily than by Books. A Book made, renders
succession to the author ; for as long as the Book €m\Sk^>i^^
author remaining dfidvaroi^ inmiortal, caxmoX.'^T^. « * <>

5 i

The Friendship of Books

You only, O Books, are liberal and independent. You
give to all who ask, and enfranchise all who serve you as-
siduously. . . . Truly you are the ears filled with most
palatable grains. . . . You are golden urns in which
manna is laid up, rocks flowing with honey, or rather in-
deed honeycombs; udders most copiously 3delding the
milk of life, storerooms ever full ; the four-streamed river
of Paradise, where the himian mind is fed, and the arid
intellect moistened and watered; . . . fruitful olives,
vines of Engaddi, fig-tre^ knowing no sterility ; burning
lamps to be ever held in the hand.

The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than
all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy
to be compared with it. Whosoever, therefore, acknowl-
edges himself to be a zealous follower of truth, of happi-
ness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of
necessity make himself a Lover of Books.

Richard De Bury
Philobiblon, 1344. Translation of 1473

"IT THEN evening has arrived, I return home, and go into
^ ^ my study. ... I pass into the antique courts of
ancient men, where, welcomed lovingly by them, I feed
upon the food which is my own, and for which I was bom.
Here, I can speak with them without show, and can ask of
them the motives of their actions ; and they respond to
me by virtue of their hiunanity. For hours together, the
miseries of life no longer annoy me ; I forget every vexa-
tion; I do not fear poverty; and death itself does not
dismay me, for I have altogether transferred myself to
those with whom I hold converse.

Nicxx)LO Machiavelll
6

Friends at Home

IDUT I sit here with no company but books and some
^-^ bright-faced friends upon the wall, musing upon
things past and things to come ; reading a little, falling
off into a reverie, waking to look out on the ever charm-
ing beauty of the landscape, dipping again into some
dainty honeycomb of literature, wandering from author
to author, to catch the echoes which fly from book to
book, and by silent suggestions or similarities connect
the widely-separated men in time and nature closely
together. All minds in the world's past history find their
focal point in a library. This is that pinnacle from
which we might see all the kingdoms of the world, and
the glory of them. I keep Egypt and the Holy Land
in the closet next the window. On this side of them is
Athens and the empire of Rome. Never was such an
army mustered as a library army. No general ever had
such soldiers as I have. Let the military world call its roll,
and I will call mine. The privates in my army would
have made even the staff-officers of Alexander's army
seem insignificant. Only think of a platoon of such good
literary and philosophical yeomen as will answer my roll-
call. "Plato I" "Here." A sturdy and noble soldier.
"Aristotle!" "Here." A host in himself . Then I caU
Demosthenes, Cicero, Csesar, Tacitus, Pliny; and of the
famous Alexandrian school. Porphyry, Jamblicus, Ploti-
nus, and others, all worthy fellows, every one of them,
fully armed and equipped, and looking as fresh as if they
had received the gift of youth and immortality. Modest
men all ; they never speak unless spoken to. Bountiful
men all ; they never refuse the asker. I have my doubts
whether, if they were alive, I could keep the pea.c& qI tkjj
domains. But now they dwell toget\vei va. >3Lta\.^^ |J^

The Friendship of Books

all of the train in one company, and work for the world's
good, each in his special way, but all contribute. I have
also in a comer the numerous band of Christian Fathers,
— Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, St. Am-
brose, and others, with their opponents. They now
lie peacefully together, without the shade of repugnance
or anger. It is surprising how these men have changed.
Not only are they here without quarrelling or disputing,
without ambition or selfishness, but how calmly do they
sit, though you pluck their opinions by the beard!
Orthodox and heretic are now upon the most friendly
terms. No kingdom ever had such illustrious subjects
as mine, or was half as well governed. I can lead them
forth to such wars as I choose, and not one of them is
deaf to the trumpet. I hold all Egypt in fee simple.
I can say as much of all the Orient, as he that was sent to
grass did of Babylon. I build not a city, but empires,
at a word. Praxiteles and Phidias look out of my win-
dow, while I am gone back to the Acropolis to see what
they are about. The architects are building night and
day, like them of old, without the soimd of a hammer;
my artists are painting, my designers are planning, my
poets are chanting, my philosophers are discoursing,
my historians are spinning their dry web, my theologians
are weaving their yet finer ones. All the world is around
me. All that ever stirred hiunan hearts, or fired the
imagination, is harmlessly here. My library shelves
are the avenues of time. Cities and empires are put into
a comer. Ages have wrought, generations grown, and
all the blossoms are cast down here. It is the garden
of immortal fruits, without dog or dragon.

Gilbert de Pomce, Letters.
8

Friends at Home

TTERE is the best solitary company in the world, and
-■'-*• in this particular chiefly excelling any other, that in
my study I am sure to converse with none but wise men ;
but abroad it is impossible for me to avoid the society
of fools. What an advantage have I, by this good
fellowship, that, besides the help which I receive from
hence, in reference to my life after this life, I can enjoy
the life of so many ages before I lived ! — that I can be
acquainted with the passages of three or four thousand
years ago, as if they were the weekly occurrences ! Here,
without travelling so far as Endor, I can call up the
ablest spirits of those times, the leamedest philosophers,
the wisest coimsellors, the greatest generals, and make
them serviceable to me. I can make bold with the best
jewels they have in their treasury, with the same freedom
that the IsraeUtes borrowed of the Egyptians, and, with-
out suspicion of felony, make use of them as mine own.
I can here, without trespassing, go into their vineyards
and not only eat my fill of their grapes for my pleasure,
but put up as much as I will in my vessel, and store it
up for my profit and advantage. . . .

Sir William Waller
Divine Meditations: Meditation upon the Content-
ment I have in my Books and Study,

"^kJOULD a writer know how to behave himself with
^ ^ relation to posterity, let him consider in old books
what he finds that he is glad to know, and Y^ViaLt otdc^s^c^t^
he most laments.

The Friendship of Books

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it
seems to be alive and talking to me.

Jonathan Swift
Thoughts on Various Subjects

T ARMED her against the censure of the world,
•^ showed her that books were sweet unreproaching com-
panions to the miserable, and that, if they could not bring
us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.

Oliver Goldsmith
The Vicar of Wakefield, Ch. XXn

TVrOW, all amid the rigours of the year,
■^ ^ In the wild depth of winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat
Between the groaning forest and the shore,
Beat by the boimdless multitude of waves ;
A rural, sheltered, solitary scene ;
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead ;
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered.
As gods beneficent, who bless'd mankind
With arts, with arms, and humanized a world.
Roused at th' inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived volume ; and, deep musing, hail
The sacred shades, that, slowly rising, pass
Before my wond'ring eye.

James Thomson
The Seasons: Winter

"DUT now the supper crowns their simple board,
-^-^ The halesome parritch, chiei oi ScoXmJ^ iood\

Friends at Home

The sowp their only hawkie does afford,
That, yont the hallan snugly chows her cood :
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell ;
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid :

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi* serious face,

They, roimd the ingle, form a circle wide ;
The sure turns o'er, with patriarchal grace.

The big ha-bible, ance his father's pride :

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside.
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare ;

Those strains that once did sweet Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care ;
And 'Let us worship God I' he says with solemn air.

Robert Burns
The CoUer*s Saturday Night

"I ^ TIE anders tragen uns die Geistesfreunden,
^ ^ Von Buch zu Buch, von Blatt zu Blatt !
Da werden Winter-Nachte hold imd schon ;
Ein selig Leben warmet alle Glieder ;
Und, Ach ! entrollst du gar ein wurdig Pergamen,
So steigt der ganze Hinunel zu dir nieder.

Goethe, Faust

TJTOW otherwise do the friends of the soul bear us from
•■■ -■• book to book, from page to page !
Then the nights of winter become grado\is.aii.dVitaM\!&vi\.,
A joyous life warms every limb.

The Friendship of Books

And oh ! when you unroll a precious parchment
Then does the whole heaven step down to you.

Translation

13UT what stranger art, what magic can dispose
■^ The troubled mind to change its native woes ?
Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see
Others more wretched, more imdone than we ?
This, BOOKS can do, — nor this alone ; they give
New views to life, and teach us how to live ;
They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,
Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise;
Their aid they yield to all; they never shun
The man of sorrow, nor the wretch imdone;
Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,
They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd ;
Nor tell to various people various things,
But show to subjects, what they show to kings.

Come, Child of Care ! to make thy soid serene,
Approach the treasures of this tranquil scene ;
Survey the dome, and, as the doors imfold.
The soul's best cure, in all her cares, behold !
Where mental wealth the poor in thought may find
And mental physic the diseased in mind ;
See here the balms that passion's woimds assuage ;
See coolers here, that damp the fire of rage ;
Here alteratives, by slow degrees control
The chronic habits of the sickly soul ;
And round the heart and o'er the aching head,
Wild opiates here their sober influence shed.
Now bid thy soul man's busy scenes exclude.
And view composed this silent multitude*.

Friends at Home

Silent they are — but, though deprived of sound —
Here all the living languages aboimd ;
Here all that live no more; preserved they lie,
In tombs that open to the curious eye.

Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind
To stamp a lasting image of the mind !
Beasts may convey, and tuneful birds may sing,
Their mutual feelings, in the opening spring ;
But Man alone has skill and power to send
The heart's warm dictates to the distant friend ;
*Tis his alone to please, instruct, advise
Ages remote, and nations yet to rise.

George Crabbe

The Library

/^ ANDREW! Although our learning raiseth up
^^ against us many enemies, among the low, and more
among the powerful, yet doth it invest us with grand and
glorious privileges, and grant to us a largess of beatitude.
We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone
can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing
with one in preference to another ; we give no offence to
the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will,
and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises
no tmnult in our presence; each interlocutor stands
before us, speaks, or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the
business at our leisure. Nothing is past which we desire
to be present ; and we enjoy by anticipation somewhat
like the power which I imagine we shall possess hereafter
of sailing on a wish from world to world.

W. S. Landor
Imaginary Conversations. Milton and M aroeU

The Friendship of Books

"1 ^ rHAT a place to be in is an old library I It seems as
^ ^ though all the souls of all the writers, that have
bequeathed their labors to these Bodleians, were repos-
ing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do
not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding
sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to
inhale learning, walking amid their foUage ; and the odor
of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the
first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the
happy orchard.

Charles Lamb
Essays ofElia: Oxford in the Vacation

" T WISH the good old times would come again, when
•^ we were not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want
to be poor ; but there was a middle state ;" so she was
pleased to ramble on, — "in which I am sure we were
a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase,
now that you have money enough and to spare. Form-
erly it used to be a triimaph. When we coveted a cheap
luxury (and, O ! how much ado I had to get you to con-
sent in those times !) we were used to have a debate two
or three days before, and to weigh the For and Against,
and think what we might spare it out of, and what saving
we could hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A
thing was worth buying then, when we felt the money
that we paid for it.

"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to
hang upon you, till aU your friends cried shame upon you,
it grew so thread-bare — and all because of that folio
Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late
at night from Barker's in Cpvent Garden ? Do you

Friends at Home

remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could make
up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a
determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday
night, when you set oflf from Islington, fearing you should
be too late — and when the old bookseller with some
gnmibling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper
(for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from
his dusty treasures — and when you lugged it home,
wishing it were twice as cumbersome — and when you
presented it to me — and when we were exploring the
perfectness of it (collating you called it) — and while
I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste,
which your impatience would not suffer to be left till
day-break — was there no pleasure in being a poor man ?
or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, and
are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich
and finical, give you half the honest vanity, with which
you flaunted it about in that over- worn suit — your old
corbeau — for four or five weeks longer than you shoidd
have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum
of fifteen — or sixteen shillings was it ? — a great affair
we thought it then — which you had lavished on the old
folio ? Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases
you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any
nice old purchases now."

Charles Lamb
Essays ofElia : Old China

r' is impossible to enter a large library, especially
when in appearance so antique as the one of which we
are now writing, without feeling an inward sensation
of reverence, and without catching some sp^xYs ol \iOs^^

The Friendship of Books

emulation, from the mass of mind which is scattered
aroimd you. The very dullest, and least intellectual
of the sons of earth, must be conscious of the high and
lofty society into which he is intruding ; a society which
no combination of living talent can ever hope to paral-
lel. . . . We feel, as we reverence the mighty spirits
around us, that we are in some sort their brothers ; and
the very homage which we pay to their majesty is itself
the bond of our alliance. . . .

The works around us naturally bring their authors
before our eye. We can see Hooker in his quiet country
parsonage, beholding ''God's blessings spring out of his
mother earth, and eating his own bread in peace and
privacy." We can see Sidney amongst the shades of
Penshurst writing on poetry, with all the enthusiasm
of a poet, and proving, that "poesie is ftdl of virtue,
breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought
to be in the noble name of learning." We can see Bacon
in his closet, conceiving in his mighty mind the greatest
birth of time, and imbent by misfortime, and undejected
by disgrace, illuminating philosophy "with all the weight
of matter, worthy of subject, soundness of argument,
Hfe of invention, and depth of judgment." We can see
Selden amidst bulls, breviats, antiphoners, and monkish
manuscripts, la3dng up the stores of his vast learning,
and awaiting from posterity the rewards which were
denied him by a prejudiced clergy. We can be present
with Burton, whilst enjoying the delights of voluntary
solitariness, and walking alone in some grove, betwixt
wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some
delightsome and pleasant subject, and hear him declaring
in ecstasy^ " what an incomparable delight it is so to melan-

Friends at Home

cholize and build castles in the air." At last, though
second to none of his contemporaries, we can be witness
to the lonely musings of him, "who imtamed in war,
and indefatigable in literature, as inexhaustible in ideas as
exploits, after having brought a new world to light, wrote
the history of the old in a prison."

James Crossley
The Chetham Library: Blackwood* s MagazinCy 182 1

On Reading Old Books ^^ -v^ <:><:> <:>

T HATE to read new books. There are twenty or
-*• thirty volimaes that I have read over and over again,
and these are the only ones that I have any desire ever to
read at all. It was a long time before I could bring myself
to sit down to the Tales of My Landlord, but now that
author's works have made a considerable addition to my
scanty library. I am told that some of Lady Morgan's are
good, and have been recommended to look into Anasta-
sius ; but I have not yet ventured upon that task. A lady,
the other day, could not refrain from expressing her sur-
prise to a friend, who said he had been reading Delphine :
— she asked, — If it had not been published some time
back ? Women judge of books as they do of fashions or
complexions, which are admired only 'in their newest
gloss.' That is not my way. I am not one of those who
trouble the circulating libraries much, or pester the book-
sellers for mail-coach copies of standard periodical pub-
lications. I cannot say that I am greatly addicted to
black-letter, but I profess myself well versed in the marble
bindings of Andrew Millar, in the im.d^'& ol \^a& \a&\.
century; nor does my task revolt at TWeVq^'^ "^Ka-V^

The Friendship of Books

Papers, in Russia leather; or an ample impression of
Sir William Templets Essa)rs, with a portrait after Sir
Godfrey Kneller in front. I do not think altogether the
worse of a book for having survived the author a genera-
tion or two. I have more confidence in the dead than
the living. Contemporary writers may generally be
divided into two classes — one's friends or one's foes. Of
the first we are compelled to think too well, and of the
last we are disposed to think too ill, to receive much gen-
uine pleasure from the perusal, or to judge fairly of the
merits of either. One candidate for literary fame, who
happens to be of our acquaintance, writes finely, and like
a man of genius; but imfortunately has a foolish face,
which spoils a delicate passage: — another inspires us
with the highest respect for his personal talents and
character, but does not quite come up to our expectations
in print. All these contradictions and petty details
interrupt the calm current of our reflections. If you want
to know what any of the authors were who lived before our
time, and are still objects of anxious inquiry, you have
only to look into their works. But the dust and smoke
and noise of modem literature have nothing in common
with the pure, silent air of immortality.

When I take up a work that I have read before (the
oftener the better), I know what I have to expect. The
satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. When
the entertainment is altogether new, I sit down to it as I
should to a strange dish, — turn and pick out a bit here
and there, and am in doubt what to think of the composi-
tion. There is a want of confidence and security to
second appetite. New-fangled books are also like made-
disbes ia this respect, that they aie gemeia^^ YlVS^^ €tsA

Friends at Home

than hashes and rijaccimentos of what has been served
up entire and in a more natiural state at other times.
Besides, in thus turning to a well-known author, there
is not only an assiurance that my time will not be thrown
away, or my palate nauseated with the most insipid or
vilest trash, — but I shake hands with, and look an old,
tried, and valued friend in the face, — and compare
notes, and chat the hours away. It is true, we form
dear friendships with such ideal guests — dearer, alas I
and more lasting, than those with oiu: most intimate
acquaintance. In reading a book which is an old favorite
with me (say the first novel I ever read) I not only have
the pleasure of imagination and of a critical relish of
the work, but the pleasiures of memory added to it.
It recalls the same feelings and associations which I had
in first reading it, and which I can never have again in any
other way. Standard productions of this kind are links
in the chain of oiu: conscious being. They bind together
the different scattered divisions of oiu: personal identity.
They are landmarks and guides in our journey through
life. They are pegs and loops on which we can hang up,
or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the ward-
robe of a moral imagination, the relics of our best affec-
tions, the tokens and records of our happiest hours.
They are *for thoughts and for remembrance!' They
are like Fortunatus's Wishing-Cap — they give us the
best riches — those of Fancy ; and transport us, not over
half the globe, but (which is better) over half our lives,
at a word's notice !

My father Shandy solaced himself with Bruscambille.
Give me for this purpose a voliune of Peregrine Pickle or
Tom Jones. Open either of them aiiy^\iei^ — ^\. ^^

19 i

The Friendship of Books

Memoirs of Lady Vane, or the adventures at the masquer-
ade with Lady Bellaston, or the disputes between
Thwackum and Square, or the escape of Molly Seagrim, or
the incident of Sophia and her muflf, or the edifjdng pro-
lixity of her aimt's lecture — and there I find the same
delightful, busy, bustling scene as ever, and feel myself the
same as when I was first introduced into the midst of it.
Nay, sometimes the sight of an odd volume of these
good old English authors on a stall, or the name
lettered on the back among others on the shelves
of a library, answers the purpose, revives the whole
train of ideas, and sets *the puppets dalljdng.' Twenty
years are struck off the list, and I am a child again.
A sage philosopher, who was not a very wise man,
said, that he should like very well to be yoimg again,
if he could take his experience along with him. This
ingenious person did not seem to be aware, by the gravity
of his remark, that the great advantage of being young
is to be without this weight of experience, which he would
fain place upon the shoulders of youth, and which never
comes too late with years. Oh ! what a privilege to be
able to let this hump, Uke Christian's burthen, drop from
off one's back, and transport one's self, by the help of a
little musty duodecimo, to the time when * ignorance was
bliss,' and when we first got a peep at the raree-show of
the world, through the glass of fiction — gazing at man-
kind, as we do at wild beasts in a menagerie, through the
bars of their cages, — or at curiosities in a museum,
that we must not touch ! For myself, not only are the
old ideas of the contents of the work brought back to
my mind in all their vividness, but the old associations
of the faces and persons of those 1 tYien kjae^ , ^s» tiney

Friends at Home

were in their life-time — the place where I sat to read
the volume, the day when I got it, the feeling of the air,
the fields, the sky return, and all my early impressions
with them. This is better to me — those places, those
times, those persons, and those feehngs that come across
me as I retrace the story and devour the page, are to me
better far than the wet sheets of the last new novel from
the BaUant3aie press, to say nothing of the Minerva
press in Leadenhall-street. It is Hke visiting the scenes
of early youth. I think of the time 'when I was in my
father's house, and my path ran down with butter and
honey,' — when I was a Uttle, thoughtless child, and had
no other wish or care but to con my daily task, and be
happy! — Tom Jones, I remember, was the first work
that broke the spell. It came down in numbers once a
fortnight, in Cooke's pocket-edition, embellished with
cuts. I had hitherto read only in school-books, and a
tiresome ecclesiastical history (with the exception of
Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest) ; but this had
a different relish with it, — * sweet in the mouth,' though
not 'bitter in the belly.' It smacked of the world I
lived in, and in which I was to live — and shewed me
groups, *gay creatures' not *of the element,' but of the
earth ; not 'living in the clouds,' but travelling the same
road that I did ; — some that had passed on before me, and
others that might soon overtake me. My heart had
palpitated at the thoughts of a boarding-school ball,
or gala-day at Midsmnmer or Christmas : but the world
I had foimd out in Cooke's edition of the British Novelists
was to me a dance through life, a perpetual gala-day.
The six-penny numbers of this work regulatly cotlIw^
to leave off Just in the middle oi a sentetvo.^, ^xA m ^^

21 d

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

nick of a story, where Tom Jones discovers Square be-
hind the blanket ; or where Parson Adams, in the inex-
tricable confusion of events, very undesignedly gets to
bed to Mrs. Slip-slop. Let me caution the reader against
this impression of Joseph Andrews ; for there is a picture
of Fanny in it which he should not set his heart on, lest
he should never meet with any thing like it; or if he
should, it would, perhaps, be better for him that he had

not. It was just like 1 With what eagerness I

used to look forward to the next number, and open the
prints ! Ah ! never again shall I feel the enthusiastic de-
Ught with which I gazed at the figures, and anticipated
the story and adventures of Major Bath and Commodore
Trunnion, of Trim and my uncle Toby, of Don Quixote
and Sancho and Dapple, of Gil Bias and Dame JLorenza
Sephora, of Laura and the fair Lucretia, whose Ups open
and shut like buds of roses. To what nameless ideas
did they give rise, — with what airy dehghts I filled up
the outlines, as I hung in silence over the page ! — Let me
stiU recall them, that they may breathe fresh life into me,
and that I may Uve that birthday of thought and roman-
tic pleasure over again! Talk of the ideal! This is the
only true ideal — the heavenly tints of Fancy reflected in
the bubbles that floated upon the spring-tide of human life.

Oh I Memory ! shield me from the world's poor strife.
And give those scenes thine everlasting life I

William Hazlitt
The Plain Speaker: On Reading Old Books

C ITTING last winter among my books, and walled roimd

^^ with all the comfort and protection which they and

jny£re-side could aflford me, — to ml, a \aXA& oiYii^-^Uftd

Friends at Home

books at my back, my writing desk on one side of me, •
some shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm
fire at my feet, — I began to consider how I loved the
authors of those books ; how I loved them too, not only
for the imaginative pleasures they afforded me, but for
their making me love the very books themselves, and
delight to be in contact with them. I looked sideways
at my Spenser, my Theocritus, and my Arabian Nights;
then above them at my Italian Poets ; then behind me at
my Dryden and Pope, my Romances, and my Boccaccio;
then on my left side at my Chaucer, who lay on my
writing desk ; and thought how natural it was in Charles
Lamb to give a kiss to an old folio, as I once saw him do
to Chapman's Homer. ...

I entrench myself in my books, equally against sorrow
and the weather. If the wind comes through a passage,
I look about to see how I can fence it off by a better dis-
position of my moveables; if a melancholy thought is
importunate, I give another glance at my Spenser. When I
speak of being in contact with my books, I mean it literally.
I like to be able to lean my head against them. . . .

I like a great library next my study; but for the study
itself, give me a small snug place almost entirely walled
with books. There should be only one window in it,
looking upon trees. Some prefer a place with few or no
books at all; nothing but a chair or a table, like Epic-
tetus: but I should say that these were philosophers,
not lovers of books, if I did not recollect that Montaigne
was both. He had a study in a round tower walled, as
aforesaid. It is true, one forgets one's books while
writing: at least they say so. For my pax\.,\ ^i}Kff^\
have tbem in a sort of sidealong mind's eye\ ^Si^*^ ^. ^^ofvA

The Friendship of Books

thought, which is none; like a waterfall, or a whispering
wind. . . .

The very perusal of the backs is a "discipline of hu-
manity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with
an old Radical friend : there Jeremy Collier is at peace with
Dryden; there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with
the Quaker lamb, Sewell: there Guzman d'Alfarache
thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and
has his claims admitted. Even the " high fantastical "
Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is re-
ceived with grave honors, and not the less for declining
to trouble herself with the constitution of her maids. . . .

How pleasant it is to reflect that the greatest lovers
of books have themselves become books! What better
metamorphosis could Pythagoras have desired! How
Ovid and Horace exxilted in anticipating theirs! And
how the world have justified their exultation! They
had a right to triumph over brass and marble. It is
the only visible change which changes no further; which
generates, and yet is not destroyed. Consider: mines
themselves are exhausted; cities perish; kingdoms are
swept away, and man weeps with indignation to think
that his own body is not immortal. . . .

Yet this little body of thought that lies before me in
the shape of a book has existed thousands of years; nor
since the invention of the press can anything short of
an universal convulsion of nature abolish it. To a shape
like this, so small, yet so comprehensive, so slight, yet
so lasting, so insignificant, yet so venerable, turns the
mighty activity of Homer, and so turning, is enabled to
LVe and warm us forever. To a shape like this turns
the placid sage of Academus: to a ^a.^e ^Sl^ >i5D^ >(iaa

Friends at Home

grandeur of Milton, the exuberance of Spenser, the pun-
gent elegance of Pope, and the volatility of Prior. In
one small room, like the compressed spirits of Milton,
can be gathered together

The assembled souls of all that men held wise.

May I hope to become the meanest of these existences !
This is a question which every author, who is a lover
of books, asks himself some time in his life! and which
must be pardoned, because it cannot be helped. I know
not. I cannot exclaim with the poet.

Oh that my name were numbered among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

For my mortal days, few and feeble as the rest of them
may be, are of consequence to others. But I should like
to remain visible in this shape. The little of myself
that pleases myself, I could wish to be accoimted worth
pleasing others. I should like to survive so, were it only
for the sake of those who love me in private, knowing as
I do what a treasure is the possession of a friend's mind,
when he is no more. At all events, nothing, while I live
and think, can deprive me of my value for such treasures.
I can help the, appreciation of them while I last, and love
them till I die; and perhaps, if fortune turns her face
once more in kindness upon me before I go, I may chance,
some quiet day, to lay my over-beating temples on a
book, and so have the death I most envy.

Leigh Hunt
The Literary Examiner: My Books

A LL roimd the room my silent servants wait, —
■^^ My friends in every season, bright and dim
Angels and seraphim

as i

The Friendship of Books

Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,

And spirits of the skies all come and go

Early and late;

From the old world's divine and distant date,

From the sublimer few,

Down to the poet who but yester-eve

Sang sweet and made us grieve,

All come, assembling here in order due.

And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate,

With Erato and all her vernal sighs.

Great Clio with her victories elate.

Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes.

Of friends, whom chance and change can never harm,

Whom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die,

Within whose folding soft eternal charm

I love to lie.

And meditate upon your verse that flows.

And fertilizes wheresoever it goes.

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall)

(Fragment)

nTEHE scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet
"^ eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent
hours become in the season of adversity. When all that
is worldly turns to dross aroimd us, these only retain
their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the
converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and
common-place, these only continue the unaltered coun-
tenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true
friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow.

Washington Irving
The Sketch Book
26

Friends at Home

A ND in a comer of my house I have books — the
"^^ miracle of all my possessions, more wonderful than
the wishing-cap of the Arabian tales, for they transport
me instantly, not only to all places, but to all times. By
my books I can conjure up before me to a momentary
existence many of the great and good men of past ages,
and for my individual satisfaction they seem to act again
the most renowned of their achievements; the orators
declaim for me, the historians recite, the poets sing.

Dr. Arnott
The Elements of Physics

/^^OOD books, like good friends, are few and chosen;
^-^ the more select the more enjoyable; and like these
are approached with diffidence, nor sought too familiarly
nor too often, having the precedence only when friends
tire. The most mannerly of companions, accessible
at all times, in all moods, they frankly declare the
author's mind, without giving offence. Like living
friends they too have their voice and physiognomies,
and their company is prized as old acquaintances.
We seek them in our need of coimsel or of amusement,
without impertinence or apology, sure of having our
claims allowed. A good book justifies our theory of
personal supremacy, keeping this fresh in the memory
and perennial. What were days without such fellow-
ship? We were alone in the world without it. Nor
does our faith falter though the secret we search for
and do not find in them will hot commit itself to Uter-
ature, still we take up the new issue with the old expec-
tation, and again and again, as we try our friends after
many failures at conversation, believing \i^^ Nm\. ^w^

The Friendship of Books

be the favored hour and all will be told us. Nor do I

know what book I can well spare, certainly none that

has admitted me, though it be but for the moment and

by the most oblique glimpse, into the mind and person-

ahty of its author; though few there are that prefer such

friendly claim to one's regard, and satisfy expectation

as he turns their leaves. Our favorites are few; since

only what rises from the heart reaches it, being caught

and carried on the tongues of men wheresoever love and

letters journey.

Nor need we wonder at their scarcity or the value we

set upon them; life, the essence of good letters as of

friendship, being its own best biographer, the artist that

portrays the persons and thoughts we are, and are

becoming. And the most that even he can do, is but a

chance stroke or two at this fine essence housed in the

handsome dust, but too fugitive and coy to be caught

and held fast for longer than the passing glance; the

master touching and ever retouching the picture he

leaves imfinished.

My life has been the poem I would have writ.
But I could not both live and utter it.

. . . Any library is an attraction. And there is an
indescribable delight — who has not felt it that deserves
the name of scholar — in mousing at choice among the al-
coves of antique book-shops especially, and finding the
oldest of these sometimes newest of the new, fresher,
more suggestive than the book just published and praised in
the reviews. And the pleasure scarcely less of cutting the
leaves of the new volume, opening by preference at the end
rather than title-page, and seizing the author's conclusion
at a glance. Very few books repay the reading in course.

Friends at Home

N'or can we excuse an author if his page does not tempt
LIS to copy passages into our commonplaces, for quotation,
proverbs, meditation, or other uses. A good book is
Fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from
age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers.

Next to a friend's discourse, no morsel is more delicious
than a ripe book, a book whose flavor is as refreshing
at the thousandth tasting as at the first. Books when
Friends weary, conversation flags, or nature fails to in-
spire. (The best books appeal to the deepest in us and
answer the demand.) A book loses if wanting the per-
sonal element, gains when this is insinuated, or comes to
the front occasionally, blending history with mythology.

My favorite books have a personaHty and complexion
as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed
into the paragraphs and smUed upon me as I read his
illustrated pages. Nor could I spare them from my table
or shelves, though I should not open the leaves for a
twelve-month ; — the sight of them, the knowledge
that they are within reach, accessible at any moment,
rewards me when I invite their company. Borrowed
books are not mine while in hand. I covet ownership in
the contents, and fancy that he who is conversant with
these is the rightful owner, and moreover, that the true
scholar owes to scholars a catalogue of his chosen volumes,
that they may learn from whence his entertainment dur-
ing leisure moments. Next to a personal introduction,
a list of one's favorite authors were the best admittance
to his character and manners. . . .

A. Bronson Alcott
Tablets: Boolis
29

The Friendship of B(X)ks

T) UT it is not less true that there are books which are of
■^ that importance in a man's private experience as to
verify for him the fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael
Scott, or of the old Orpheus of Thrace, — books which take
rank in our life with parents and lovers and passionate ex-
periences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so
authoritative, — books which are the work and the proof
of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world
which they paint, that though one shuts them with
meaner ones, he feels his exclusion from them to accuse
his way of hving.

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library.
A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be
picked out of all civil countries in a thousand years have
set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom.
The men themselves were hid a,nd inaccessible, solitary,
impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the
thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend
is here written out in transparent words to us, the stran-
gers of another age.

We owe to books those general benefits which come
from high intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often
owe to them the perception of immortality. They im-
part sympathetic activity to the moral power. Go with
mean people and you think life is mean. Then read Plu-
tarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men
of positive quality, with heroes and demigods standing
aroimd us, who will not let us sleep. Then, they address
the imagination : only poetry inspires poetry. They be-
come the organic culture of the time. College education
is the reading of certain books which the common sense
of all scholars agrees will represent \ii^ ^leaca already

Friends at Home

accumulated. If you know that, — for instance m
geometry, if you have read Euclid and Laplace, — your
opinion has some value ; if you do not know these, you are
not entitled to give any opinion on the subject. When-
ever any sceptic or bigot claims to be heard on the ques-
tions of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar with
the books of Plato, where all his pert objections have once
for all been disposed of. If not, he has no right to our
time. Let him go and find himself answered there.

R. W. Emerson
Society and Solitude: Books

The Library <::y <::y <::y <::y <::y <::y -^^^

"T ET there be Light ! " God spake of old,
■"-^ And over chaos dark and cold,
And through the dead and formless frame
Of nature, life and order came.

Faint was the light at first that shone
On giant fern and mastodon.
On half-formed plant and beast of prey,
And man as rude and wild as they.

Age after age, like waves overran
The earth, uplifting brute and man ;
And mind, at length, in s)mabols dark
Its meanings traced on stone and bark.

On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll.
On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
Man wrote his thoughts ; the ages passed.
And lo J the Press was found at last \

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

Then dead souls woke ; the thoughts of men
Whose bones were dust revived again ;
The cloister's silence found a tongue.
Old prophets spake, old poets sung.

And here, to-day, the dead look down,
The kings of mind again we crown ;
We hear the voices lost so long.
The sage's word, the sibyFs song.

Here Greek and Roman find themselves
Alive along these crowded shelves ;
And Shakespere treads again his stage.
And Chaucer paints anew his age.

As if some Pantheon's marbles broke
Their stony trance, and hved and spoke.
Life thrills along the alcoved hall,
The lords of thought awake our call.

J. G. Whettier

T) OOKS themselves, after long companionship, come to
■^-^ have an actual personality for many of us. They are
to me "a substantial world," in more senses than Words-
worth's. The material tangible volume becomes a per-
sonal friend, — like the familiar walking-stick, or well-
accustomed pipe. The very leather and lettering form
themselves into a coimtenance — sometimes quite as ex-
pressive as some of those which belong to our himian
flesh-and-blood companions. . . . Let me confess that
I have a distinct affection for my books wholly inde-
pendent of any Hterary gratification to be derived from

Friends at Home

them. Some of those which I could least bear to part
with are books which I never have read, and know that I
never shaU read, in the flesh. Just as one can sit in silence
with an old and intimate friend, or walk by his side with a
quiet satisfaction, without caring to be continually chat-
tering, and the feeling of companionship is none the less
real because each is pursuing at the moment his own sep-
arate line of thought ; — so it is with some of the occu-
pants of my study-shelves. I look lovingly at their hon-
est faces (I have already said that a book's face Hes in its
back), wearing the same famiUar aspect that they have
worn for years; I know that there is good stuflf there
within, should I ever have occasion for its use, and am
perfectly content with this kind of inheritance in posse.
Good heavens ! how many dear old friends have we all,
from whom a three days' visit would be utterly insupport-
able, if they were boimd to give utterance, and we to lis-
ten, during all that time, to all that is in their excellent
hearts ; or if we were boimd to keep them incessantly in
conversation ! And what a thinning there would be both
of books and booksellers, if no one was allowed to possess
or hire a book which he did not mean to read !

So it becomes an increasing delight to me, the lazier I
grow in the matter of actual reading, to sit in my arm-
chair in the Kttle room which is called my "Study," and
look rotmd at the faces (miscalled the backs) of my old
friends who are ranged round its four walls.
Blackwood's Magazine: The Companionship of Books

"D OOKS to me, that is those of our best writers, are ever

-^^ new ; the books may be the same, but I am chaxv^ed.

Every seven years gives me a different, oiten ^.>Ki^^t^

^ 33

The Friendship of Books

appreciation of those I like. Every good book is worth
reading three times at least.

Charles Bray
Phases of Opinion and Experience during
a Long Life. An AtUobiograpky

/^H ! but books are such safe company ! They keep
^^ your secrets well ; they never boast that they made
your eyes glisten, or your cheeks flush, or your heart throb.
You may take up your favorite author, and love him at a
distance just as warmly as you like, for all the sweet fan-
cies and glowing thoughts that have winged your lonely
hours so fleetly and so sweetly. Then you may close the
book, and lean your cheek against the cover, as if it were
the face of a dear friend ; shut your eyes and soliloquize
to your heart's content, without fear of misconstruction,
even though you should exclaim in the fulness of your
enthusiasm, "What an adorable soid that man hasJ^*
You may put the volume imder your pillow, and let your
eye and the first ray of morning light fall on it together,
and nothing shall rob you of that dehcious pleasure.
You may have a thousand petty, provoking, irritating
annoyances through the day, and you shall come back
again to your dear old book, and forget them all in dream-
land. It shall be a friend that shall be always at hand ;
that shall never try you by caprice, or pain you by forget-
fulness, or wound you by distrust.

Sara P. Parton (Fanny Fern)
Fern Leaves

TVyTARK, there. We get no good
•*-^-^ By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits, — so muc\iYv.d^

Friends at Home

By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth —
'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

• •••••

Books, books, books I
I had found the secret of a garret-room
Piled high with cases in my father's name,
Piled high, packed large, — where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, puUing through the gap.
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it best
Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read I
My books I At last because the time was ripe,
I chanced upon the poets.

E. B. Browning
Aurora Leigh

O ADLY as some old mediaeval knight

*^ Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield.

The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,
So I behold these books upon their shi^,

The Friendship of Books

My ornaments and arms of other days ;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self,
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant wa3rs,
In which I walked, now clouded and confused.

H. W. LONGFELLpW

To my Books o -Qy -^^^^ -Oy

OILENT companions of the lonely hour,
^^ Friends, who can never alter or forsake,
Who for inconstant roving have no power,
And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take.
Let me return to you ; this turmoil ending
Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought.
And, o'er your old familiar pages bending.
Refresh my mind with many a tranquH thought :
Till, happily meeting there, from time to time.
Fancies, the audible echo of my own,
'Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime
My native language spoke in friendly tone.
And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell
On these, my imripe musings, told so well.

Mrs. C. Norton

TTOW oft, at evening, when the mind, o'erwrought,
-■- -*• Finds, in dim reverie, repose from thought.
Just at that hour when soft subsiding day
Slants on the glimmering shelves its latest ray ;
Along those darkling files I ponder slow,
And muse, how vast the debt to books we owe.
Yes I friends they are I and iiiends \>qio^ >cki^ \iCk\?ks»\.V

Friends at Home

Hopes for the future I memories for the past I
With them, no fear of leisure unemployed ;
Let come the leisure, they shall fill the void:
With them, no dread of joys that fade from view ;
They stand beside us, and our youth renew ;
Telling fond tales of that exalted time.
When lore was bliss, and power was in its prime.
Come then, delicious converse still to hold.
And still to teach, ye long-loved volumes old I
• •••••

And sweet 'twill be, or hope would so believe,
When close round life its fading tints of eve.
To tiun again our earlier volumes o'er,
And love them then, because we Ve loved before ;
And inly bless the waning hour that brings
A will to lean once more on simple things.

John Kenyon
Poems

TN my garden I spend my days ; in my library I spend
-*" my nights. My interests are divided between my
geraniiuns and my books. With the flower I am in the
present ; with the book I am in the past. I go into my
library, and all history imrolls before me. I breathe the
morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses
yet Hngered in it, while it vibrated only to the world's
first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. I see
the Pyramids building ; I hear the shoutings of the armies
of Alexander ; I feel the groimd shake beneath the march
of Cambyses. I sit as in a theatre, — the stage is time,
the play is the play of the world. What a sp^c\a.dfc\l^'^
What kingly pomp, what processioiis file pecsA., -^^aaX- OiNi^Sk

The Friendship of Books

bum to heaven, what crowds of captives are dragged at
the chariot-wheels of conquerors ! I hiss, or cry " Bravo,"
when the great actors come on the shaking stage. I am a
Roman emperor when I look at a Roman coin. I lift
Homer, and I shout with Achilles in the trenches. The
silence of the impeopled S)nian plains, the out-comings
and in-goings of the patriarchs, Abraham and Ishmael,
Isaac in the fields at eventide, Rebekah at the well,
Jacob's guile, Esau's face reddened by desert sun-heat,
Joseph's splendid funeral procession, — all these things
I find within the boards of my Old Testament. What a
silence in those old books as of a half -peopled world;
what bleating of flocks ; what green pastoral rest ; what
indubitable human existence ! Across brawling centuries
of blood and war I hear the bleating of Abraham's flocks,
the tinkling of the bells of Rebekah's camels. O men and
women so far separated yet so near, so strange yet so
well-known, by what miraculous power do I know ye all !
Books are the true Elysian fields, where the spirits of the
dead converse ; and into these fields a mortal may venture
imappalled. What king's court can boast such company ?
What school of philosophy such wisdom? The wit of
the ancient world is glancing and flashing there. There
is Pan's pipe, there are the songs of Apollo. Seated in my
library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my
books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the
supernatural. They are not collections of printed pages,
they are ghosts. I take one down, and it speaks with me
in a tongue not now heard on earth, and of men and
things of which it alone possesses knowledge. I call my-
self a solitary, but sometimes I think I misapply the term.
No man sees more ccttnpany tlaan 1 do. \ \x^.N^ mth

Friends at Home

mightier cohorts around me than ever did Timour or
Genghis Khan on their fiery marches. I am a sovereign
in my library, but it is the dead, not the living, that
attend my levees.

Alexander Smith
DreanUhorp: Books and Gardens

The Library 'Qy 'Qy 'Qy -<c^ -c^ -^^ -<c^

'ERE, e'en the sturdy democrat may find
Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind ;
While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown,
How Learning's patents abrogate their own.
A goodly company and fair to see :
Royal plebeians ; earls of low degree ;
Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime ;
Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime.
Crowd here together, like the quaint array
Of jostling neighbors on a market day :
Homer and Milton — can we call them blind ? —
Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind ;
Shakespeare, who calmly looked creation through,
"Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new, —
. Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene,
He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien ;
Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic power
Xantippe proved in many a trying hour ;
And Aristophanes, whose humor nm
Li vain endeavor to be — "cloud" the sxm;
Majestic iEschylus, whose glowing page
Holds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage ;
Pindar, whose Odes, replete with heavenly fire.
Proclaim the master of the Grecian Vyie •,

The Friendship of Books

Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line
Devote to Venus and the god of wine.
I love vast libraries ; yet there is a doubt
If one be better with them or without, —
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed.
Knows the high art of what and how to read.
At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink.
But 'tis a nobler privilege to think ;
And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mind
May make the nectar which it cannot find.
'Tis well to borrow from the good and great ;
'Tis wise to learn ; 'tis godlike to create.

John Godfrey Saxe

T X rHAT is a great love of books ? It is something like
^ ^ a personal introduction to the great and good men
of all past times. Books, it is true, are silent as you see
them on' their shelves ; but, silent as they are, when I enter
a library I feel as if almost the dead were present, and I
know if I put questions to these books they will answer
me with all the faithfulness and fulness which has been
left in them by the great men who have left the books with
us. Have none of us, or may I not say are there any of us
who have not, felt some of this feeling when in a great
library? When you are within its walls, and see these
shelves, these thousands of volumes, and consider for a
moment who they are that wrote them, who has gathered
them together, for whom they are intended, how much
wisdom they contain, what they tell the future ages, it is
impossible not to feel something of solemnity and tran-
guiDity when you are spending time in rooms like these ;
and If you come to houses of less iiOte,yoMiffA>Sat^\\'^

Friends at Home

that are of great estimation and which in a less degree
are able to afford mental aliment to those who are con-
nected with them ; and I am bound to say — and if any
one cares very much for anything else, they will not blame
me — I say to them, you may have in a house costly
pictures and costly ornaments, and a great variety of
decoration, yet, so far as my judgment goes, I would pre-
fer to have one comfortable room well stocked with books
to all you can give me in the way of decoration which the
highest art can supply. The only subject of lamentation
is — one feels that always, I think, in the presence of a
library — that life is too short, and I am afraid I must
say also that our industry is so far deficient that we seem
to have no hope of a full enjoyment of the ample repast
that is spread before us. In the houses of the humble
a little library in my opinion is a most precious possession.

John Bright
Speech at the Birmingham Free Library

"D OOKS are our household gods ; and we cannot prize
•^ them too highly. They are the only gods in all
the Mythologies that are ever beautiful and unchange-
able ; for they betray no man, and love their lovers. . . .
Amongst the many things we have to be thankful for,
as the result of modem discoveries, surely this of printed
books is the highest of all ; and I, for one, am so sensible
of its merits that I never think of the name of Gutenberg
without feelings of veneration and homage. . . .

Who does not love John Gutenberg ? — the man that
with his leaden types has made the invisible thoughts
and imaginations of the Soul visible and readable to all and
by all, and secured for the worthy a doxibk \Tra£VQrt\aXa^

(

The Friendship of Books

The birth of this person was an era in the world's history
second to none save that of the Advent of Christ. The
dawn of printing was the outburst of a new revelation,
which, in its ultimate unfoldings and consequences, are
alike inconceivable and immeasurable. . . .

Formerly, the Ecclesiastics monopolized the literature
of the world ; they were indeed in many cases the Authors
and Transcribers of books ; and we are indebted to them
for the preservation of the old learning. Now, every
Mechanic is the possessor of a Library, and many have
Plato and Socrates, as well as Chaucer and the Bards,
for his companions. I call this a heavenly privilege,
and the greatest of all known miracles, notwithstanding
it is so cheap and common. Plato died above two
.thousand years ago, yet in these printed books he lives
and speaks forever. ... I think we should aU of us be
grateful for books ; they are our best friends and most
faithful companions. They instruct, cheer, elevate, and
ennoble us ; and in whatever mood we go to them, they
never frown upon us, but receive us with cordial and
loving sincerity; neither do they blab, or tell tales of us
when we are gone, to the next comer ; but honestly, and
with manly frankness, speak to our hearts in admonition
or encouragement. I do not know how it is with other
men, but I have so much reverence for these silent and
beautiful friends that I feel in them to have an immortal
and divine possession, which is more valuable to me than
many estates and kingdoms. ... I like to be alone in
my chamber, and obey the muse or the spirit. We make
too little of books, and have quite lost the meaning of
contemplation. Our times are too busy ; too exclusively
au/ward in their tendency ; and men laaive \o?>t their bal-

Friends at Home

ance in the whirlpools of commerce and the fierce tor-
nadoes of f)olitical strife. I want to see more poise in
men, more self-possession ; and these can only be obtained
by communion with books. I lay stress on the word com-
munion, because, although reading is common enough,
communion is but little known as a modem experience.
If an author be worth anything, he is worth bottoming.
. . . Books should be our constant companions, for
they stimulate thought, and hold a man to his purpose.
George Searle Phillips (January Searle)
The Choice of Books

"CpVERY book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter
"'--' to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take
his meaning; they find private messages, assurances of
love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for them in
every comer. The public is but a generous patron who
defrays the postage. Yet though the letter is directed to
all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing it on
the outside to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is
not proud of his friends?

Robert Loms Stevenson
Travels with a Donkey

OXJMMER fading, winter comes —
^ Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs.
Window robins, winter rooks.
And the picture story-books.

Water now is turned to stone
Nurse and I can walk upon ;
Still we find the flowing brooks
And the picture story-books.

The Friendship of Books

All the pretty things put by,
Wait upon the children's eye,
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,
In the picture story-books.

We may see how all things are.
Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks.
In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-comer days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books ?

R. L. Stevenson
A Child's Garden of Verses

TrjX)R I am speaking now of the use of books in our lei-
•^ sure hours. I will take the books of simple enjo3anent,
books that one can laugh over and weep over ; and learn
from, and laugh or weep again ; which have in them hu-
mor, truth, human nature in all its sides, pictures of the
great phases of human history ; and withal soimd teach-
ing in honesty, manliness, gentleness, patience. Of such
books, I say, books accepted by the voice of all mankind
as matchless and immortal, there is a complete library at
hand for every man, in his every mood, whatever his
tastes or his acquirements. To know merely the hun-
dred volumes or so of which I have spoken would involve
the study of years. But who can say that these books are
read as they might be, that we do not neglect them for

Friends at Home

something in a new cover, or which catches our eye in a
library ? It is not merely to the idle and unreading world
that this complaint holds good. It is the insatiable
readers themselves who so often read to the least
profit. Of course they have read all these household
books many years ago, read them, and judged them, and
put them away forever. They will read infinite disserta-
tions about these authors; they will write you essays
on their works; they will talk most learned criticism
about them. But it never occurs to them that such
books have a daily and perpetual value, such as the devout
Christian finds in his morning and evening psalm ; that
the music of them has to sink into the soul by continual
renewal ; that we have to live with them and in them, till
their ideal world habitually surrounds us in the midst of
the real world ; that their great thoughts have to stir us
daily anew, and their generous passion has to warm us
hour by hour ; just as we need each day to have our eyes
filled by the light of heaven, and our blood warmed by the
glow of the sun. I vow that, when I see men, forgetful of
the perennial poetry of the world, muckraking in a litter
of fugitive refuse, I think of that wonderful scene in the
Pilgrim's Progress, where the Interpreter shows the way-
farers the old man raking in the straw and dust, whilst he
will not see the Angel who offers him a crown of gold and
precious stones.

This gold, refined beyond the standard of the gold-
smith, these pearls of great price, the united voice of
mankind has assured us are found in those immortal
works of every age and of every race whose names are
household words throughout the world. And we shut
our eyes to them for the sake oi the sti^j^ ^xA^iVX&x ^\

The Friendship of Books

the nearest library or bookshop. A lifetime will hardly
suffice to know, as they ought to be known, these great
masterpieces of man's genius. How many of us can name
ten men who may be said entirely to know (in the sense
in which a thoughtful Christian knows the Psalms and
the Epistles) even a few of the greatest ? I take them
almost at random, and I name Homer, iEschylus,
Aristophanes, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeare,
Cervantes, Calderon, Comeille, Moliere, Milton, Field-
ing, Goethe, Scott. Of course every one has read
these, but who really knows them, the whole meaning
of them ? They are too often taken "as read," as they
say in the railway meetings.

Take of this immortal choir the hveliest, the easiest,
the most familiar, take for the moment the three —
Cervantes, Moliere, Fielding. Here we have three men
who imite the profoimdest insight into himian nature
with the most inimitable wit: Penseroso and L' Allegro
in one; "sober, steadfast, and demure," and yet with
"Laughter holding both his sides." And in all three,
different as they are, is an imfathomable pathos, a
brotherly pity for all human weakness, sf)ontaneous
sympathy with all human goodness. To know Don
Quixote, that is to follow out the whole mystery of its
double world, is to know the very tragi-comedy of human
life, the contrast of the ideal with the real, of chivalry with
good sense, of heroic failure with vulgar utility, of the
past with the present, of the impossible sublime with the
f)ossible commonplace. And yet to how many reading
men is Don Quixote little more than a book to laugh
over in boyhood? So Moliere is read or witnessed; we
laugh and we praise. But how little do we study with

Friends at Home

insight that elaborate gallery of human character;
those consummate types of almost every social phe-
nomenon; that genial and just judge of imposture, folly,
vanity, affectation, and insincerity; that tragic picture
of the brave man bom out of his time, too proud and
too just to be of use in his age! Was ever truer word
said than that about Fielding as "the prose Homer of
htmMn nature" ? And yet how often do we forget in
Tom Jones the beauty of unselfishness, the wellspring
of goodness, the tenderness, the manly healthiness and
heartiness underlying its frolic and its satire, because we
are absorbed, it may be, in laughing at its humor, or are
simply irritated by its grossness I Nay, Robinson Crusoe
contains (not for boys but for men) more religion, more
philosophy, more psychology, more political economy,
more anthropology, than are foimd in many elaborate
treatises on these special subjects. And yet, I imagine,
grown men do not often read Robinson Crusoe, as the
article has it, "for instruction of life and ensample of
manners." The great books of the world we have once
read; we take them as read; we believe that we read
them; at least, we believe that we know them. But
to how few of us are they the daily mental food ! For
once that we take down our Milton, and read a book
of that "voice," as Wordsworth says, "whose soimd is
like the sea," we take up fifty times a magazine with
something about Milton, or about Milton's grandmother,
or a book stuffed with curious facts about the houses
in which he lived, and the juvenile ailments of his first
wife.

Frederic Hakri&o^
The Ckoice o] BooV.^

The Friendship of Books

nPHEN, warmly walled with books,
-^ While my wood-fire supplies the sim's defect,
Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams,
I take my May down from the happy shelf
Where perch the world's rare song-birds in a row,
Waiting my choice to open with full breast,
And beg an alms of spring-time, ne'er denied
Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods
Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year.

James Russell Lowell
Under the Willows

nPHE books which reward me have been foimd an equal
-^ resource in both respects, both against the weather
from without and from within, against physical and
mental storms; and, if it might be so, I would pass on
to others the comfort which a seasonable word has often
brought to me. If I were to look round these shelves,
what a host of well-loved names would rise up, in those
who have said brave or wise words to comfort and aid
their brethren in adversity. It seems as if Uttle remained
to be said ; but in truth there is always waste land in
the human heart to be tilled.

Sir Arthur Helps
Companions of my Solitude

T LOVE my books as drinkers love their wine ;
-*- The more I drink, the more they seem divine ;
With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er.
And each fresh draught is sweeter than before I
Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be.
Solace of solitude, — bonds oi sodeV^X

Friends at Home

I love my books I they are companions dear,
Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere ;
Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,
And with the nobly gifted of our own ;
If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind.
Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find.

Francis Bennoch
My Books

T^HE Library entered, the door dosed, no sound to
-^ break the solemn hush which reigns around, one
soon discerns how manifold are the ways in which the
mind is tranquillized, deliciously solicited and sustained
in its attention, by the sweet synod of Book-souls.
Here it is good to be, in every mood; here, you can
raise pleasure to her height ; you can, also, purge oflF the
gloom which overcasts the mind in outer concerns, and
heal the scar of the world's corrosive fires, if you will
only make a beginning, if you will, indeed, only come
hither. . . .

Sjonpathy through Books has indeed a divineness in
it ; attachments may spring up which the world's spirit
cannot comprehend ; which are uninfluenced by opinions
or diverse lines of reading, and which decay not with
the lapse of years. The amenities of literature are in-
numerable, and their delicacy and deliciousness denote
not fragility ; they do not wither on the threshold of the
Library, nor sink into the darkness of the grave ; there
is the immortality of the tenderness and beauty, which
smile over all the universe, and in the fields of heaven.

Frank Caru (l.a\mc^\Q\. Ca'^'s.^
E 49

The Friendship of Books

' I ^HE Book- world is one sphere in which I alwa3rs find my-
-*■ self youthful in heart and memories. As flowers are the
earth's first sweetest mercies, so are books one of the soul's
most exquisite delights — frequently the balm for wounded
affections, and the genial companions of our silent hours.

Alexander Lamont
Wayside Wells; or. Thoughts from Deepdale

"D OOKS are the windows through which the soul looks
^-^ out. A home without books is like a room without
windows. No man has a right to bring up his children
without surrounding them with books, if he has the means
to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats
them I Children learn to read by being in the presence
of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading
and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge, in a
young mind, is almost a warrant against the inferior
excitement of passions and vices. Let us pity these
poor rich men who live barrenly in great bookless houses I
Let us congratulate the poor that, in our day, books
are so cheap that a man may every year add a hun-
dred volumes to his Hbrary for the price his tobacco and
his beer would cost him. Among the earliest ambitions
to be excited in clerks, workmen, journeymen, and,
indeed, among all that are struggling up in life from
nothing to something, is that of forming and continually
adding to a library of good books. A little library, grow-
ing larger every year, is an honorable part of a man's
history. It is a man's duty to have books. A library
is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.

Henry Ward Beecher
Sermons

Friends at Home

TT is because our books are friends that do change, and
^ remind us of change, that we should keep them with
us, even at a little inconvenience, and not turn them
adrift in the world to find a dusty asylum in cheap book-
stalls.

. Andrew Lang
The Library

"VTOT only does a library contain "infinite riches in a
•^ ^ little room," but we may sit at home and yet be in
all quarters of the earth. We may travel round the world
with Captain Cook or Darwin, with Kingsley or Ruskin
who will show us much more perhaps than ever we should
see for ourselves. The world itself has no limits for us ;
Humboldt and Herschel will carry us far away to the
mysterious nebulae, beyond the sun and even the stars :
time has no more bounds than space ; history stretches
out behind us, and geology will carry us back for millions
of years before the creation of man, even to the origin
of the material Universe itself. Nor are we limited to
one plane of thought. Aristotle and Plato will transport
us into a sphere none the less delightful because we can-
not appreciate it without some training.

Comfort and consolation, refreshment and happiness,
may indeed be found in his library by any one "who
shall bring the golden key that imlocks its silent door."
A library is true fairyland, a very palace of delight, a
haven of repose from the storms and troubles of the world.
Rich and poor can enjoy it equally, for here, at least,
wealth gives no advantage. We may make a library,
if we do but rightly use it, a true paradise on earth, a
garden of Eden without its one dra^iback^ lot ?i^Ss» ^'^^i.

The Friendship of Books

to us, including, and especially, the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge, for which we are told that our first mother
sacrificed all the Pleasures of Paradise. Here we may
read the most important histories, the most exciting
volumes of travels and adventures, the most interesting
stories, the most beautiful poems; we may meet the
most eminent statesmen, poets, and philosophers, benefit
by the ideas of the greatest thinkers, and enjoy the
grandest creations of human genius.

Sir John Lubbock
The Pleasures of Life: A Song of Books

"DOOKS are delightful society. If you go into a room
^^ filled with books, and even without taking them down
from their shelves, they seem to speak to you, seem to
welcome you, seem to tell you that they have something
inside their covers that will be good for you, and that
they are willing and desirous to impart it to you. Value
them, and endeavor to turn them to account.

W. E. Gladstone
Address ai Sdtny, i88g

TN this world of books, as in the world of life, you
-^ will find there are not so very many real friends after
all. You may consider yourself fortunate if you find
a hundred or even fifty. Having found them, " grapple
them to your soul with hooks of steel." If you are
worthy of their friendship; if you are courteous and
grateful for their courtesy and lovingkindness, they will
keep nothing from you. They will capture you with
their enchanter eyes and lead you to pleasant places.
In their company you will travel ric\j\y aii"^ Yw^ m ts.Ocv

Friends at Home

experiences. Shakespeare's revealing magic will make
you know real men and women as you could never have
known them of your own knowledge. Homer will chant
to you of the deeds of his heroes. Icelandic poets will
troll the Sagas of their Vikings. Historians will imroU
the scrolls of time and blazon on them the many-colored
robes of the people of the world as they pass from the
darkness across the light into the darkness again. All
these things shall be done for you alone ; not in a public
place, but in the quiet seclusion of your study or the
hidden nook of your smnmer garden. Here is enough
possibility of experience to last you your lifetime. Do
not be overeager to make too many acquaintances at
one time. The gods were ever jealous of each other.
Therefore go to each as your spirit moves you, and leave
him the moment you feel you have touched hands. In
that moment there will have been imparted to you some
of the author's spirit which you will do well to keep
as your own. It is the touch that shall make you kin
with all the rest. The hour you set aside for the reading
of one of these books should be a sacred hour; for the
spirit of the writer is the spirit of the place for the time
being, and the ground you stand on is therefore made
holy. But be of good courage, of good cheer, of a clean
mind and a tempered spirit, and the great one shall find
it pleasant to remain with you and, mayhap, abide with
you always. So shall you, yourself, become a good
friend, a true lover, a fine father, and an excellent good
fellow.

"A book, like a person," said Walter Pater, "has
its fortunes with one; is lucky and uiA\ick^,\iv\k!kg.v^^-
cise moment of its falling in our way, and ol\.eft.Vj ^Rfcoft.

The Friendship of Books

happy accident counts with us for something more than
its independent value." That is the moment to which
I have just referred. It will be often wise to put off
the reading of a book ; perhaps only to glance idly at its
pages to see if your mood is just then the book's mood,
or if your mood finds its proper air in the book. If you
are not held, let it go ; the right time has not yet come ;
but it certainly will. " Some happy accident," mayhap,
will send you to it, or it to you, and then it will become
the wonder-working thing which you had sought for
your life long. A new world will then open before you
at the touch of this magician's wand. Like the apple
that dropped into Newton's lap, it may send you explor-
ing mysteries and lead you to a new revelation; or it
may inspire you to some great deed, or bring you back
loving to the dear one you parted from in anger.

To be fortunate in such a happy accident, the books
must be at hand where you can see them at all times of
your leisure. Let them be about you, even if you do not
touch them for years. They can wait, if you can. But
let them be there ; for you never know when the voice in
the temple of your mind will call you. And let them
be there also for the sake of their presence. Their silent
breathing will perfume the air of your home and make
it a place pleasant to live in. Their silent companion-
ship will appeal to the better part of you, and you will
hesitate in your follies; you must be a gentleman
to live with gentlemen. "Come, my best friends,
my books," you will say with Cowley, "and lead me

on.

Temple Scott
The Pleasure oj Ej&oAm^

INSPIRERS OF THE HEART

DOOKS never pall on me, . . . They discourse with

us, they take counsel with us, and are united to us by

a certain living chatty familiarity. And not only does

each book inspire the sense that it belongs to its readers,

but it also suggests the name of others, and one begets the

desire of the other,

Francesco Petrarca

Epistola de Rebus Familiaribus

LT/HO reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
Uncertain and unsettled still remains ;
Deep-versed in books, but shallow in himself,

John Milton
Paradise Regained

jDOOKS are indispensable, not for what they teach, b

for what they suggest,

Marie Valyere

Inspirers of the Heart

To his Books

^^ -^^ -^^ -^^ ^^ -^^ ^^

"D RIGHT books I the perspective to our weak sights,
^^ The clear projection of discerning lights,
Burning and shining thoughts, man's posthume day.
The track of fee'd soxils, and their milkie way ;
The dead alive and busie, the still voice
Of enlarged spirits, kind Heaven's white decoys I
Who lives with you lives like those knowing flowers,
Which in commerce with hght spend all their hours ;
Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun.
But with glad haste imveil to kiss the Sim.
Beneath you all is dark and a dead night.
Which whoso lives in wants both health and right.

By sucking you the wise, like bees, do grow
Healing and rich, though this they do most slow.
Because most choicely ; for as great a store
Have we of Books as bees of herbs, or more ;
And the great task to try, then know, the good.
To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
Is a rare scant performance. For man dyes
Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flyes.
But you were all choice flowers ; all set and dressed
By old sage florists, who well knew the best ;
And I amidst you all am turned to weed,
Not wanting knowledge, but for want of heed.
Then thank thyself, wild fool, that would'st not be
Content to know, — what was too much for thee.

Henry Vaughan
SUex Scintillans

The Friendship of Books

nPHE reading of books, what is it but conversing with
-*• the wisest men of all ages and all countries, who
thereby communicate to us their most deliberate thoughts,
choicest notions, and best inventions, couched in good
expression, and digested in exact method ?

Isaac Barrow

Sermons: "Of Industry in our Particular

CaUing as Scholars"

The difference between a Story and a Poem

A POEM is the very image of life expressed in its eter-
•^^ nal truth. There is this difference between a story
and a poem, that a story is a catalogue of detached facts,
which have no other connection than time, place, circum-
stance, cause, and effect ; the other is the creation of actions
according to the unchangeable forms of human nature
as existing in the mind of the creator, which is itself the
image of all other minds. The one is partial, and applies
only to a definite period of time, and a certain combina-
tion of events which can never again recur ; the other is
universal, and contains within itself the germ of a relation
to whatever motives or actions have place in the possible
varieties of liuman nature. Time, which destro)rs the
beauty and the use of the story of particular facts,
stripped of the poetry which should invest them,
augments that of poetry, and forever develops new
and wonderful applications of the eternal truth which
it contains. Hence epitomes have been called the
moths of just history; they eat out the poetry of it.
A story of particular facts is as a xmiiot ^nYidi obscures

Inspirers of the Heart

and distorts that which should be beautiful: poetry

is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is

distorted.

P. B. Shelley

A Defence of Poetry

A ND of this let every one be assured — that he owes
•^^^ to the impassioned books which he has read, many
a thousand more of emotions than he can consciously
trace back to them. Dim by their origination, these
emotions yet arise in him, and mould him through Hfe like
the forgotten incidents of childhood.

Thomas de Quincey
Essays on Pope

TTHE book, and the events that marked the time of its
-^ perusal, weld into one ; and especially it wiU be so
if, in any instance, the heavy hammer of suffering and
sorrow has come, stroke upon stroke, so as to make all
one in the memory. Taking a glance round at my own
shelves, I see books, never to be forgotten — for they
were in course of reading at such and such a time.

Isaac Taylor
Personal Recollections ("Good Words," 1865)

A/T Y days among the Dead are pass'd ;
^^^ Around me I behold.
Where'er these casual eyes are cast.

The mighty minds of old ;
My never failing friends are they.
With whom I converse day by day,

The Friendship of Books

With them I take delight in weal,

And seek relief in woe ;
And while I understand and feel

How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead : with them

I live in long-past years ;
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,

Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an himible mind.

My hopes are with the Dead, anon

My place with them will be.
And I with them shall travel on

Through all Futurity ;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

Robert Southey

VT'OUNG readers — you, whose hearts are open, whose
•** understandings are not yet hardened, and whose
feelings are not yet exhausted nor encrusted with the
world, take from me a better rule than any profession of
criticism will teach you ! Would you know whether the
tendency of a book is good or evil, examine in what state
of mind you lay it down. Has it induced you to suspect
that what you have, been accustomed to think imlawf ul,
may after aJl be innocent, and that may be harmless

Inspirers of the Heart

which you have hitherto been taught to think dangerous ?
Has it tended to make you dissatisfied and impatient
imder the control of others, and disposed you to relax
in that self-government without which both the laws of
God and man tell us there can be no virtue, and conse-
quently no happiness ? Has it attempted to abate your
admiration and reverence for what is great and good,
and to diminish in you the love of your country, and your
fellow-creatures ? Has it addressed itself to your pride,
your vanity, your selfishness, or any other of your evil
propensities ? Has it defiled the imagination with what
is loathsome, and shocked the heart with what is mon-
strous ? Has it disturbed the sense of right and wrong
which the Creator has implanted in the human soul?
If so, if you are conscious of all or any of these effects, or
if having escaped from all, you have felt that such were
the effects it was intended to produce, throw the book in
the fire, whatever name it may bear in the title-page !
Throw it in the fire, yoimg man, though it should have
been the gift of a friend ; yoimg lady, away with the whole
set, though it should be the prominent furniture of a
rosewood bookcase.

Robert Southey
The Doctor

TJOW peacefidly they stand together, . . . Papists
-*" -■• and Protestants side by side ! Their very dust
reposes not more quietly in the cemetery. Ancient and
Modem, Jew and Gentile, Mahommedan and Crusader,
French and English, Spaniards and PoTtvi^esfc^T^MVOcL
and Brazilians, £ghtmg their old bat\k^, ^eoiXJcj \tfy«

The Friendship of Books

upon the same shelf. Femam Lopez and Pedro de
Ayala ; John de Laet and Barlaeus, with the historians of
Joam Femandes Vieira ; Fox's Martyrs and the Three
Conversions of Father Parsons ; Cranmer and Stephen
Gardiner; Dominican and Franciscan; Jesuit and Phil-
osophe (equally misnamed) ; Churchmen and Sectarians ;
Roundheads and Cavaliers !

Here are God's conduits, grave divines; and here

Is nature's secretary, the philosopher :

And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie

The sinews of a city's mystic body ;

Here gathering chroniclers : and by them stand

Giddy fantastic poets of each land.

Here I possess these gathered treasures of time, the
harvest of so many generations, laid up in my gamers :
and when I go to the window, there is the lake, and the
circle of the mountains, and the illimitable sky. The
smile of the bees.

Sic vos non vohis mellificatis apes,

has often been applied to men who have made literature
their profession; and among them to whom worldly
wealth and worldly honors are objects of ambition, may
have reason enough to acknowledge its applicability.
But it will bear a happier application, and with equal
fitness ; for, for whom is the purest honey hoarded that
the bees of this world elaborate, if it be not for the man
of letters ? The exploits of the kings and heroes of old
serve now to fill story books for his amusement and
instruction. It was to delight his leisure and call forth
Jus admiration that Homer sang and Alexander con-
quered It is to gratify his curiosity \)aa\. ^.^veolMi^rs

Inspirers of the Heart

have traversed deserts and savage countries and navi-
gators have explored the seas from pole to pole. The
revolutions of the planet which he inhabits are but matters
for his speculation; and the deluges and conflagrations
which it has imdergone, problems to exercise his phi-
losophy, ... or fancy. He is the inheritor of whatever
has been discovered by persevering labor, or created by
inventive genius. The wise of all ages have heaped up
a treasure for him, which rust doth not corrupt, and which
thieves cannot break through and steal. . . .

Never can any man*s life have been passed more in
accord with his own inclinations, nor more answerably
to his own desires. Excepting that peace which, through
God's infinite mercy, is derived from a higher source,
it is to literature, humanly speaking, that I am beholden,
not only for the means of subsistence, but for every bless-
ing which I enjoy; . . . health of mind and activity
of mind, contentment, cheerfulness, continual employ-
ments, and therewith continual pleasure. Simvissimavita
indies setUire se fieri meliorent ; and this, as Bacon has
said, and Clarendon repeated, is the benefit that a studi-
ous man enjoys in retirement. To the studies which I
have faithfully pursued, I am indebted for friends with
whom, hereafter, it will be deemed an honor to have
lived in friendship; and as for the enemies which they
have procured to me in sufficient numbers, . . . happily
I am not of the thin-skinned race, . . . they might as
well fire small shot at a rhinoceros, as direct their attacks
upon me. In omnibus requiem quaesiviy said Thomas a
Kempis, sed non inveni nisi in angulis et libellis. I too
have foimd repose where he did, in books and retirement,
but it was there alone I sough.1 ll •. \.o \}iMcsfc x£i^3 \:^?^xiss;^
F 65

The Friendship of Books

under the direction of a merciful Providence, led me be-
times, and the world can offer nothing which should

tempt me from them.

Robert Southey

Sir Thomas Mare

A LL these books are the majestic expressions of the
•^^ universal conscience, and are more to our daily pur-
pose than this yearns almanac or this day*s newspaper.
But they are for the closet, and to be read on the bended
knee. Their communications are not to be given or
taken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out
of the glow of the cheek, and with the throbbing heart.
Friendship should give and take, solitude and time brood
and ripen, heroes absorb and enact them. They are not
to be held by letters printed on a page, but are Hving
characters translatable into every tongue and form of
Hfe. I read them on lichens and bark; I watch them
on waves on the beach ; they fly in birds, they creep in
worms ; I detect them in laughter and blushes and eye-
sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures which
the missionary might well carry over prairie, desert,
and ocean, to Siberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will
find that the spirit which is in them journeys faster than
he, and greets him on his arrival, — was there aheady
long before him. The missionary must be carried by it,
and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geog-
raphy in these things? We call them Asiatic, we call
them primeval; but perhaps that is only optical, for
Nature is always equal to herself, and there are as good
eyes and ears now in the planet as ever were. Only
these ejaculations of the soul ate uttered owe or a few at

Inspirers of the Heart

a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to
make a Bible.

R. W. Emerson
Society and SolUude: Books

(TTILL the final test of poems, or any character or
^ work, remains. The prescient poet projects himself
centuries ahead, and judges performer or performance
after the changes of time. Does it live through them ?
Does it still hold on imtired ? WiU the same style and
the direction of genius to similar points, be satisfactory
now ? . . . Have the marches of tens and himdreds and
thousands of years made willing detoiurs to the right hand
and the left hand for his sake ? Is he beloved long and
long after he is bmied ? . . .

A great poem is for ages and ages in comimon, and for
all degrees and complexions, and all departments and
sects, and for a woman as much as for a man, and a man
as much as a woman. A great poem is no finish to a
man or woman, but rather a beginning.

Walt Whitman
Preface, 1855

The Imitation of Christ " ^^ ^^ -oy <:>y

A T last Maggie's eyes glanced down on the books that
-^^ lay on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her
reverie to turn over listlessly the leaves of the "Portrait
Gallery," but she soon pushed this aside to examine the
little row of books tied together with string. " Beauties of
the Spectator," "Rasselas," "Economy of Human Life,"
" Gregory^s Letters " — she knew tkt soiX. olTaa.\.\.^x ^^iaaX

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

was inside all these : the " Christian Year " — that seemed
to be a hymn-book, and she laid it down again; but
Thomas d Kempis? — the name had come across her
in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every
one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that
strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little,
old, clumsy book with some curiosity ; it had the comers
turned down in many places, and some hand, now for-
ever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-
ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned
from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed.
. . . "Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more
than anything in the world. ... If thou seekest this
or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own
will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free
from care: for in everything somewhat will be wanting,
and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.
. . . Both above and below, which way soever thou
dost turn thee, ever3rwhere thou shalt find the Cross:
and ever3rwhere of necessity thou must have patience,
if thou wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting
crown. . . ."

A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she
read, as if she had been awakened in the night by a strain
of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been
astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one
brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to
point, hardly conscious that she was reading — seeming
rather to listen while a low voice said — ". . . I have
often said imto thee, and now again I say the same. For-
sake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much
inward peace, . . . Then shall a\\vam\m^.^TvaAioiis, evil

Inspirers of the Heart

perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away ; then shall
immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die."
. . . She read on and on in the old book, devouring ea-
gerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern
of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it
after she had been called away, and reading till the sim
went down behind the willows. . . . She knew nothing
of doctrines and systems — of mysticism or quietism;
but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct
communication of a human soul's belief and experience,
and came to Maggie as an imquestioned message.

I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned
book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-
stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters
into sweetness: while expensive sermons and treatises,
newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It
was written down by a hand that waited for the heart's
prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden
anguish, struggle, trust and triumph -not written on
velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are
treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it
remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and
human consolations: the voice of a brother who, ages
ago, felt and suffered and renoimced — in the cloister,
perhaps with the serge gown and tonsured head, with
mudi chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of
speech different from ours — but imder the same silent
far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the
same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness.

George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

T^HINK what a book is — what each one of these
-^ volumes is. It is a portion of the eternal mind, caught
in its process through the world, stamped in an instant, and
preserved for eternity. Think what it is ; that enormous
amount of human S3rmpathy and intelligence that is
contained in these volumes. Compare the state of the
man who is really well acquainted with the whole past
of literature upon the subject on which he is speaking,
with that of the solitary artisan, upon whom, perhaps,
the light of genius has dawned in some great truth — in
some noble aspiration — in some high idea — resting
there, imable to accomplish itself, unable to realize its
meaning, and probably ending in nothing but discontent
or despair. Compare the state of that man, such as he
would be without books, with what that man may be
with books. It is only books that can present exagger-
ated conclusions and false doctrines. It is only, re-
member, what lies in these books that makes all the
difference between the wildest socialism that ever passed
into the mind of a man in this hall, and the deductions
and careful processes of the mind of the student who will sit
at these tables — who will learn humility by seeing what
others have taught before him ; and who will gain from
the sympathy of ages, intelligence and sense for himself.

Lord Houghton
Speech at Manchester Free Library

nPHE mind of a thoughtful looker over a range of

-■■ volumes, of many dates, and a considerable portion

of them old, will sometimes be led into a train of con-

Jectural questions: — Who were t^OLcy, \3aa.\., m various

Inspirers of the Heart

times and places, have had these in their possession?
Perhaps many hands have turned over the leaves, many
eyes have passed along the lines. With what measure
of intelligence, and of approval or dissent, did those
persons req)ectively follow the train of thoughts ? How
many of them were honestly intent on becoming wise
by what they read? How many sincere prayers were
addressed by them to the Eternal Wisdom during the
perusal? How many have been determined, in their
judgment or their actions, by these books? . . . May
not some one of these books be the last that some one
person lived to read? Many that have perused them
are dead; each made an exit in a manner and with
circumstances of its own; what were the manner and
drcimistances in each instance? It was a most solemn
event to that person; but how ignorant concerning it
am I, who now perhaps have my eye on the book which
he read the last ! What a power of association, what
an element of intense significance, would invest some
of these volimies, if I could have a momentary vision of
the last scene of a number of the most remarkable of
their former readers! Of that the books can tell me
nothing; but let me endeavor to bring the fact, that
persons have read them and died, to bear with a salutary
influence on my own mind while I am reading any of
them. Let me cherish that temper of spirit which is
sensible of intimations of what is departed, remaining
and mingling with what is present, and can thus perceive
some monitory glimpses of even the unknown dead.
What multiplied traces of them on some of these books
are perceptible to the imagination, which beholds succes-
sive countenances, long since " chaa^^A axA ^^oX. ^:«^ V

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

bent in attention over the pages ! And the minds which
looked from within through those coimtenances, con-
versing with the thoughts of other minds perhaps long
withdrawn, even at that time, from among men — what

and where are they now ?

John Foster

Introduction to Doddridge's Rise and Progress

of Religion in the Soid

"DOOKS, like everything else, have their appointed
■■^ death-day: The souls of them, unless they be found
worthy of a second birth in a new body, perish with the
paper in which they lived ; and the early folio Hakluy ts,
not from their own want of merit, but from our neglect
of them, were expiring of old age. The j&ve volvmae
quarto edition, published in 1811, so little people then
cared for the exploits of their ancestors, consisted but of
270 copies. It was intended for no more than for curious
antiquaries, or for the great libraries, where it should be
consulted as a book of reference; and among a people,
the greater part of whom had never heard Hakluyt^s
name, the editors are scarcely to be blamed if it never so
much as occurred to them that general readers would care
to have the book within their reach.

And yet those j&ve volmnes may be called the Prose
Epic of the modem EngHsh nation. They contain the
heroic tales of the exploits of the great men in whom the
new era was inaugurated ; not mythic like the Iliads and
the Eddas, but plain broad narratives of substantial
facts, which rival legend in interest and grandeur. What
the old epics were to the royally or nobly bom, this mod-
ern epic is to the common people. N^JeY^aN^ivQ longer

Inspirers of the Heart

kings or princes for chief actors, to whom the heroisni
like the dominion of the world had in time past been con-
fined. But, as it was in the days of the Apostles, when a
few poor fishermen from an obscure lake in Palestine as-
siuned, imder the Divine mission, the spiritual authority
over mankind, so, in the days of our own Elizabeth, the
seamen from the banks of the Thames and the Avon, the
Pl)an and the Dart, self-taught and self-directed, with no
impulse but what was beating in their own royal hearts,
went out across the imknown seas fighting, discovering,
colonizing, and graved out the channels, paving them at
last with their bones, through which the commerce and
enterprise of England has flowed out over all the world.
We can conceive nothing, not the songs of Homer him-
self, which would be read among us with more enthusi-
astic interest than these plain massive tales. . . . The
heroes themselves were the men of the people — the
Joneses, the Smiths, the Davises, the Drakes; and no
courtly pen, with the one exception of Raleigh, lent its
polish or its varnish to set them off. In most cases the
captain himself, or his clerk, or servant, or some unknown
gentieman volimteer sat down and chronicled the voyage
which he had shared ; and thus inorganically arose a col-
lection of writings which, with all their simplicity, are for
nothing more striking tiian for the high moral beauty,
warmed with natural feeling, which displays itself through
all their pages. With us, the sailor is scarcely himself be-
yond his quarter-deck. If he is distinguished in his pro-
fession, he is professional merely; or if he is more than
that, he owes it not to his work as a sailor, but to inde-
pendent domestic culture. With them, their profession
was the school of their nature, a\ng\v.moi3\e^>ic.^XiQtL'^^^

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

most brought out what was mostly nobly human in them ;
and the wonders of earth, and air, and sea, and sky, were a
real intelligible language in which they heard Almighty God
speaking to them. . . . The high nature of these men,
and the high objects which they pursued, will only rise out
and become visible to us, as we can throw ourselves back
into their times and teach our hearts to feel as they felt.

James Anthony Froude
Short Studies on Great Subjects: England's
Forgotten Worthies

T PASS fairly often a couple of hours in the library, not
-^ exactly for my instruction — that ambition cook sen-
sibly — but because, knowing scarcely how to fill up the
time which, for all that, glides on irreparably, I find it less
irksome when I employ it outside than when I wear it
away indoors. Pmrsuits which are to some extent regu-
lated are more in consonance with my dejection than an
access of license which would leave one inert. I experi-
ence greater tranquillity among persons who are silent
like myself, than when alone amidst a boisterous crowd.
I am drawn towards those long halls, some vacant, some
peopled by assiduous students, that antique and chill
storehouse of himian efforts and of all human vanities.
When I dip into Bougainville, Chardin, Laloubere, I
become imbued with the old memory of time-worn hands,
with the rumor of far-off wisdom, or the youth of the for-
timate isles ; but at length forgetting Persepolis, Benares,
and Tinian itself, I focus times and places at the actual
•point whence human faculties perceive them all. I behold
those eager minds who acquire in ^ence 2^.1^ icAL^ whilst

Inspirers of the Heart

the eternal obKvion, rolling over their learned and spell-
bound heads, brings close inevitable death, and prepares
to obliterate in one instant of Nature their existence, their
thought, and their age.

Etienne Pivert de Senancour
Ohermann: Letter XI

T ^ THAT a joy is there in a good book, writ by some
^ ^ great master of thought, who breaks into beauty,
as in summer the meadow into grass and dandelions and
violets, with geraniums, and manifold sweetness. As an
amusement, that of reading is worth all the rest. What
pleasure in science, in literature, in poetry, for any
man who will but open his eye and his heart to take it
in. . . . I once knew a hard-working man, a farmer
and mechanic, who in the winter-nights rose a great
while before day, and out of the darkness coaxed \\\rx\
at least two hours of hard study, and then when the
morning peeped over the eastern hills, he yoked his oxen
and went forth to his daily work, or in his shop he la-
bored all day long; and when the night came, he read
aloud some simple book to his family ; but when they were
snugly laid away in their sleep, the great-minded me-
chanic took to his hard study anew ; and so, year out and
year in, he went on, neither rich nor much honored,
hardly entreated by daily work, and yet he probably
had a happiness in his heart and mind which the whole
coimtry might have been proud to share.

I fear we do not know what a power of immediate pleas-
ure and permanent profit is to be had in a good book.
The books which help you most are tioose '7f\^0[i T£ksik&

The Friendship of Books

you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by
easy reading ; every man that tries it j&nds it so. But a
great book that comes from a great thinker, — it is a ship
of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too.
It sails the ocean, driven by the winds of heaven, break-
ing the level sea of life into beauty where it goes, leaving
behind it a train of sparkling loveliness, widening as the
ship goes on. And what treasures it brings to every land,
scattering the seeds of truth, justice, love, and piety, to
bless the world in ages yet to come.

Theodore Parker
Lessons from the World of MaMer and the World of Man

' T^IS you then burned the library ?

^ I did,

I brought the fire.

— most unheard-of crime.

Crime, wretch, which you upon yourself commit 1

Why, you have quenched the light of your own soul !

*Tis your own torch which you have just put out !

That which your impious madness has dared bum.

Was your own treasure, fortime, heritage !

The Book (the master's bugbear) is your gain I

The Book has ever taken side with you.

A Library implies an act of faith

Which generations still in darkness hid

What ! miscreant, you fling your flaming torch

Into this pile of venerable truths,

These master-works that thimder forth and lighten,

Into this tomb become time's inventory,

Into the ages, the antique man, lYie pa&t

Inspirers of the Heart

Which still spells out the future — history
Which having once begun wiU never end,
Into the poets ! Into this mine of Bibles
And all this heap divine — dread iEschylus,
Homer, and Job upright against th^ horizon,
Moliere, Voltaire, and Kant you set on fire !
Thus turning hiunan reason into smoke 1
Have you forgotten that your liberator
Is this same Book ? The Book that^s set on high
And shines ; because it lightens and illumes ;
It imdermines the gallows, war and famine ;
It speaks ; the Slave and Pariah disappear.
Open a Book. Plato, Beccaria, Milton,
Those prophets, Dante, Shakespeare, or Comeille,
Shall not their great souls waken yours in you ?
Dazzled you feel the same as each of them ;
Reading you grow more gentle, pensive, grave ;
Within your heart you feel these great men grow ;
They teach you as the dawn lights up a cloister,
And as their warm beams penetrate your heart
You are appeased and thrill with stronger life ;
Your soul interrogated answers theirs ;
You feel you're good, then better ; — as snow in fire
Then melt away your pride, your prejudice.
Evil and rage and Kings and Emperors !
For Science, see you, first lays hold of men.
Then Liberty, and all this flood of Hght,
Mark me, 'tis you who have extinguished it !
The gold you dreamt of by the Book was reached;
The Book enters your thoughts and there unties
The bonds wherein truth was by error held.
For each man's conscience is a GoidiankxicA.,

The Friendship of Books

The Book is your physician, guardian, guide :

It heals your hate, and cures your frenzied mood.

See what you lose by your own fault, alas 1

Why, know the Book's your wealth 1 the Book means

truth,
Knowledge and Duty, Virtue, Progress, Right,
And Reason scattering hence delirious dreams.
And you destroy this, you 1

I cannot read.

Victor Hugo

UAnrUe Terrible
Translated by Mathilde Blind.
[Quoted from "The Book-lover's Enchiridion/' by Alex. Ireland.]

T^XCEPT a living man, there is nothing more wonder-
■■---' ful than a book ! — a message to us from the dead —
from himian souls whom we never saw, who Uved, perhaps,
thousands of miles away ; and yet these, on those little
sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach
us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. . . .
I say we ought to reverence books, to look at them as
useful and mighty things. If they are good and true,
whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade,
or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of
all things, the teacher of all truth, which He has put into
the heart of some man to speak, that he may tell us what
is good for our spirits, for our bodies, and for our coimtry.
Would to God that all here would make the rule never to
look into an evil book ! . . . A flood of books, news-
papers, writings of all sorts, good and bad, is spreading
over the whole land, and young and old will read them.

Inspirers of the Heart

We cannot stop that ; we ought not ; it is God's ordi-
nance. It is more ; it is God's grace and mercy that we
have a free press in England — liberty for every man,
that if he have any of God's truth to tell, he may tell it
out boldly, in books or otherwise. A blessing from
God I One which we should reverence, for God knows
it was dearly bought. Before our forefathers could buy
it for us, many an honored man left house and home to
die on the battlefield or on the scaffold, fighting and
witnessing for the right of every man to whom God's
word comes, to speak God's word openly to his coimtry-
men. A blessing, and an awful one ! for the same gate
which lets in good, lets in evil. The law dare not silence
bad books. It dare not root up the tares, lest it root up
the wheat also. The men who died to buy us liberty
knew that it was better to let in a thousand bad books
than shut out one good one. We cannot, then, silence
evil books, but we can turn away oiu: eyes from them ; we
can take care that what we read, and what we let others
read, should be good and wholesome.

Chasles Kingsley
Village Sermons

"X 1^ THAT is your first remark on turning over the great
^ ^ stiff leaves of a folio, the yellow sheets of a manu-
script — a poem, a code of laws, a confession of faith ?
This, you say, did not come into existence all alone. It
is but a mould, like a fossil shell, an imprint, like one of
those shapes embossed in stone by an animal which lived
and perished. Under the shell there was an animal, and
behind the document was a man. Why do you study the
shell, except to bring before you tlae axmaa^."^ ^^ ^wi^

The Friendship of Books

study the document only to know the man. When the
work is rich, and people know how to interpret it, we find
there the psychology of a soul, frequently of an age, now
and then of a race. In this light, a great poem, a fine
novel, the confessions of a superior man, are more instruc-
tive than a heap of historians with their histories. I
would give fifty volumes of charters and a himdred
volumes of state papers for the memoirs of Cellini, The
Epistles of St. Paul, The Table-talk of Luther, or the
Comedies of Aristophanes. In this consists the impor-
tance of literary works: they are instructive because
they are beautiful : their utility grows with their perfec-
tion ; and if they furnish documents, it is because they
are monuments. The more a book brings sentiments into
light, the more it is a work of literature ; for the proper
office of Kterature is to make sentiments visible. The
more a book represents important sentiments, the higher
is its place in literature ; for it is by representing the mode
of being of a whole nation and a whole age, that a writer
rallies roimd him the sympathies of an entire age and an
entire nation. This is why, amid the writings which set
before our eyes the sentiments of preceding generations,
a Hterature, and notably a grand literature, is incompa-
rably the best.

Henri A. Taine

History of English Liter aiure: Introduction
Translated by Henry Van Laun.

/^^ATHER'D by geniuses of city, race, or age, and put
^^ by them in highest of art's forms, namely, the liter-
ary form, the peculiar combinations and the outshows of
tAat city, age, or race, its partic\i\ai mode^ oi the universal

Inspirers of the Heart

attributes and passions, its faiths, heroes, lovers and gods,
wars, traditions, struggles, crimes, emotions, joys (or
the subtle spirit of these), having been passed on to us to
illiunine our own selfhood, and its experiences — what
they supply, indispensable and highest, if taken away,
nothing else in all the world's boimdless storehouses
could make up to us, or ever again return.

For us, along the great highways of time, those monu-
ments stand — those forms of majesty and beauty.
For us those beacons burn through all the nights. Un-
known Egyptians, graving hieroglyphs; Hindus, with
h3nnn and apothegm and endless epic ; Hebrew prophet,
with spirituality, as in flashes of Hghtning, conscience
like red-hot iron, plaintive songs and screams of vengeance
for tyrannies and enslavement ; Christ, with bent head,
brooding love and peace, like a dove; Greek, creating
eternal shapes of physical and aesthetic proportion;
Roman, lord of satire, the sword, and the codex ; —
of the figures, some far off and veil'd, others nearer and
visible ; Dante, stalking with lean form, nothing but fibre,
not a grain of superfluous flesh; Angelo, and the great
painters, architects, musicians ; rich Shakespeare, luxuri-
ant as the Sim, artist and singer of feudalism in its simset,
with all the gorgeous colors, owner thereof, and using them
at will ; and so to such as German Kant and Hegel, where
they, though near us, leaping over the ages, sit again,
impassive, imperturbable, like the Egyptian gods. Of
these, and the like of these, is it too much, indeed, to re-
turn to our favorite figure, and view them as orbs and
systems of orbs, moving in free paths in the spaces of that
other heaven, the cosmic intellect, the soul ?

Ye powerfuJ and resplendent oiie^\ 7^ '^««./\s!l ^<2?qis.
G 8i

The Friendship of Bcx>ks

atmospheres, grown not for America, but rather for her
foes, the feudal and the old — while our genius is demo-
cratic and modem. Yet could ye, indeed, but breathe
your breath of life into our New World's nostrils — not to
enslave us, as now, but, for our needs, to breed a spirit
like your own — perhaps (dare we to say it ?) to dominate,
even destroy, what you yourselves have left ! On your
plane, and no less, but even higher and wider, must we
mete and measure for to-day and here. I demand races
of orbic bards, with imconditional uncompromising sway.
Come forth, sweet democratic despots of the west !

Walt Whitman
Democratic Vistas

'X'HE altitude of literature and poetry has always
-*- been Religion — and always will be. The Indian
Vedas, the Nagkas of Zoroaster, the Talmud of the
Jews, the Old Testament also, the Gospel of Christ and
his disciples, Plato's works, the Koran of Mohammed,
the Edda of Snorro, and so on toward our own day,
to Swedenborg, and to the invaluable contributions of
Leibnitz, Kant, and Hegel, these, with such poems only
in which (while singing well of persons and events,
of the passions of man, and the shows of the material
universe) the religious tone, the consciousness of mystery,
the recognition of the future, of the unknown, of Deity,
over and imder all, and of the divine purpose, are never
absent, but indirectly give tone to all — exhibit litera-
ture's real heights and elevations, towering, up like the

great mountains of the earth.

Walt Whitman

DemocTollc Vistas
8a

Inspirers of the Heart

"W1ES, it is sentiment that makes us feel a lively affection

^ for the books that seem to comiect us with great

poets and students long ago dead. The hands grasp

ours across the ages.

Andrew Lang

The Library

TS it not known that books are sacrificial, that they
-^ must be lived and suffered before they are written,
and lived and suffered before they are read ?

Charles Ferguson
The Religion of Democracy

EDUCATORS OF THE MIND

rpOR whatsoever things were written aforetime were writ-
ten for our learning.

New Testament, Romans xv, 4

• • •

yuERE are many virtues in books, but the essen-
tial value is the adding of knowledge to our stock
of the record of new facts, and, better, by the record of
indentions which distribute facts, and are the formulas
which supersede all histories,

R. W. Emerson
Letters and Social Aims: Persian Poetry

n^HE first time I read an excellent book, it is to me
just as if I had gained a new friend ; when I read
over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting
with an old one,

Oliver Goldsmith
Citizen of the World

TOY reading, we acquaint ourselves with the affairs,

actions, and thoughts of the living and the dead, in

the most remote actions, and in the most distant ages;

and that with as much ease 05 though they lived in our

own age and nation.

Isaac Watts
Improvement of the Mind

T> Y no means have your Study fnmish'd with learned
■^ Books, and be unlearned yourself. Don't suffer what
you hear to sUp out of your Memory, but recite it either
with yourself, or to other Persons. Nor let this suffice
you, but set apart some certain Time for Meditation;
which one Thing as St. Aurehus writes does most notably
conduce to assist both Wit and Memory. An Engage-
ment and combating of Wits does in an extraordinary
Manner both shew the Strength of Genius's, rouses
them, and augments them. If you are in Doubt of any
Thing, don't be asham'd to ask ; or if you have committed
an Error, to be corrected. Avoid late and unseasonable
Studies, for they murder Wit, and are very prejudicial
to Health. The Muses love the Morning, and that is a
fit Time for Study. After you have din'd, either divert
yourself at some Exercise, or take a Walk, and discourse
merrily, and Study between whiles. As for Diet, eat
only as much as shall be sufficient to preserve Health,
and not as much or more than the Appetite may crave.
Before Supper, take a Kttle Walk, and do the same after
Supper. A Httle before you go to sleep read something
that is exquisite, and worth remembering ; and contem-
plate upon it till you fall asleep ; and when you awake in
the Morning, call yourself to an Account for it. Always
keep this Sentence of Pliny's in your Mind, all thai
time is lost that you don't bestow on sttuty. Think upon
this, that there is nothing more fleeting than You^th.^
which, when once it is past, caaiiBvetXsfc t^ca^^. ^\jX

The Friendship of Books

now I begin to be an Exalter, when I promised to be a
Director. My sweet Christian, follow this Method, or
a better, if you can ; and so farewell.

Desidehius Erasmus
Colloquies: Of the Method of Study

OTUDIES serve for Delight, for Ornament, and for
^^ Ability. Their Chiefe Use for Delight, is in Private-
nesse and Retiring ; For Ornament, is in Discourse ; And
for Ability, is in the Judgement and Disposition of Busi-
nesse. For Expert Men can Execute, and perhaps Judge
of particulars, one by one ; But the generall Counsels,
and the Plots, and Marshalling of Affaires, come best
from those that are LEARNED. To spend too much
Time in STUDIES, is Sloth ; To use them too much for
Ornament, is Affectation ; To make Judgement wholly
by their Rules is the Humour of a Scholler. They perfect
Nature, and are perfected by Experience : For Naturall
Abilities, are like Naturall Plants, that need Pro)amig
by STUDY : And STUDIES themselves doe give forth
Directions too much at Large, except they be boimded
in by experience. Crafty Men Contenme STUDIES;
Simple Men Admire them ; And Wise Men Use them :
For they teach not their owne Use ; But that is a Wisdome
without them, and above them, won by Observation.
Reade not to Contradict, and Confute ; Nor to Beleeve
and Take for granted; Nor to Finde Talke and Dis-
course; But to weigh and Consider. Some BOOKES
are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed, and Some Few
to be Chewed and Digested: That is, some BOOKES
are to be read onely in Parts; Others to be read but
not Curiously; And some Few to b^ tead wholly, and

Educators of the Mind

with DiKgence and Attention. Some BOOKES also
may be read by Deputy, and Extracts made of them
by Others: But that would be, onely in the lesse impor-
tant Arguments, and the Meaner Sort of BOOKIES:
else distilled BOOKIES, are like Common distilled Wat-
ers, Flashy Things. Reading maketh a Full Man ; Con-
ference a Ready Man ; And Writing an Exact Man.

Lord Bacon
Of Studies

TLTUGE volumes, like the ox roasted at Bartholomew
■*■ -■- Fair, may proclaim plenty of labor and invention,
but afford less of what is dehcate, savory, and well
concocted, than smaller pieces: this makes me think,
that though, upon occasion, you may come to the table,
and examine the bill of fare, set down by such' authors ;
yet it cannot but lessen ingenuity, still to fall aboard
with, them ; human sufficiency being too narrow, to in-
form with the pure soul of reason, such vast bodies.

As the grave hides the faults of physic, no less than
mistakes, opinion and contrary appHcations are known
to have enriched the art withal; so many old books,
by like advantages rather than desert, have crawled up
to an esteem above new ; it being the business of better
heads perhaps than ever their writers owned, to put a
glorious and significant gloss upon the meanest conceit
or improbable opinion of antiquity: whereas modern
authors are brought by critics to a strict account for the
smallest semblance of a mistake. If you consider this
seriously, it will learn you more moderation, if not wis-
dom.

Be conversant in the speeches, ded^x^\icyD&^^s^^N5»sis»-

The Friendship of Books

actions occasioned by the late war: out of which more
natural and useful knowledge may be sucked, than is
ordinarily to be found in the mouldy records of antiq-
uity.

When I consider with what contradiction reports ar-
rived at us, during our late civil wars, I can give the less
encouragement to the reading of history: romances, never
acted, being bom purer from sophistication than actions
reported to be done, by which posterity hereafter, no
less than antiquity heretofore, is likely to be led into
a false, or at best, but a contingent belief. Caesar,
though in this happy, that he had a pen able to grave
into neat language what his sword at first more roughly
cut out, may, in my judgment, abuse his reader: for
he, that for the honor of his own wit, doth make people
speak better than can be supposed men so barbarously
bred were able, may possibly report they fought worse
than really they did. Of a like value are the orations
of Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and most other historians ;
which doth not a little prejudice the truth of all the rest.
Were it worthy or capable to receive so much illumina-
tion from one never made welcome by it, I should tell
the world, as I do you, there is as little reason to believe
men know certainly all they write, as to think they write
all they imagine : and as this cannot be admitted with-
out danger, so the other, though it may in shame be
denied, is altogether as true.

A few books well studied, and thoroughly digested,

nourish the understanding more than himdreds but

gargled in the mouth, as ordinary students use : and of

these choice must be had answerable to the profession

you intend: for a statesman, YtencVi aMtivots are best,

Educators of the Mind

as most fruitful in negotiations and memoirs, left by
public ministers and by their secretaries, published after
their deaths : out of which you may be able to unfold
the riddles of all states: none making more faithful
reports of things done in all nations than ambassadors ;
who cannot want the best intelligence, because their
princes' pensioners unload in their bosoms all they can
discover. And here, by way of prevention, let me inform
you, that some of our late ambassadors, which I could
name, impaired our affairs, by treating with foreign
princes in the language of the place : by which they did
not only descend below their master's dignity, but their
own discretion : betraying, for want of words of gravity,
the intrinsic part of their employment : and going beyond
their commission oftener by concession, than confining
themselves within it, or to it ; the true rule for a minister
of state, not hard to be gained by a resolute contest:
which if made by an interpreter, he, like a medium, may
intercept the shame of any impertinent speech, which
eagerness or indiscretion may let sUp: neither is it a
small advantage to gain so much time for deliberation,
what is fit farther to urge : it being besides, too much an
honoring of their tongue, and undervaluing your own,
to profess yourself a master therein, especially since,
they scorn to learn yours. And to show this is not
grounded on my single judgment; I have often been
informed, that the first and wisest Earl of Pembroke
did return an answer to the Spanish ambassador, in
Welsh, for which I have heard him highly commended.

It is an aphorism in physic, that unwholesome airs,
because perpetually sucked into the lungs, do distemper
health more than coarser diet, used \5mV ^\. ^'5i\. ^6ssv'^^^

The Friendship of Books

the like may be said of company, which if good, is a better
refiner of the spirits than ordinary books.
: Propose not them for patterns, who make all places
rattle, where they come, with Latin and Greek ; for the
more you seem to have borrowed from books, the poorer
you proclaim your natural parts, which only can properly
he called yours.

, ; Follow not the tedious practice of such as seek wisdom
only in learning ; not attainable but by experience and
natural parts. Much reading, like a too great repletion,
stopping up, through a concourse of diverse, sometimes
contrary opinions, the access of a nearer, newer, and quicker
invention of your own. And for quotations, they resemble
sugar in wine, marring the natural taste of the liquor, if it
be good ; if bad, that of itself : such patches rather mak-
ing the rent seem greater, by an interruption of the style,
than less, if not so neatly appUed as to fall in without
drawing: nor is any thief in this kind sufferable, who
comes not off, like a Lacedemonian, without discovery.

Francis Osborne
Advice to a San {1656)

T WILL now oversee your employment, which at
-*• present is your study ; and I shall be less careful
herein, upon a presimiption of your tutor^s care and
sufficiency in the kind hath prevented me; however,
I shall tell you what I have heard a very learned man
to speak concerning books and the true use of them.

You are to come to your study as to the table, with a
sharp appetite, whereby that which you read may the
better digest. He that has no stomach to his book
will very hardly thrive upon it.

Educators of the Mind

And because the ruks of study do so exactly agree
with those of the table, when you are from your tutor,
take care that what you read be wholesome, and but
sufficient. Not how much, but how good, is the best
diet. Sometimes, for variety, and to refresh and please
the palate of your imderstanding, you may read some-
thing that is choice and delicate ; but to make no meal
thereon. You may be allowed also the music of poetry,
so it be clear, chaste, and not effeminate.

After you have read a little, make a stand upon it,
and take not more in, nor that down, till it be well chewed
and examined. Go not to another thing until the first
be understood in some measure. If any thing stick
with you, note down your doubts in a book for the pur-
pose, and rest not till you be satisfied, then write that
down too.

In your reading, use often to invert and apply that
which you observe applicable to some purpose : and if
this change be a robbery, God help late writers. Sure
I am, nothing to my reason appears more effectual to
raise your invention and enrich your understanding.

After reading, remember, as from the table, so you
rise from your book, with an appetite; and being up,
disturb not the concoction, which is definitely improved
by a rumination or chewing of the cud. To this end,
recollection with yourself will do well, but a repetition
with another far better ; for thereby you will get a habit
of readily expressing yourself, which is a singular advan-
tage to learning ; and by the very discoursing of what
you learn, you again teach yourself : besides, something
new, and of your own, must of necessity stream in.

For your choice of your books, b^ ^An\s«^ Vj ^o^a.

The Friendship of Books

tutor ; but, by my consent, you should not have above
one or two at the most in every science, but those very
choice ones. I will commend one book to you, — we
begin with it when we are boys, yet it will become the
oldest and gravest man's hand, — it is Tully's Office ;
a most wise and useful book, where you shall have ex-
cellent philosophy excellently dressed. And those that
are skilful in the language say, that the whole Latin
tongue is there with all its purity and propriety.

For the more orderly managing of your study, I would
have you divide the day into several employments.
Great and wise persons have given you the example.
If you will have me dispose your time for you, I shall
proportion it into three octaves: eight hours of which
for sleep, comprehending dressing and undressing;
eight hours for devotion, food and recreation, in which
I comprehend visits and your attendance upon me:
the other octave, give it constantly to your studies,
imless business or like accident interrupt, which, if it
shall, you must either recompense by the succeeding
day's diligence, or borrow from your recreation. But
by no means entrench upon your hours of devotion,
which I would have you proportion into Httle and fre-
quent offices, to sweeten the spirits and prevent weari-
someness. Possibly even these hours also of devotion
may sometimes receive interruption by travel or employ-
ment of necessity; then your offices must be the less.
You may likewise be deprived of the conveniency of
place : if so, yet steal a retirement — nothing must hin-
der you from withdrawing yourself, and a good man
makes any place an oratory. But be sure no merry-
meeting, pastime, or humoring of others make a breach

Educators of the Mind

upon your daily exercise of piety — nothing but evident
necessity can dispense.

Be not ashamed to ask if you doubt ; but be ashamed
to be reproved for the same fault twice.

Be constant in your course of study ; and although you
proceed slowly, yet go on in your path; assiduity will
make amends at last. He that can but creep, if he keeps
his way, will sooner come to his joumey^s end than he
that rides post out of it.

Endeavor at the highest perfection, not only at your
studies, but in whatsoever you attempt : strive to excel
in everything, and you may perform many things worthy
of praise, nothing meanly. He that aims further than he
can shoot, and draws with his utmost strength, will hardly
shoot short, at least deserves not to be blamed for.short
shooting.

Avoid night studies, if you will preserve your wit
and health.

Whether thou dost read or hear anything — indeed
whatsoever you do — intend what thou art about, and
let not thy mind wander, but compel it to be fixed and
present. If any other thought comes across thee in thy
study, keep it off, and refer it to some other time : this
wandering of your spirit you know I have often reproved,
therefore, whatsoever you do, do it, and nothing else.

Suffer not thy memory to rest ; she loves exercise, and
grows with it; every day commend something notable
to her custody; the more she receives, the better she
keeps; and when you have trusted any thing to her
care, let it rest with her awhile, then call for it again,
especially if it be a fault corrected. Yovi m\i&\. \^<5k\. ^x-^
twice; and by this frequent cal\iii^\iet \.o ^o.ossvxsiX.^^'^^^

The Friendship of Books

be always ready to give you satisfaction ; and the sooner,
if what she was entrusted with was laid up orderly,
and put, as it were, in the several boxes of a cabinet.
If thou wouldst seem learned, the best way is to en-
deavor to be learned ; for if thou dost not strive to be
that which thou desirest to be, thou desirest to no pur-
pose, which gives me occasion to recommend this follow-
ing advice to your especial regard.

It is an extreme vanity to hope to be a scholar, and
yet to be imwilling to take pains: for what excellent
thing is there that is easily composed? Its very dif-
ficulty doth imply, and, as it were, doth invite us to some-
thing worthy and rare. Consider it is a rose that thorns
do compass; and the forbidden object sharpens the
desire in all other things. Thus a difficult mistress
makes a lover more passionate ; and that same man hates
an offered and a prostitute love. I dare say, if learn-
ing were easy and cheap, thou wouldst as much slight
her; and, indeed, who would have anything common
with a carter or a cobbler ? Something there is, doubt-
less, in it, that none but noble and unwearied spirits
can attain her ; and these are raised higher, and height-
ened by its difficulty, and would not gain her otherwise.
Something there is in it, that no money or jewels can
buy her. No, nothing can purchase learning but thy
own sweat; obtain her, if thou canst, any other way.
Not all my estate can buy thee the faculty of making
but one quick epigram — the trifling part of her ; where-
fore I entreat thee, to raise thy spirit, and stretch thy
resolution. And so often as thou goest to thy book,
place before thy eyes what crowns, sceptres, mitres,
and othtr ensigns of honor, learaki^ \\aA)s\. coroiect^

9»

Educators of the Mind

upon those that have courted her with labor and dili<
gence ; besides the rare pleasure of satisfaction, which,
of itself, is an honorable reward. And let me tell thee/
a learned holy man (and such a one would I fain have
thee to be) looks like an angel in flesh — a mortal chen^
bim. And because letters are great discoverers of the
man, therefore, when you write, let your style be genteel,
clean, roimd, even, and plain, unless the subject or matter
require a more manly and vigorous expression. I can-*
not allow you a ciuiosity, unless it be like a lady's dress>
negligently neat. Go not to coimsel for every word,
yet neglect not to choose. Be more careful to think
before you write than before you speak ; because letters
pass not away as words do ; they remain upon record, are
still imder the examination of the eye, and tortiured they
are, sometimes, to confess that of which they were never
guilty. That is rare, indeed, that can endiure reading.
Understand the person well to whom you write. If
he be your inferior or equal, you may give your pen the
more liberty, and play with it sometimes ; but if to yoiar
superior, then regard it to be had to your interest with
him, his leisure, and capacity ; all which will be so many
caveats, and instructions to the hiunihty, neatness, and
brevity of your style. You shall do well if, like a skil*
ful painter, you draw your sense, and the proportions
of your business, in a plain draft first, and then give it
color, heightening, and beauty afterwards; and, if it
be duly considered, it is no such great commendation
to be praised for penning a letter without making a blot,
not in my judgment : therefore, after you have pondered
and penned, then examine and correct. A nei^^j^s^
manner of writing, methinks, is a VikA ol ^tl ^x^-^ «si^

The Friendship of Books

a challenge, not a letter, to a person of distinction. Avoid
all roughness, swelling, poverty, and looseness in your
style; let it be rather riotous than niggardly. The
flowing pen may be helped, but the dry never. Especially
shun obscurity, because it must go a-begging for an
interpreter: and why should you write to entreat him
to understand you if he can. Be this your general rule,
both in your writing and speaking, — labor for sense,
rather than words; and for yoiu: book, take this also,
study men and things.

Perhaps you will expect, after all these instructions,
I should commend unto you some copy or example to
imitate. As for the Greek and Latin tongues, I leave
it to your tutor^s choice. In the English, I know no
style I should sooner prefer to yom: imitation than
that of Sir Francis Bacon, that excellent imhappy man.
And to give you direction for all imitation in general,
as well as of his style in particular, be careful so to imitate,
as, by drawing forth the very spirits of the writer, you
may, if possible, become himself. Imitate him, but do
not mock him ; for the face of a bull, or a horse, is more
comely, than that of an ape or a monkey, though the
ape most resembles man, the most beautiful of all crea-
tures : and, in that regard, your own genuine and natural
style may show more comely than an imitation of Sir
Francis Bacon, if it be not exactly done. I would have
the imitator be as the son of the father, not the ape of a
man ; that is, to put on the likeness of a child, not of an
ape; for the ape only imitates the deformities and the
ridiculous actions of man, the son represents all the graces
of the face, gesture, and every figure of his father ; and,
in this representation, he hath some\]bm^ ol \\\yc\^\i too.

icx>

Educators -OT the Mind

• <

I shall add but one caution ihotej. and that is this — as

he can never run well who shaUfosolve to set his foot in

* • *■

the footsteps of one that went *betwe, so neither shall
any man write well, who precisely. €nd superstitiously
ties himself to another's words. Arf^'^tji this liberty
I wish you still happy. *! • •*

And such will all yom: studies be, if you*tbnstantly
put in practice this my last admonitibu, ^wjiich I
reserved purposely for this place. It is, that"-^u be
careful every night, before you go to bed, to ^worm
your devotions, to withdraw yourself into your 'closet,
or some private part of your chamber, and there XaJfl ;
memory, your steward, to account what she has heard' cJr" /
read that day worthy of observation ; what she hath laid
up, what she spent; how the stock of knowledge im-
proves, where and how she decays. A notable advantage
will this bring to your studies at present, and hereafter,
if that way employed, to your estate. But if this course
be strictly observed each night between God and your
soul, there will the true advantage appear. Fail not,
therefore, what employment soever you have, every night,
as in the presence of God, and his holy angels to pass an
inquisition on your soul what ill it hath done, what good
it hath left undone ; what slips, what falls it hath that
day; what temptation hath prevailed upon it; and by
what means, or after what manner. Ransack every
corner of thy dark heart, and let not the least peccadillo,
or kindness to a sin, lurk there, but bring it forth, bewail
it, protest against it, and scourge it by a severe sorrow.
Thus each day's breach between God and your soul being
made up, with more quiet and sweet ho^ tkoM ^s^^^^
dispose thyself to rest. CeitaVnVy , ^\.^3^\.,>i5c^\sL<a5ix^^

lOl

The Friendship of Books

if steadily pursued, ix^' vanquish all customary sins,
whatever they be. r'^)eak it upon this reason, because
I presume thou wihrjiot have the face to appear before
God every night' -ccmfessing the same offence; and thou
wilt forbear it; lek'thou mayest seem to mock God, or
despise him, wi:dch is dreadful but to imagine. This
finished, for a delightful close to the whole business of
the day;;-caitee yoiu: servant to read something that is
excelltaady written or done, to lay to sleep with it, that,
if it'.ipay be, even yoiu: dreams may be profitable or
lelzmed. This you will find, by your own experience,
Stmhf that things wiU appear more naked to the eye of
-. tfie soul, when the eye of the body is shut ; which, to-
gether with the quiet of the night, that time is rendered
a most fit season for contemplation and contrivance.
As a great advantage, not only to your book, but health
and business also, I cannot but advise and enjoin you to
accustom yourself to rise early; for, take it from me,
no lover of his bed did ever yet form great and noble
things. Now, though I allowed eight hours for your
bed, with the preparation to it and from it, yet this was
rather to point out the utmost limits beyond which you
should not go, rather than to oblige you to observe such
a proportion exactly. Borrow, therefore, of these golden
morning flowers, and bestow them on your book. A
noble person, of all others, has need of learning, and there-
fore, should contribute most time to it ; for, besides that
it gilds his honor, and sets off his birth, it becomes his
employment, which a nobleman, of all others, must
not want, if he will secure his soul, honor, and estate,
al) which are in most certain danger from idleness, the
Jvck of nobility, considering the plenty oiYi^ XaXAfc^^-x^d

103

Educators of the Mind

society, with all sorts of temptation ; if, therefore, he
be a hard student, he is not at leisure to be vicious ;
the devil knows it is to no purpose to tempt a busy man ;
be always, therefore, employed ; and because some are
triflingly active, that you may not with them be idly
busy, your book will instruct you how. Did you but hear
the complaints of excellent personages, for missing of
that opportimity which you are now master of ; or could
you but suppose yourself old and ignorant, how tender
would you be of the loss of one minute, what would you
not give to return to these years you now enjoy ? Let
this consideration sink deep and settle in you. Be more
curious of the expense of your time than of yom: gold :
time being a jewel whose worth is invaluable, whose loss
is irreparable ; therefore secure tHe' present time, that you
may not hereafter lose more by a vain bewailing of the
past. William, Earl of Bedford

Advice to his Sons (circa 1642)

IDOOKS are the only Records of Time, which ezdte
-*-^ us to imitate the past Glories of our Ancestors.

Charles Blount
A J list Vindication of Learning

13 EADING is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.
-"■^ As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened,
and invigorated ; by the other, virtue (which is the health
of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.
But as exercise becomes tedious and painful, when we
make use of it only as the means of health, so reading
is apt to grow uneasy and burthensome "^\vsja. ^'^ ^s^^sJ^
ourselves to it for our impTovemeal va. nSs.\.m^» ^^^ "^^^

10^

The Friendship of Books

reason, the virtue we gather from a fable or an allegory
is like the health we get by hunting ; as we are engaged
in an agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure,
and makes us insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.

Sir Richard Steele
The TaUer, No. 147

A TASTE for books is the pleasure and glory of my
•^^ life. . . . I would not exchange it for the wealth of
the Indies. . . . The miseries of a vacant life are never
known to a man whose hours are insufl&cient for the
inexhaustible pleasures of study. . . . The love of study,
a passion which derives great vigor from enjoyment,
supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual round of
independent and rational pleasure.

Edward Gibbon
Autobiography

TypOKS are the depositary of everything that is most
-*-^ honorable to man. Literature, taken in all its bear-

Aings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the
human and the animal kingdoms. He that loves reading,
has everything within his reach. He has but to desire ;
and he may possess himself of every species of wisdom
to judge, and power to perform. . . . Books gratify and
excite our curiosity in innumerable ways. They force
us to reflect. They hurry us from point to point. They
present direct ideas of various kinds, and they suggest
indirect ones. In a well-written book we are presented
with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights,
ol a mind of imcommon excellence. It is impossible

that we can be much accustomed to suOa. com^^wyca^

104

Educators of the Mind

without attaining some resemblance of them. When
I read Thomson, I become Thomson ; when I read Milton,
I become Milton. I find myself a sort of intellectual
cameleon, assvuning the color of the substances on
which I rest. He that revels in a well-chosen library
has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavor.
His taste is rendered so acute as easily to distinguish
the nicest shades of difference. His mind becomes ductile,
susceptible to every impression, and gaining new refine-
ment from them all. His varieties of thinking baffle
calculation, and his powers, whether of reason or fancy,
become eminently vigorous.

William Godwin
The Enquirer

TTENCE it is that the moral character of a man emi-
■*- -*■ nent in letters or in the fine arts is treated, often
by contemporaries, almost always by posterity, with ex-
traordinary tenderness. The world derives pleasure and
advantage from the performances of such a man. The
number of those who si^er by his personal vices is small,
even in his own time, when compared with the niunber
of those to whom his talents are a source of gratification.
In a few years all those whom he has injiured disappear.
But his works remain, and are a source of delight to mill-
ions. The genius of Sallust is stiU with us. But the
Nimiidians whom he plundered, and the unfortunate
husbands who caught him in their houses at unseason-
able hoiurs, are forgotten. We suffer ourselves to be
delighted by the keenness of Clarendon's observation,
and by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget the
oppressor and the bigot in tiie \jAS»\janaxi. ^^Jis^ubS. '^x^

The Friendship of Books

Tom Jones have survived the gamekeepers whom Shake-
speare cudgelled and the landladies whom Fielding
bilked. A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his
readers; and they cannot but judge of him imder the
deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. We all
know how imwiUing we are to admit the truth of any
disgraceful story about a person whose society we like,
and from whom we have received favors ; how long we
struggle against evidence, how fondly, when the facts
cannot be disputed, we cling to the hope that there may
be some explanation or some extenuating circumstance
with which we are imacquainted. Just such is the feeling
which a man of Hberal education naturally entertains
towards the great minds of former ages. The debt which
he owes to them is incalculable. They have guided him
to truth. They have filled his mind with noble and grace-
ful images. They have stood by him in all vicissitudes,
comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions
in soHtude. These friendships are exposed to no danger
from the occurrences by which other attachments are
weakened or dissolved. Time . glides on ; fortune is
inconstant; tempers are soured; bonds which seemed
indissoluble are daily sundered by interest, by emulation,
or by caprice. But no such cause can affect the silent
converse which we hold with the highest of human in-
tellects. That placid intercourse is disturbed by no
jealousies or resentments. These are the old friends who
are never seen with new faces, who are the same in wealth
and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. With the
dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change.
Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant.
Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never

io6

Educators of the Mind

stays too long. No difference of political opinion can
alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of
Bossuet.

Lord Macaulay
Francis Bacon

/^^ERTAINLY the art of writing is the most miraculous
^^ of all things man has devised. Odin's Runes were the
first form of the work of a Hero ; Books, written words,
are still miraculous Runes, of the latest form ! In Books
lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate
audible voice of the Past, when the body and material
substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
Mighty fleets and armies, harbors and arsenals, vast
cities, high-domed, many-engined, — they are precious,
great: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the
many Agamemnons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all
is gone now to some ruined fragments, dxunb mournful
wrecks and blocks: but the Books of Greece! There
Greece, to every thinker, still very literally lives; can
be called up again into life. No magic Rune is stranger
than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought,
gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in
the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession
of men.

Do not Books still accomplish miracles, as Runes were
fabled to do ? They persuade men. Not the wretched-
est circulating-library novel, which foolish girls thmnb
and con in remote villages, but will help to regulate the
actual practical weddings and households of those foolish
girls. So ''Celia" felt, so "Clifford" acted: the foolish
Theorem of Life, stamped inlo Xko'Sfc >jci>as>k% Nst'Ksaa*^

107

The Friendship of Books

comes out as a soKd Practice one day. Consider whether
any Rune in the wildest imagination of Mythologist ever
did such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some Books
have done! What built St. Paul's Cathedral? Look
at the heart of the matter, it was that divine Hebrew
Book, — the word partly of the man Moses, an outlaw
tending his Midianitish herds, four thousand years ago,
in the wildernesses of Sinai I It is the strangest of things,
yet nothing is truer. With the art of Writing, of which
Printing is a simple, an inevitable, and comparatively
insignificant corollary, the true reign of miracles for man-
kind commenced. It related, with a wondrous new
contiguity and perpetual closeness, the Past and Distant
with the Present in time and place; all times and all
places with this our actual Here and Now. All things
were altered for men; all modes of important work of
men : teaching, preaching, governing, and all else.

• ••••••

On all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that,
of the things which man can do or make here below, by
far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are
the things we call Books! Those poor bits of rag-
paper with black ink on them ; — from the Daily News-
paper to the sacred Hebrew Book, what have they not
done, what are they not doing ! — For indeed, whatever
be the outward form of the thing (bits of paper, as we
say, and black ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the highest
act of man's faculty that produces a Book? It is the
Thought of man ; the true thaumaturgic virtue ; by which
man works all things whatsoever. All that he does,
and brings to pass, is the vesture of a Thought. This
London City, with all its houses, palaces, steam-engines,

Educators of the Mind

cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult,
what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made
into One ; — a huge immeasurable Spirit of a Thought,
embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust. Palaces, Parlia-
ments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the
rest of it ! Not a brick was made but some man had to
think of the making of that brick. — The thing we called
''bits of paper with traces of black ink** is the purest
embodiment a Thought of man can have. No wonder
it is, in all ways, the activest and noblest.

Thomas Carlyle
On Heroes and Hero-Worship: The Hero as
Man of Letters

A CAPACITY and taste for reading gives access to
-^^ whatever has already been discovered by others.
It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved
problems. And not only so ; it gives a relish and facil-
ity for successfully piursuing the unsolved ones.

. . . The thought recurs that education — cultivated
thought — can best be combined with agricultural labor, or
any labor, on the principle of thorough work ; that careless,
half-performed, slovenly work makes no place for such
combination; and thorough work, again, renders suffi-
cient the smallest quantity of ground to each man ; and
this, again, conforms to what must occur in a world
less inclined to wars and more devoted to the arts of
peace than heretofore. Population must increase rapidly,
more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most
valuable of all arts wiU be the art of deriving a comfort-
able subsistence from the smallest area ot «»L. "^^
community whose every membei po?se!SSiRs» ^iJcSsSk -wX. ^:»s^

lOQ

The Friendship of Books

ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms. Such
commimity will be alike independent of crowned kings,
money kings, and land kings. ... It is said an Eastern
monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sen-
tence to be ever in view, and which should be true and
appropriate in all times and situations. They presented
him the words, "And this, too, shall pass away." How
much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of
pride! How consoHng in the depths of affliction!
"And this, too, shall pass away." And yet, let us hope,
it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the
best cultivation of the physical world beneath and
aroimd us, and the intellectual and moral world within
us, we shall secure an individual, social, and poHtical
prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward
and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall
not pass away.

Absaham Lincoln
Address before the Wisconsin State Agrictdtural
Society J at Milwaukee, i8§g

"T SAY, then, that books, taken indiscriminately,
•*• are no cure to the disease and afflictions of the
mind. There is a world of science necessary in the taking
them. I have known some people in great sorrow fly
to a novel, or the last Hght book in fashion. One might
as well take a rose-draught for the plague 1 Light reading
does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told
that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science
that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician
who knew what he was about. In a great grief like that,
' you cannot tickle and divert the imxid\ ^oumMst wrench

Educators of the Mind

it away, abstract, absorb, bury it in an abyss, hurry
it into a labyrinth. Therefore, for the irremediable
sorrows of middle life and old age, I recommend a strict
chronic course of science and hard reasoning — counter-
irritation. Bring the brain to act upon the heart! If
science is too much against the grain (for we have not
all got mathematical heads), something in the reach
of the himiblest understanding, but sufficiently search-
ing to the highest — a new language — Greek, Arabic,
Scandinavian, Chinese, or Welsh ! For the loss of for-
tune, the dose should be applied less directly to the imder-
standing — I would administer something elegant and
cordial. For as the heart is crushed and lacerated by a
loss in the affections, so it is rather the head that aches and
suffers by the loss of money. Here we find the higher
class of poets a very valuable remedy. For observe
that poets of the grander and more comprehensive kind
of genius have in them two separate men, quite distinct
from each other — the imaginative man, and the prac-
tical, circmnstantial man ; and it is the happy mixture of
these that suits diseases of the mind, half imaginative
and half practical. There is Homer, now lost with
the gods, now at home with the homeliest, the very
'poet of circumstance,' as Gray has finely called him;
and yet with imagination enough to seduce and coax
the dullest into forgetting, for a while, that little spot
on his desk which his banker's book can cover. There
is Virgil, far below him indeed —

Virgil the wise,
Whose verse walks highest, but not flies,

as Cowley expresses it. But Virgil still has ^e.\Jii»& ^shssasj^
to be two men — to lead you Vnlo \3iafc ^<^'^>"CkKi\. <2{^ *^^

111

The Friendship of Books

listen to the pastoral reed, and to hear the bees hum,
but to note how you can make the most of the glebe
and the vineyard. There is Horace, charming man of
the world, who will condole with you feelingly on the
loss of your fortune, and by no means undervalue the
good things of this life ; but who will yet show you that
a man may be happy with a vile modicum or parva rura.
There is Shakespeare, who, above all poets, is the mys-
terious dual of hard sense and empyreal fancy — and
a great many more, whom I need not name; but who,
if you take to them gently and quietly, will not, like your
mere philosopher, your unreasonable stoic, tell you that
you have lost nothing; but who will insensibly steal
you out of this world, with its losses and crosses, and slip
you into another world, before you know where you are I
— a world where you are just as welcome, though you
carry no more of your lost acres with you than covers
the sole of your shoe. Then, for hypochondria and
satiety, what is better than a brisk alternative course of
travels, — especially early, out-of-the-way, marvellous,
legendary travels! How they freshen up the spirits!
How they take you out of the humdnun yawning state
you are in. See, with Herodotus, young Greece spring
up into life ; or note with him how already the wondrous
old Orient world is crumbling into giant decay; or go
with Carpini and Rubruquis to Tartary, meet ' the carts
of Zagathai laden with houses, and think that a great
city is travelling towards you.' Gaze on that vast wild
empire of the Tartar, where the descendants of Jenghis
* multiply and disperse over the immense waste desert,
which is as boundless as the ocean.' Sail with the early
northern discoverers, and penetrate to \]bfclafc^.i\. Qt -m^vter ^

112

Educators of the Mind

among sea-serpents and bears, and tusked morses, with
the faces of men. Then, what think you of Colimibus,
and the stern soul of Cortes, and the kingdom of Mexico,
and the strange gold city of the Peruvians with that
audacious brute, Pizarro ? and the Polynesians, just for
all the world like the ancient Britons ? and the American
Indians, and the South-Sea Islanders? how petulant,
and young, and adventurous, and frisky your hypochon-
dria must get upon a regimen like that ! Then, for that
vice of the mind which I call sectarianism — not in the
religious sense of the word, but Uttle, narrow prejudices,
that make you hate your next-door neighbor, because
he has his eggs roasted when you have yours boiled;
and gossiping and prying into people's affairs, and back-
biting, and thinking heaven and earth are coming to-
gether, if some broom touch a cobweb that you have let
grow over the window-siU of your brains — what like
a large and generous, mildly aperient (I beg your pardon,
my dear) course of history I How it dears away all the
fumes of the head ! — better than the hellebore with
which the old leeches of the middle ages purged the
cerebellum. There, amidst all that great whirl and
sturmbad (storm-bath), as the Germans say, of kingdoms
and empires, and races and ages, how your mind enlarges
beyond that little, feverish animosity to John Styles;
or that unfortunate prepossession of yours, that all the
world is interested in your grievances against Tom
Stokes and his wife !

"I can only touch, you see, on a few ingredients in
this magnificent pharmacy — its resources are boundless,
but require the nicest discretion. I remember to biaM^
cured a disconsolate widov?et vAio cJci^NlYMa.\.^ x€s:^sfc^

The Friendship of Books

every other medicament, by a strict course of geology.
I dipped him deep into gneiss and mica schist. Amidst
the first strata, I suffered the watery action to expend
itself upon cooling crystallized masses ; and, by the time
I had got him into the tertiary period, amongst the tran-
sition chalks of Maestricht, and the conchiferous marls
of Gosau, he was ready for a new wife. Kitty, my dear I
it is no laughing matter. I made no less notable a cure
of a yoimg scholar at Cambridge, who was meant for the
Church, when he suddenly caught a cold fit of free think-
ing, with great shiverings, from wading out of his depth
in Spinosa. None of the divines, whom I first tried,
did him the least good in that state; so I turned over
a new leaf, and doctored him gently upon the chapters
of faith in Abraham Tucker's book (you should read it,
Sisty) ; then I threw in strong doses of Fichte ; after that
I put him on the Scotch metaphysicians, with plimge-
baths into certain German transcendentalists ; and
having convinced him that faith is not an unphilosophical
state of mind, and that he might beUeve without com-
promising his imderstanding — for he was mightily
conceited on that score — I threw in my divines, which
he was now fit to digest ; and his theological constitution,
since then, has become so robust, that he has eaten up
two livings and a deanery ! In fact, I have a plan for
a library, that, instead of heading its compartments,
' Philology, Natural Science, Poetry,' etc., one shall head
them according to the diseases for which they are sev-
erally good, bodily and mental, up from a dire calamity,
or the pangs of the gout, down to a fit of the spleen or
a slight catarrh ; for which last your light reading comes
in with a. wiiey-posset andbailey-T^atei. "BmI" continued

114

Educators of the Mind

my father, more gravely, "when some one sorrow, that
is yet reparable, gets hold of your mind like a monomania
— when you think, because heaven has denied you this
or that, on which you had set your heart, that all your
life must be a blank — oh I then diet yourself well on biog-
raphy — the biography of good and great men. See how
little a space one sorrow really makes in life. See scarce
a page, perhaps, given to some grief similar to your
own; and how triumphantly the life sails on beyond
it I You thought the wing was broken I — Tut-tut — it
was a bruised feather ! See what life leaves behind it
when all is done ! — a simmiary of positive facts far
out of the region of sorrow and suffering, linking them-
selves with the being of the world. Yes, biography is
the medicine here ! . . .

"I have said nothing," resimied my father, slightly
bowing his broad temples, "of the Book pf Books, for
that is the lignum vit<B, the cardinal medicine for all.
These are but the subsidiaries."

BuLWER Lytton
The Caxtons

TT is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse
•*- with superior minds; and these invaluable means of
communication are in the reach of all. In the best books,
great men talk to us, give us their precious thoughts,
and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for
books ! They are the voices of the distant and the dead,
and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books
are the true levellers. They give to all who will faith-
fully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the
best and greatest of our race. No laaXXjet Viss^ t^^^xX

The Friendship of Books

am ; no matter though the prosperous of my own time
will not enter my obscure dwelling ; if the sacred writers
will enter and take up their abode under my roof — if
Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise ;
and Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination
and the workings of the hiunan heart; and Franklin
to enrich me with his practical wisdom — I shall not
pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may
become a cultivated man, though excluded from what
is called the best society in the place where I live.

W. E. Channing
Self-culture

A MAN who knows nothing but the history of the
"^^ passing hour, who knows nothing of the history
of the past, but that a certain person whose brain was
as vacant as his own occupied the same house as himself ,
who in a moment of despondency or of gloom has no
hope in the morrow because he had read nothing that
has taught him that the morrow has any changes — that
man, compared with him who has read the most ordinary
abridgment of history, or the most common philosophical
speculation, is as distinct and different an animal as if
he had fallen from some other planet, was influenced by
a different organization, working for a different end, and
hoping for a different result. It is knowledge that equal-
izes the social condition of man — that gives to all,
however different their political position, passions which
are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.
Knowledge is like the mystic ladder in the patriarch's
dream. Its base rests on the primeval earth — its crest
IS lost in the shadowy splendor oi t\ife empvx^^.Yl•, while

Ii6

Educators of the Mind

the great authors who for traditionary ages have held
the chain of science and philosophy, of poesy and erudi-
tion, are the angels ascending and descending the sacred
scale, and maintaining, as it were, the communication
between man and heaven.

Earl of Beaconsfield
Speech to the Members of the Manchester Athenceum, 1844.

TT is very much more difficult to talk about a thing
-^ than to do it. . . . Anybody can make history. Only
a great man can write it. . . . The one duty we owe to
history is to rewrite it. . . . It is because Himianity
has never known where it was going that it has been
able to find its way. . . . When man acts, he is a puppet.
When he describes, he is a poet. The whole secret lies
in that. It was easy enough on the sandy plains by
windy Ilion to send the notched arrow from the painted
bow, or to hurl against the shield of hide and flamehke
brass the long ash-handled spear. It was easy for the
adulterous queen to spread the Tyrian carpets for her
lord, and then, as he lay couched in the marble bath,
to throw over his head the purple net, and call to her
smooth-faced lover to stab through the meshes at the
heart that should have broken, at Aulis. For Antigone,
even with death waiting for her as her bridegroom, it
was easy to pass through the tainted air at noon, and
climb the hill, and strew with kindly earth the wretched
naked corse that had no tomb. But what of those who
write about these things? What of those who gave
them reality, and made them live forever ? Are they not
greater than the men and women they sing of ? " Hs^Xsst
that sweet knight is dead," and TuudsLii V^^ \is> Vcs^ \s^

117

The Friendship of Books

the dim underworld Menippus saw the bleaching skull
of Helen, and marvelled that it was for so grim a favor
that all those honored ships were launched, those beauti-
ful mailed men laid low, those towered cities brought
to dust. Yet every day the swanlike daughter of Leda
comes out on the battlements, and looks down at the
tide of war. The graybeards wonder at her loveliness,
and she stands by the side of the king. In his chamber
of stained ivory lies her leman. He is polishing his
dainty armor, and combing the scarlet plume. With
squire and page, her husband passes from tent to tent.
She can see his bright hair, and hears, or fancies that
she hears, that clear cold voice. In the courtyard below,
the son of Priam is buckling on his brazen cuirass. The
white arms of Andromache are around his neck. He
sets his helmet on the groimd, lest their babe should be
frightened. Behind the embroidered curtains of his pa-
vilion sits Achilles, in perfumed raiment, while in harness
of gilt and silver the friend of his soul arrays himself to
go forth to the fight. From a curiously carven chest
that his mother Thetis has brought to his shipside, the
Lord of the Mjnmidons takes out that mystic chalice
that the lip of man had never touched, and cleanses it
with brimstone, and with fresh water cools it, and, having
washed his hands, fills with black wine its burnished
hollow, and spills the thick grape-blood upon the ground
in honor of Him whom at Dodona bare-footed prophets
worshipped, and prays to Him, and knows not that he
prays in vain, and that by the hands of two Knights from
Troy, Panthus's son, Euphorbus, whose lovelocks were
looped with gold, and the Priamid, the Uon-hearted, Pa-
trokluSj the comrade of comiades, imjfiX "mefcV V^ doom.

Educators of the Mind

Phantoms, are they? Heroes of mist and mountain?
Shadows in a song ? No : they are real. Action ! What
is action? It dies at the moment of the energy. It is a
bare concession to fact. The world is made by the singer
for the dreamer. . . .

On the mouldering citadel of Troy lies the lizard like
a thing of green bronze. The owl has built her nest in
the palace of Priam. Over the empty plain wander
shepherd and goatherd with their flocks, and where,
on the wine-surfaced, oily sea, oivo^ vovtos, as Homer
calls it, copper-pressed and streaked with vermilion,
the great galleys of the Danaoi came in their gleam-
ing crescent, the lonely tunney-fisher sits in his little
boat and watches the bobbing corks of his net. Yet,
every morning the doors of the city are thrown open,
and on foot, or in horse-drawn chariot, the warriors
go forth to battle, and mock their enemies from behind
their iron masks. All day long the flght rages, and when
night comes, the torches gleam by the tents, and the
crescent burns in the hall. Those who live in marble or
on painted panel, know of life but a single exquisite in-
stant, eternal indeed in its beauty, but limited to one
note of passion, or one mood of calm. Those whom the
past makes live have their myriad emotions of joy and
terror, of courage and despair, of pleasure and of suffering.
The seasons come and go in glad or saddening pageant,
and with winged or leaden feet the years pass before
them. They have their youth and their manhood, they
are children and they grow old. It is always dawn for St.
Helena, as Veronese saw her at the window. Through
the still morning air the angels bring her tiaft. ^fo&isJ^
of God^s pain. The cool breezes oi >i5afc xELCiTsasi%^i&^.

119

The Friendship of Books

the gilt threads from her brow. On that little hill by
the dty of Florence, where the lovers of Giorgione are
lying, it is always the solstice of noon, of noon made
so languorous by summer suns that hardly can the slim
naked girl dip into the marble tank the roimd bubble
of dear glass, and the long fingers of the lute-player rest
idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the danc-
ing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars
of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail
diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not
to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But
those who walk in epos, drama, or romance, see through
the laboring months the yoimg moons wax and wane,
and watch the night from evening imto morning star,
and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting
day with all its gold and shadow. For them, as for us,
the flowers bloom and wither, and the Earth, that green-
tressed Goddess, as Coleridge calls her, alters her raiment
for their pleasure. The statue is concentrated to one
moment of perfection. The image stained upon the
canvas possesses no spiritual dement of growth or change.
If they know nothing of death, it is because they know
little of life, for the secrets of life and death belong to
those, and those only, whom the sequence of time affects,
and who possess not merely the present but the future,
and can rise or fall from a past of glory or of shame.
Movement, that problem of the visible arts, can be
truly realized by Literature alone. It is Literature that
shows us the body in its swiftness and the soul in its
unrest.

Oscar Wilde
Intentions: THe Critic as Artist
1 20

Educators of the Mind

"DEADING for pleasure is thus an exercise for the
-*-^ mind. To find that exercise at its best we must
seek the best opportunities, and the best opportunities
are provided by the best writers. These turn us to a
right intercoiu*se with abiding things. They appeal to
the best in us and challenge our ability. We must be
ready to wrestle with the angel, and not to leave him until
we shall have overcome him; and when we shall have
overcome him, he will bless us.

Temple Scott
The Pleasure of Reading

121

TEACHERS IN LIFE

mBmmmm

J700KS — lighthouses erected in the sea of time.

Edwin P. Whipple

DEMEMBER that all the known worlds excepting only
savage nations, is governed by books,

Voltaire
Philosophical Dictionary

ZXOKS are the money of Literature, bul only the count-
ers of Science,

Thomas Henry Huxley

TF the crowns of all the kingdoms of the Empire were
laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my
love of reading, I would spurn them all,

Fenelon

JT INDULGE, with all the art I can, my taste for read-
ing. If I could confine it to valuable books, they are
almost as rare as valuable men.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Letters

126

T HAVE friends whose society is extremely agreeable to
^ me ; they are of all ages, and of every country. They
have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and
in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowl-
edge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to
them, for they are always at my service, and I admit
them to my company, and dismiss them from it, when-
ever I please. They are never troublesome, but
inmaediately answer every question I ask them. Some
relate to me the events of past-ages, while others reveal
to me the secrets of Nature. Some teach me how to
live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity,
drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while
others give fortitude to my mind and teach me the
important lesson how to restrain my desires, and to
depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short,
the various avenues of all the arts and sciences, and
upon their information I may safely rely in all emer-
gencies. In return for all their services, they only ask
me to acconmiodate them with a convenient chamber
in some comer of my humble habitation, where they may
repose in peace; for these friends are more delighted
by the tranquillity of retirement than with the tumults
of society.

Petrarch

'C'VERY great book is an action, and every great
■^^^ action is a book. •

All who would study with advantage in any art what-
soever, ought to betake themselves to the reading of
some sure and certain books oftentimes ovex\ i'Cix \a
read many books produceth coiii\i&\oi^,T^X}!CL<tx\5Mas:^

127

The Friendship of Books

ing, like as those who dwell everywhere are not anywhere
at home.

Martin Luther
Table Talk

nPHE Commerce of Books is much more certain, and
"*■ much more our own. ... It comforts me in my
Age and Solitude ; it eases me of a troublesome Weight
of Idleness, and delivers me at all Hours from Company
that I dislike ; and it blunts the Point of Griefs, if they
are not extreme, and have not got an entire Possession
of my Soul. To divert myself from a troublesome Fancy,
'tis but to nm to my Books; they presently fix me to
them and drive the other out of my Thoughts ; and do
not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for
want of other more real, natural and lively Conveniences ;
they always receive me with the same Kindness. . . .
The sick Man is not to be lamented, who has his Cure in
his Sleeve. In the Experience and Practice of this Sen-
tence, which is a very true one, all the Benefit I reap
from Books consists ; and yet I make as little use of it
almost as those who know it not ; I enjoy it as a ^liser
does his Money, in knowing that I may enjoy it when I
please; my Mind is satisfied with this Right of Posses-
sion. I never travel without Books, either in Peace or
War; and yet sometimes I pass over several Days, and
sometimes Months, without looking into them ; I will read
by and by, say I to myself, or to Morrow, or when I
please, and Time steals away without any Inconvenience.
For it is not to be imagined to what Degree I please my-
self, and rest content in this Consideration, that I have
tbem by me, to divert myseli mOa. \]i[iei£i ^Vea. \ ^xa. ^a

12S

Teachers In Life

disposed, and to call to mind what an Ease and Assistance
they are to my Life. 'Tis the best Viaticum I have yet
found out for this hiunan Journey, and I very much
lament those Men of Understanding who are unprovided
of it. And yet I rather accept of any sort of diversion,
how light soever, because this can never fail me. When at
Home, I a little more frequent my Library, from whence
I at once survey all the whole Concerns of my Family :
As I enter it, I from thence see under my Garden, Court,
and Basecourt, and into all the parts of the Building.
There I turn over now one Book, and then another, of
various Subjects without Method or Design : One while
I meditate, another I record, and dictate as I walk to
and fro, such Whimsies, as these with which I here
present you. 'Tis in the third Story of a Tower, of
which the Ground-Room is my Chapel, the second Story
an Apartment with a withdrawing Room and Closet,
where I often lie to be more retired. Above it is a
great Wardrobe, which formerly was the most useless
part of the House. In that Library I pass away most
of the Days of my Life, and most of the Hours of
the Day. In the Night I am never there. There is
within it a Cabinet handsom and neat enough, with a
very convenient Fire-place for the Winter, and Win-
dows that aJBFord a great deal of light, and very
pleasant Prospects. And were I not more afraid of the
Trouble than the Expence, the Trouble that frights me
from all Business, I could very easily adjoin on either
Side, and on the same Floor, a Gallery of an hundred
Paces long, and twelve broad, having found Walls already
raised for some other design, to the requisite height.
Every Place of Retirement recces* ^. "^"^JJ^. '^^^
K 129

The Friendship of Books

Thoughts sleep if I sit still ; my Fancy does not go by it-
self, my legs must move it; and all those who study
without a Book are in the same Condition. The Figure
of my Study is round and has no more flat Wall than what
is taken up by my Table and Chairs ; so that the remaining
parts of the Circle present me a View of all my Books
at once, set upon five Degrees of Shelves round about
me. It has three noble and free Prospects, and is
sixteen Paces Diameter. I am not so continually there
in Winter; for my Home is built upon an Eminence,
as its Name imports, and no part of it is so much
exposed to the Wind and Weather as that, which pleases
me the better, for being a painful Access, and a little
remote, as well upon the accoimt of Exercise, as being
also there more retired from the Crowd. 'Tis there
that I am in my Kingdom, as we say, and there
I endeavor to make myself an absolute Monarch,
and to sequester this one Comer from all Society,
whether Conjugal, Filial, or Civil. Elsewhere I have
but verbal Authority only, and of a confused Essence.
That Man, in my Opinion, is very miserable, who
has not a home, where to be by himself, where to
entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself from
others. . . .

Michael de Montaigne
0/ Three Commerces

A PRINCE without letters is a pilot without eyes ;

•^•^ all his government is groping. In sovereignty it is

a most happy thing not to be compelled ; but so it is the

most miserable not to be counselled. And how can he be

counselled that cannot see to read the best covmsellors

130

Teachers in Life

(which are books) ? for they neither flatter us nor hide
from us.

Ben Jonson

Sylva

" OOOKES lookt on as to their Readers or Authours,
-"-^ do at the very first mention, challenge Prehemi-
nence above the Worlds admired fine things. Books are
the Glasse of Coimsell to dress ourselves by. They are
life's best business : Vocation to these hath more Emolu-
ment coming in, than all the other busie Termes of life.
They are Feelesse Coimsellours, no delaying Patrons, of
easie Accesse, and kind Expedition, never sending away
empty any Client or Petitioner. They are for Company,
the best Friends; in doubts, Coimsellours; in Damp,
Comforters; Time's Perspective; the home Traveller's
Ship, or Horse, the busie man's best Recreation, the
Opiate of Idle weariness; the mind's best Ordinary;
Nature's Garden and Seed-plot of Immortality. Time
spent (needlessly) from them is consumed, but with them,
twice gain'd. Time captivated and snatched from thee,
by Incursions of business, Thefts of Visitants, or by thy
orm Carelessnesse lost, is by these, redeemed in life;
they are the soul's Viaticum ; and against death its Cor-
diall. In a true verdict, no such Treasure as a Library."

Author Unknown
From Introduction to Allibone's Critical Dictionary of
English Literature

" T^HE philosopher Zeno, being demanded on a time
-*■ by what means a man might attain to happiness,
made answer: By resorting to tiie dea.d,^TL^\i3b^ra»%Ssis^-

The Friendship of Books

iar conversation with them. Intimating thereby the read-
ing of Ancient and Modem Histories, and endeavoring to
have such good instructors, as have been observed in our
predecessors. A question also was moved by great King
Ptolemy, to one of the wise learned Interpreters : In what
occasions a King should exercise himself ? Whereto this he
replied: To know those things which formerly have been
done ; and to read Books of those matters which offer
themselves daily, or are fittest for our instant office." . . .

Author Unknown
Preface to Translation of Boccaccio^ s Decameron^ 1620

"DOOKS have always a secret influence on the under-
^^ standing; we cannot, at pleasure, obliterate ideas:
he that reads books of science, though without any fixed
desire of improvement, will grow more knowing; he
that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises
will imperceptibly advance in goodness ; the ideas which
are often offered to the mind will at last find a lucky
moment when it is disposed to receive them.

Samuel Johnson
The Adventurer, No, lyi

TPHE Diversions of Reading, though they are not
•^ always of the strongest Kind, yet they generally
Leave a better Effect than the grosser Satisfactions of
Sense ; For if they are well chosen, they neither dull the
Appetite, nor strain the Capacity. On the contrary, they
refresh the Inclinations, and strengthen the Power, and
improve under Experiment : And which is best of all, they
Entertain and Perfect at the same time; and convey
Wisdom and Knowledge through Pleasure. By Reading a

132

Teachers in Life

Man does as it were Antedate his Life, and makes himself
contemporary with the Ages past. And this way of running
up beyond one's Nativity is much better than Plato's Pre-
existence ; because here a Man knows something of the
State, and is the wiser for it ; which he is not in the other.

In conversing with Books we may chuse our Company,
and disengage without Ceremony or Exception. Here
we are free from the Formahties of Custom, and Respect :
We need not undergo the Penance of a dull Story, from a
Fop of Figure ; but may shake oflf the Haughty, the Im-
pertinent, and the Vain, at Pleasure. Besides, Authors,
like Women, commonly Dress when they make a Visit.
Respect to themselves makes them polish their Thoughts,
and exert the Force of their Understanding more than
they would, or can do, in ordinary Conversation: So
that the Reader has as it were the Spirit and Essence in
a narrow Compass ; which was drawn oflF from a much
larger Proportion of Time, Labour, and Expence. Like
an Heir, he is bom rather than made Rich, and comes
into a Stock of Sense, with little or no Trouble of his own.
'Tis true, a Fortime in Knowledge which Descends in
this manner, as well as an inherited Estate, is too often
neglected, and squandered away ; because we do not con-
sider the Difficulty in Raising it.

Books are a Guide in Youth, and an Entertainment for
Age. They support us imder Solitude, and keep us from
being a Burthen to ourselves. They help us to forget
the Crossness of Men and Things; compose our Cares,
and our Passions; and lay our Disappointments asleep.
When we are weary of the Living, we may repair to the
Dead, who have nothing of Peevishness, Pride, or Design,
in their Conversation. However , to \i^ csyosXaxiS^ \sN.*CtoR.

133

The Friendship of Books

Wheel has neither Pleasure nor Improvement in it. A
Man may as well expect to grow stronger by always
Eating, as wiser by always Reading. Too much over-
charges Nature, and turns more into Disease than
Nourishment. 'Tis Thought and Digestion which makes
Books serviceable, and gives Health and Vigour to the
Mind. Neither ought we to be too Implicit or Resigning
to Authorities, but to examine before we Assent, and
preserve our Reason in its just Liberties. To walk
always upon Crutches, is the way to lose the Use of our
Limbs. Such an absolute Submission keeps us in a
perpetual Minority, breaks the Spirits of the Understand-
ing, and lays us open to Imposture.

But Books well managed ajQEord Direction and Dis-
covery. They strengthen the Organ, and enlarge the
Prospect, and give a more universal Insight into Things,
than can be learned from imlettered Observation. He
who depends only upon his own Experience has but a few
Materials to work upon. He is confined to narrow Limits
both of Place and Time : And is not fit to draw a large
Model, and to pronounce upon Business which is com-
plicated and unusual. ... To take Measures wholly
from Books, without looking into Men and Business, is
like travelling in a Map, where though Coimtries and
Cities are well enough distinguished, yet Villages and
private Seats are either Over-looked, or too generally
Marked for a Stranger to find. And therefore he that
would be a Master, must Draw by the Life, as well as Copy
from Originals, and joyn Theory and Experience together.

Jeremy Collier
Essay upon Several Moral Subjects: Of the
Eniertainmeni of Books

134

Teachers in Life

A GOOD Booke may be a Benefactor representing
God Himself.

Benjamin Whichcote
Semums

"DUT books have the advantage in many other re-
■*-^ pects: you may read an able preacher, when you
have but a mean one to hear. Every congregation can-
not hear the most judicious or powerful preachers ; but
every single person may read the books of the most
powerful and judicious. Preachers may be silenced or
banished, when books may be at hand : books may be
kept at a smaller charge than preachers : we may choose
books which treat of that very subject which we desire to
hear of ; but we cannot choose what subject the preacher
shall treat of. Books we may have at hand every day
and hour ; when we can have sermons but seldom, and
at set times. If sermons be forgotten, they are gone.
But a book we may read over and over until we remember
it ; and, if we forget it, may again peruse it at our pleas-
ure, or at our leisure. So that good books are a very
great mercy to the world.

Richard Baxter
Christian Directory, Part I

"DECAUSE God hath made the excellent holy writings
^^ of his servants the singular blessing of this land and
age, and many an one may have a good book even any
day or hour of the week, that cannot at all become a good
preacher ; I advise all God's servants to be thankful for so
great a mercy, and to make use of it, and be much in
reading; for reading with most do^ilia. tqot^ css^^^k^ \s2fc

The Friendship of Books

knowledge than hearing doth, because you may choose
what subjects and the most excellent treatises you please,
and may be often at it, and may peruse again and again
what you forget, and may take time as you go to fix it
on your mind : and with very many it doth more than
hearing also to move the heart, though hearing of itself,
in this hath the advantage ; because lively books may be
more easily had, than lively preachers.

Richard Baxter
Christian Directory, Part 11

** T 71SIBLE and tangible products of the Past, again, I
^ reckon-up to the extent of three : Cities, with their
Cabinets and Arsenals ; then tilled Fields, to either or to
both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges may
belong ; and thirdly — Books. In which third truly, the
last invented, lies a worth far surpassing that of the two
others. Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a true Book.
Not like a dead city of stones, yearly crumbling, yearly
needing repair; more like a tilled field, but then a
spiritual field : like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it
stands from year to year, and from age to age (we have
Books that already number some himdred-and-fifty
human ages) ; and yearly comes its new produce of leaves
(Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political
Systems ; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalis-
tic Essays), every one of which is talismanic and thau-
maturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou who art able
to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or of tener
there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they
name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom
they name Conqueror or City-bMiiiet I Thou too art a

13^

Teachers in Life

Conqueror and Victor ; but of the true sort, namely over the
Devil : thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and
metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple
and Seminary and Prophetic Moimt, whereto all kindreds
of the Earth will pilgrim. — Fool I why joumeyest thou
wearisomely, in thy antiquarian fervour, to gaze on the
stone pjnramids of Geeza, or the clay ones of Sacchara ?
These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, look-
ing over the Desert, foolishly enough, for the last three-
thousand years : but canst thou not open thy Hebrew
BIBLE, then, or even Luther's Version thereof ? *'

Thomas Carlyle
Sartor Resartus

/^NE cannot celebrate books sufl&ciently. After
^^ saying his best, still something better remains to be
spoken in their praise. As with friends, one finds new
beauties at every interview, and would stay long in the
presence of those choice companions. As with friends,
he may dispense with a wide acquaintance. Few and
choice. The richest minds need not large libraries.
That is a good book which is opened with expectation
and closed with profit.

Lord Shaftesbury, writing of the literature of his time,
thus happily portrays the qualities of a good book. "No
work of wit," he says, "can be esteemed perfect without
that strength and boldness of hand which give it body and
proportion. A good piece, the painters say, must have
good muscling, as well as coloring and drapery. And
surely no writing or discourse of any great moment can
seem other than enervated, when neither stromg, ^^-asftjc^^
nor antiquity, nor the record oi \]iQMi%^, xvot ^^ \^\>ss5^

^37

The Friendship of Books

history of man, nor anything which can be called knowl-
edge, dares accompany it except in some ridiculous
habit which may give it an air of play and dalliance."

Of books in our time the variety is so voluminous, and
they follow so fast from the press, that one must be a
swift reader to acquaint himself even with their titles, and
wise to discern what are worth the reading. It is a wise
book that is good from title-page to the end.

"Were I to be judge and no other to be gratified,'' says
Howell, "I think I should silence whole libraries of
authors and reduce the world of books into a parcel;
whereas, were another to sit censor, it may be all those I
had spared would be condemned to darkness and obtain
no exemption from those ruins ; and were all to be sup-
pressed which some think unworthy of the light, no more
would be left than were before Moses and Trismegistus."

I confess to being drawn rather to the antiques, and
turn with a livelier expectancy the dingy leaves, finding
often inside the worn covers more for my reading than
on the snowy pages of most opened by frequenters at the
bookstores. I fancy that I am guided by a selecting
instinct to lay my hand upon the very volume that had
long been seeking my acquaintance. There are pat-
terns of bindings, moreover, that insure wise contents,
wisdom being not less an ancient than contemporary,
and retains the physiognomy of its times. One may
remember that time gathers and preserves the best along
with the worthless, and the selection is thus the wider.
And time must determine those of modem date which
may attain immortality. The fewest of any period will
hardly be remembered beyond their authors' life-time;
and how large the number tliatiievei g^^Im^wvet^^^TvyaaL*

13&

Teachers in Life

An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths
of his own thoughts serves him best, and at the same time
teaches the modesty of authorship.

The more Uf e embodied in the book, the more compan-
ionable. Like a friend, the volume salutes one pleasantly
at every opening of its leaves, and entertains; we close
it with charmed memories, and come again and again to
the entertainment. The books that charmed us in youth
recall the delight ever afterwards; we are hardly per-
suaded there are any like them, any deserving equally
our affections. Fortunate if the best fall in our way
during this susceptible and forming period of our lives.

I value books for their suggestiveness even more than
for the information they may contain, works that may be
taken in hand and laid aside, read at moments, containing
sentences that quicken my thoughts and prompt to fol-
lowing these into their relations with life and things. I
am stimulated and exalted by the perusal of books of this
kind, and should esteem myself fortunate if I might add
another to the few which the world shall take to its
affections.

A. Bronson Alcott
Table Talk

TTHE use of literatiure is to afford us a platform whence
-^ we may command a view of our present life, a pur-
chase by which we may move it. We fill ourselves with
ancient learning; install ourselves the best we can in
Greek, in Punic, in Roman houses, only that we may
wiseHer see French, English, and American houses and
modes of living.
Therefore we value the poet. Ml >i3afc ^x^asaeo^.^ ^s^Si.

139

The Friendship of Books

all the wisdom, is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise
on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet
or the play. In my daily work I incline to repeat my old
steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the power
of change and reform. But some Petrarch or Ariosto,
filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me
an ode, or a brisk romance, full of daring thought and
action. He smites and arouses me with his shrill tones,
breaks up my whole chain of habits, and I open my eye
on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides of
all the solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable
once more of choosing a straight path in theory and
practice.

R. W. Emerson
Essays: Circles

TF I were to pray for a taste which should stand me
-^ in stead, imder every variety of circumstances, and be
a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life,
and a shield against its ills, however things might go
amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste
for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly
advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding
or derogating from the higher ofl&ce and surer and stronger
panoply of religious principles — but as a taste, an in-
strimient and a mode of pleasurable gratification. Give
a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you
can hardly fail of making a happy man, imless, indeed,
you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books.
You place him in contact with the best society in every
period of history, — with the wdsest, the wittiest, — with
t&e tenderesty the bravest, and the puiest daax^icV^x^ 'who

140

Teachers In Life

have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of
all nations — a contemporary of all ages. The world
has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the
character should take a higher and better tone from the
constant habit of associating in thought with a class of
thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of hu-
manity. It is morally impossible but that the manners
should take a tinge of good breeding and civilization
from having constantly before one's eyes the way in
which the best-bred and the best-informed men have
talked and conducted themselves in their intercourse
with each other. There is a gentle, but perfectly ir-
resistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed
over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct,
which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly,
and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. It
cannot, in short, be better simuned up than in the words
of the Latin poet —

"EmoUit mores, nee sinit esse feros."
It civilizes the conduct of men — and suffers them not to
remain barbarous.

Sir John Herschel
Address at Windsor Public Library

" T ^ HLL you let me look at the book ? "

^ ^ "Yes, dear, that I will, if you promise me not
to run away with it."

I took the book from her hand ; a short, thick volume,
at least a century old, boimd with greasy black leather.
I turned the yellow and dog's-eared pages, reading here
and there a sentence. Yes, and no mistake I His ^^^,
his style, his spirit might be observed m everj >MNfc ^^Jl

141

The Friendship of Books

the uncouth-looking old volume — the air, the style, the
spirit of the writer of the book which first taught me to
read. I covered my face with my hand and thought
of my childhood.

"This is a singular book," said I at last ; "but it does
not appear to have been written to prove that thieving
is no harm, but rather to show the terrible consequences
of crime ; it contains a deep moral."

"A deep what, dear?"

"A — but no matter, I will give you a crown for this
volume."

"No, dear, I will not sell the volume for a crown."

"I am poor," said I; "but I will give you two silver
crowns for your volume."

"No, dear, I will not sell my volume for two silver
crowns ; no, nor for the golden o^e in the King's tower
down there ; without my book I should mope and pine,
and perhaps fling myself into the river ; but I am glad
you like it, which shows that I was right about you,
after all ; you are one of our party, and you have a flash
about that eye of yours which puts me just in mind
of my dear son. No, dear, I won't sell you my book;
but if you like, you may have a peep into it whenever
you come this way. I shall be glad to see you ; you are
one of the right sort, for if you had been a common one,
you would have run away with the thing ; but you scorn
such behavior, and, as you are so flush of your money,
though you say you are poor, you may give me a tanner
to buy a little baccy with ; I love baccy, dear, more by
token that it comes from the plantations to which the
blessed woman was sent."

\^2

Teachers in Life

"Well, mother," said I, "how are you?" The old
woman lifted her head with a startled look.

"Don't you know me ?" said I.

"Yes, I think I do. Ah, yes," said she, as her features
beamed with recollection, "I know you, dear; you are
the young lad that gave me the tanner. Well, child,
got anything to sell ? "

"Nothing at aU," said I.

"Bad luck?"

"Yes," said I, "bad enough, and ill-usage."

"Ah, I suppose they caught ye; well, child, never
mind, better luck next time ; I am glad to see you."

"Thank you," said I, sitting down on the stone bench.
. . . "Where's the book?"

The apple-woman shook more violently than before,
bent herself down, and drew her cloak more closely about
her than before. "Book, child, what book ?"

"Why, blessed Mary, to be sure."

"Oh, that ; I han't got it, child — I have lost it, have
left it at home."

"Lost it," said I; "left it at home — what do you
mean ? Come, let me have it."

"I han't got it, child."

"I believe you have got it under your cloak."

"Don't tell any one, dear; don't — don't," and the
apple-woman burst into tears.

"What's the matter with you ?" said I, staring at her.

"You want to take my book from me ? "

"Not I. I care nothing ^bout it; keep it, if you like,
only tell me what's the matter?"

"Why, all about that book."

"The book?"

The Friendship of Books

"Yes, they wanted to take it from me."

"Who did?"

"Why, some wicked boys. I'll tell you all about it.
Eight or ten days ago, I sat behind my stall, reading my
book ; all of a sudden I felt it snatched from my hand ;
up I started, and see three rascals of boys grinning at me ;
one of them held the book in his hand. 'What book
is this?' said he, grinning at it. 'What do you want
with my book?' said I, clutching at it over my stall;
'give me my book.' 'What do you want a book for?'
said he, holding it back ; 'I have a good mind to fling it
into the Thames.' 'Give me my book,' I shrieked;
and, snatching at it, I fell over my stall, and all my
fruit was scattered about. Off ran the boys — off ran
the rascal with my book. Oh dear, I thought I should
have died; up I got, however, and ran after them as
well as I could; I thought of my fruit, but I thought
more of my book. 'My book! my book!' I shrieked,
'murder! theft! robbery!' I was near being crushed
under the wheels of a cart ; but I didn't care — I followed
the rascals. ' Stop them ! stop them ! ' I ran nearly as
fast as they — they couldn't nm very fast on accoimt
of the crowd. At last some one stopped the rascal,
whereupon he turned round, and flinging the book at
me, it fell into the mud ; well, I picked it up, and kissed
it, all muddy as it was. 'Has he robbed you?' said the
man. ' Robbed me, indeed ; why, he had got my book ! '
'Oh, your book,' said the man, and laughed, and let the
rascal go. Ah, he might laugh, but — "

"Well, go on."

"My heart beats so. Well, I went back to my booth
and picked up my stall and my ixm\s», ^\vax.\ coN^ld^d

144

Teachers in Life

of them. I couldn't keep my stall for two days I got such
a fright, and when I got round, I couldn't bide the booth
where the thing had happened, so I came over to the
other side. . . . Would you like to look at the book?"

"WeU, I think I should."

"Honor bright?" said the apple-woman, looking me
in the eyes.

"Honor bright," said I, looking the apple-woman
in the eyes.

"Well then, dear, here it is," said she, taking it from
under her cloak; "read it as long as you like, only get
a little farther into the booth. Don't sit so near the edge
— you might — "

I went deep into the booth, and the apple-woman,
bringing her chair roimd, almost confronted me. I
commenced reading the book, and was soon engrossed
by it ; hours passed away, once or twice I lifted my eyes,
the apple-woman was still confronting me; at last my
eyes began to ache, whereupon I returned the book to
the apple-woman, and giving her another tanner, walked
away.

After a pause, the old woman said to me, " I believe,
dear, that it is the blessed book you brought me which
has wrought this goodly change. How glad I am now
that I can read; but oh what a difference between the
book you brought to me and the one you took away. I
believe the one you brought is written by the finger of
God, and the other by — "

"Don't abuse the book," said I, "it is an excellent
book for those who can understand it ; it was not eiactbj
suited to you, and perhaps it kad b^eiL >Qfe\.\jet \ia.\ ^<^^^

^ 145

The Friendship of Books

never read it — and yet — who knows ? Peradventure,
if you had not read that book, you would not have been
fitted for the perusal of the one which you say is written
by the finger of God;" and, pressing my hand to my
head, I fell into a deep fit of musing. "What, after
all," thought I, "if there should be more order and system
in the working of the moral world than I have thought ?
Does there not seem in the present instance to be some-
thing like the working of a Divine hand? I could not
conceive why this woman, better educated than her
mother, should have been, as she certainly was, a worse
character than her mother. Yet perhaps this woman may
be better and happier than her mother ever was, perhaps
she is so already — perhaps this world is not a wild, l3dng
dream, as I have occasionally supposed it to be. ". . .

"Farewell, child," said the old woman, "and God
bless you."

George Borrow
Lavengro, Chapters 31, 40, and 52

nPHE great considting room of a wise man is a library.
■^ When I am in perplexity about life, I have but to
come here, and, without fee or reward, I commxme with
the wisest souls that God has blest the world with. If I
want a discourse on immortality, Plato comes to my help.
If I want to know the human heart, Shakespeare opens
all its chambers. Whatever be my perplexity or doubt,
I know exactly the great man to call to me, and he comes
in the kindest way; he listens to my doubts and tells me
his convictions. So that a Hbrary may be regarded
as the solemn chamber in which a man can take counsel
wjtb all that have been wise and ^eaX. ^sA %qkA ^sA

146

Teachers in Life

glorious amongst the men that have gone before him.
If we come down for a moment and look at the bare and
immediate utilities of a library, we find that here a man
gets himself ready for his calling, arms himself for his
profession, finds out the facts that are to determine his
trade, prepares himself for his examination. The utili-
ties of it are endless and priceless: It is too a place of
pastime ; for man has no amusement more innocent, more
sweet, more gracious, more elevating, and more fortifying
than he can find in a Hbrary. If he be fond of books,
his fondness will discipline him as well as amuse him. . . .
I go into my Hbrary as to a hermitage — and it is one
of the best hermitages the world has. What matters
the scoff of the fool when you are safely amongst the
great men off the past? How little of the din of this
stupid world enters into a library, how hushed are the
foolish voices of the world's hucksterings, barterings,
and bickerings I How little the scorn of high or low,
or the mad cries of party spirit can touch the man who in
this best hermitage of human life draws around him the
quietness of the dead and the solemn sanctities of ancient
thought ! Thus, whether I take it as a question of utility,
of pastime, or of high discipline I find the Hbrary — with
but one or two exceptions — the most blessed place that
man has fashioned or framed. The man who is fond of
books is usually a man of lofty thought, of elevated opin-
ions. A hbrary is the strengthener of all that is great in
life and the repeller of what is petty and mean ; and half
the gossip of society would perish if the books that are
truly worth reading were but read.

George Dawson
Address at Birmingham Free Li^waf^

147

The Friendship of Books

A BOOK is essentially not a talked thing, but a written
'^■^ thing ; and written, not with a view of mere commu-
nication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed
only because its author cannot speak to thousands of
people at once ; if he could, he would : the volume is
mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to
your friend in India ; if you could, you would ; you write
instead : that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book
is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry
it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has some-
thing to say. which he perceives to be true and useful,
or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one
else can say it. He is bound to say it, cleariy and
melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In
the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or
group of things, manifest to him ; — this, the piece
of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sun-
shine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would
fain set it down forever ; engrave it on rock, if he could ;
saying, "This is the best of me ; for the rest, I ate, and
drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my
life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw and
knew : this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory."
That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way,
and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him,
his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."

Now, books of this kind have been written in all ages
by their greatest men, — by great readers, great states-
men, and great thinkers. These are aU at your choice;
and Life is short. You have heard as much before ; —
yet, have you measured and mapped out this short life
and its possibilities? Do you kno^, \i -^ou read this,

14S

Teachers in Life

that you cannot read that — that what you lose to-day
you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip
with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may
talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that
it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims
to respect, that you jostle with the himgry and common
crowd for entree here, and audience there, when all the
while this eternal court is open to you, with its society,
wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen,
and the mighty, of every place and time ? Into that you
may enter always; in that you may take fellowship
and rank according to your wish ; from that, once entered
into it, you can never be an outcast but by your own
fault ; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your
own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and
the motives with which you strive to take high place
in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth
and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire
to take in this company of the Dead.

"The place you desire," and the place you fit yourself
for, I must also say ; because, observe, this court of the
past differs from all hving aristocracy in this: it is
open to labor and to merit, but to nothing else. No
wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive,
the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense,
no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the por-
tieres of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but
brief question: "Do you deserve to enter? Pass. Do
you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make your-
self noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the con-
versation of the wise ? Learn to understand it^ and '^ci\\
shall hear h. But on other terms'^ — no. W ^wi.-^^

149

The Friendship of Books

not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living Lord
may assume courtesy, the living philosopher explain
his thought to you with considerate pain; but here
we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the
level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by
them, and share our feelings if you would recognize our
presence."

This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that
it is much. You must, in a word, love these people, if
you are to be among them. No ambition is of any use.
They scorn your ambition. You must love them, and
show your love in these two following wajrs: —

First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to
enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe ;
not to find your own expressed by them. If the person
who wrote the book is not wiser than you, you need not
read it; if he be, he will think differently from you in
many respects.

. Very ready we are to say of a book, "How good this
is — that's exactly what I think ! " But the right feeling
is : "How strange that is ! I never thought of that before,
and yet I see it is true ; or if I do not now, I hope I shall,
some day." But whether thus submissively or not, at
least be sure that you go to the author to get at his mean-
ing, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards if you think
yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And
be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you
will not get at his meaning all at once ; — nay, that at
his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive
in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means,
and in strong words too ; but he cannot say it all ; and
wljst is more strange, will not, but m a.\!i^^^Ti 'va.V and

ISO

Teachers in Life

in parable, in order that he may be sure you want it. I
cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyze that
cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes
them always hide their deeper thought. They do not
give it you by way of help, but of reward ; and will make
themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow
you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical
type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me, no
reason why the electric forces of the earth shoidd not
carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to the
mountain tops, so that kings and people might know
that all the gold they coidd get was there ; and without
any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste
of time, cut it away, and coin as much as they needed.
But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little
fissures in the earth, nobody knows where; you may
dig long and find none ; you must dig painfully to find
any.

And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When
you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, "Am
I inclined to work as an Australian miner would ? Are
my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good
trim m3rself , my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my
breath good, and my temper ? " And, keeping the figure
a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a
thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of
being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the
rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get
at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and
learning ; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful
soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's m.ea.rdx>L^
without those tools and that ftie •, oitevi ^o>x ^wS^ TkSfc^

151

The Friendship of Books

sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before
you can gather one grain of the metal.

John Ruskin
Sesame and Lilies

"D EPEATING our inquiry, what, then, do we mean by
-"■^ real literature ? especially the American literature of
the future ? Hard questions to meet. The clews are in-
ferential, and turn us to the past. At best, we can only
offer suggestions, comparisons, circuits.

It must still be reiterated, as, for the purpose of these
memoranda, the deep lesson of history and time, that all
else in the contributions of a nation or age, through its
politics, materials, heroic personalities, military 6clat,
etc., remains crude, and defers, in any close and thorough-
going estimate, until vitalized by national, original
archetypes in literature. They only put the nation in
form, finally tell anything — prove, complete anything —
perpetuate anything. Without doubt, some of the
richest and most powerful and populous communities
of the antique world, and some of the grandest personali-
ties and events, have, to after and present times, left
themselves entirely unbequeath'd. Doubtless, greater
than any that have come down to us, were among those
lands, heroisms, persons, that have not come down to us
at all, even by name, date, or location. Others have
arrived safely, as from voyages over wide, century
stretching seas. The little ships, the miracles that
have buoyed them, and by incredible chances safely
conveyed them (or the best of them, their meaning and
essence) over long wastes, darkness, lethargy, ignorance,
etc., have been a few insciiptioivs — la. l^-^ \so5aa\\ai.

Teachers in Life

compositions, small in size, yet compassing what measure-
less values of reminiscence, contemporary portraitures,
manners, idioms and beliefs, with deepest inference,
hint and thought, to tie and touch forever the old, new
body, and the old, new soul ! These ! and still these !
bearing the freight so dear — dearer than pride — dearer
than love. All the best experience of humanity, folded,
saved, freighted to us here. Some of these tiny ships
we call Old and New Testament, Homer, ^Eschylus,
Plato, Juvenal, etc. Precious minims ! I think, if we
were forced to choose, rather than have you, and the
likes of you, and what belongs to, and has grown
of you, blotted out and gone, we could better afford,
appalling as that would be, to lose all actual ships, this
day fastened by wharf, or floating on wave, and see
them, with all their cargoes, scuttled and sent to the
bottom.

Walt Whitman
Democratic Vistas

"\ T THEN a man loves books, he has in him that which
^ ^ will console him under many sorrows and strengthen
him in various trials. Such a love will keep him at home,
and make his time pass pleasantly. Even when visited
by bodily or mental affliction, he can resort to this book-
love and be cured. . . . And when a man is at home
and happy with a book, sitting by his fireside, he must
be a churl if he does not commimicate that happiness.
Let him read now and then to his wife and children.
Those thoughts will grow and take root in the hearts
of the listeners. Good scattered about is indeed tha
seed of the sower, A man wlio ie?i\& «^tm^^\3g>j ^w5i^

153

The Friendship of Books

what is good and noble is, at the time he feels that sym-
pathy. good and noble himself.

To a poor man book-love is not only a consoling pre-
servative, but often a source of happiness, power, and
wealth. It lifts him from the mechanical drudgery of the
day. It takes him away from bad companions, and gives
him the close companionship of a good and fine-thinking
man ; for, while he is reading Bacon or Shakespeare, he
is talking with Bacon or Shakespeare. While his body
is resting, his mind is working and growing. . . .

James Hain Friswell
The Gentle Life: On Book Love

npHE love of books is a love which requires neither
■^ justification, apology, nor defence. It is a good
thing in itself : a possession to be thankful for, to rejoice
over, to be proud of, and to sing praises for. With this
love in his heart no man is ever poor, ever without
friends, or the means of making his life lovely, beautiful,
and happy. In prosperity or adversity, in joy or sorrow,
in health or sickness, in solitude or crowded towns, books
are never out of place, never without the power to com-
fort, console, and bless. They add wealth to prosperity,
and make sweeter the sweet uses of adversity; they
intensify joy and take the sting from, or give a bright
rehef to sorrow ; they are the glorifiers of health and the
blessed consolers of sickness ; they people solitude with
the creations of thought, the children of fancy, and the
offsprings of imagination, and to the busy haimts of men
they lend a purpose and an aim, and tend to keep the
heart unspotted in the world. It is better to possess this
love than to inherit a kingdom, ioi \\. \ifvx^^ ^^xi^^bich

Teachers in Life

money can never buy, and which power is impotent to
secure. It is better than gold, "yea, than much find
gold," and splendid palaces and costly raiment. No
possession can siirpass, or even equal, a good library to the
lover of books. Here are treasured up for his daily use
and delectation riches which increase by being consumed,
and pleasures which never doy. It is a realm as large
as the universe, every part of which is peopled by spirits
who lay before his feet their precious spoils as his lawful
tribute. For him the poets sing, the philosophers dis-
course, the historians unfold the wonderful march of life,
and the searches of nature reveal the secrets and myster-
ies of creation. No matter what his rank or position
may be, the lover of books is the richest and the happiest
of the children of men. . . .

The only true equalizers in the world are books; the
only treasure-house open to all comers is a library;
the only wealth which will not decay is knowledge ; the
only jewel which you can carry beyond the grave is
wisdom. To live in this equality, to share in these
treasures, to possess this wealth, and to secure this
jewel may be the happy lot of every one. All that is
needed for the acquisition of these inestimable treasures
is, the love of books. . . .

As friends and companions, as teachers and consolers,
as recreators and amusers books are always with us, and
always ready to respond to our wants. We can take them
with us in our wanderings, or gather them around us at
our firesides. In the lonely wilderness, and the crowded
city, their spirit will be with us, giving a meaning to the
seemingly confused movements of himianity^ and ^e.<i-
pling the desert with their own bn^\i\. cxeaXioTkS*. ^\!(^^xi^.

15S

The Friendship of Bcx>ks

the love of books the richest man is poor ; but endowed
with this treasure of treasures, the poorest man is rich.
He has wealth which no power can diminish; riches
which are always increasing ; possessions which the more
he scatters the more they accmnulate ; friends who never
desert him, and pleasures which never doy.

J. A. Langfoed
The Praise of Books

Cellini's Autobiography >«;>>«;> -oy -s^n^, .^^

A BOOK which the great Goethe thought worthy of
•^^ translating into German with the pen of Faiist
and Wilhelm Meister, a book which Auguste Comte
placed upon his very limited list for the perusal of re-
formed humanity, is one with which we have the right
to be occupied, not once or twice, but over and over
again. It cannot lose its freshness. What attracted
the encyclopaedic minds of men so different as Comte and
Goethe to its pages still remains there. This attractive
or compulsive quality, to put the matter briefly, is the
flesh and blood reality of Cellini's self-delineation. A
man stands before us in his Memoirs imsophisticated,
imembellished, with all his native faults upon him, and
with all his potent energies portrayed in the veracious
manner of Velasquez, with bold strokes and animated
play of light and color. No one was less introspective
than this child of the Italian Renaissance. No one was
less occupied with thoughts about thinking or with the
presentation of psychological experience. Vain, osten-
tatious, self-laudatory, and self-engrossed as Cellini was,
he ntv&c stopped to analyze himself. He attempted
no artistic Wending of BichXun^ und Wakr\ie\l; >&sfc

156

Teachers in Life

word "confessions" could not have escaped his Kps; a
Journal Intime would have been incomprehensible to
his fierce, virile spirit. His autobiography is the record
of action and passion. Suffering, enjo)dng, enduring,
working with restless activity ; hating, loving, hovering
from place to place as impulse moves him; the man
presents himself dramatically by his deeds and spoken
words, never by his ponderings or meditative broodings.
It is this healthy externality which gives its great charm
to Cellini's self-portrayal and renders it an imperishable
document for the student of hiunan nature.

In addition to these solid merits, his life, as Horace
Walpole put it, is "more amusing than any novel." We
have a real man to deal with — a man so realistically
brought before us that we seem to hear him speak and
see him move ; a man, moreover, whose eminently char-
acteristic works of art in a great measure still survive
among us. Yet the adventures of this potent human
actuality will bear comparison with those of Gil Bias, or
the Comte de Monte Cristo, or Quentin Durward, or
Les Trois Mousquetaires, for their variety and ever
pungent interest.

In point of language, again, Cellini possesses an
advantage which places him at least upon the level of the
most adroit romance-writers. Unspoiled by literary
training, he wrote precisely as he talked, with all the
sharp wit of a born Florentine, heedless of grammatical
construction, indifferent to rhetorical effects, attaining
imsurpassable vividness of narration by pure simplicity.
He was greatly helped in gaining the peculiar success he
has achieved by two circumstances; first, that he dic-
tated nearly the whole of bis Memoits \ft ^ ^^^sss^^

157

The Friendship of Bcx>ks

amanuensis ; secondly, that the distinguished academical
writer to whose correction he submitted them refused to
spoil their ingenuous grace by alterations or stylistic
improvements. While reading his work, therefore, we
enjoy something of that pleasure which draws the folk of
Eastern lands to listen to the recitation of Arabian
Nights' entertainments.

John Addington Symonds
Introdtiction to Cellini's Autobiography

HTHE most influential books, and the truest in their
-■■ influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin
the reader to a dogma which he must afterwards discover
to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which
he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they re-
arrange, they classify the lessons of life ; they disengage
us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance
of others ; and they show us the web of experience, not
as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change
— that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the
nonce, struck out. To be so, they must be reasonably
true to the hiunan comedy; and any work that is so
serves the turn of instruction. But the coiurse of our
education is answered best by those poems and romances
where we breathe a magnanimous atmosphere of thought
and meet generous and pious characters. Shakespeare
has served me best. Few living friends have had upon
me an influence so strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind.
. . . Kent's brief speech over the dying Lear had a
great effect upon my mind, and was the burthen of my
reflections for long, so profoimdly, so touchingly gener-
ous did it appear in sense, so over^^«rca%m^33^Yfission.

Teachers in Life

Perhaps my dearest and best friend outside of Shake-
speare is D'Artagnan — the elderly D'Artagnan of the
Vicomte de Bragelonne, I know not a more human soul,
nor, in his way a finer. I shall be very sorry for the
man who is so much of a pedant in morals that he cannot
learn from the Captain of Musketeers. Lastly, I must
name the Pilgrim's Progress, a book that breathes of
every beautiful and valuable emotion.

But of works of art little can be said ; their influence
is profoimd and silent, like the influence of nature ; they
mould by contact ; we drink them up like water, and
are bettered, yet know not how. It is in books more
specifically didactic that we can follow out the effect,
and distinguish and weigh and compare. A book which
has been very influential upon me fell early into my
hands, and so may stand first, though I think its influ-
ence was only sensible later on, and perhaps still keeps
growing, for it is a book not easily outlived: the Essais
of Montaigne. That temperate and genial picture of
life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of
to-day ; they will find in these smiling pages a maga-
zine of heroism and wisdom, all of an antique strain;
they will have their "Unen decencies" and excited
orthodoxies fluttered, and will (if they have any gift
of reading) perceive that these have not been fluttered
without some excuse and groimd of reason ; and (again
if they have any gift of reading) they will end by seeing
that this old gentleman was in a dozen ways a finer
fellow, and held in a dozen ways a nobler view of life,
than they or their contemporaries.

The next book, in order of time, to influence me, was
the New Testament, and in particuiax \2afc Qjws^^ ?ik.-

159

The Friendship of Books

cording to St. Matthew. I believe it would startle and
move any one if they cotdd make a certain effort of
imagination and read it freshly like a book, not dron-
ingly and dully like a portion of the Bible. Any one
would then be able to see in it those truths which we
are all courteously supposed to know and all modestly
refrain from appl3dng. But upon this subject it is
perhaps better to be silent.

I come next to Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a book of
singular service, a book which tumbled the world upside
down for me, blew into space a thousand cobwebs of
genteel and ethical illusion, and, having thus shaken my
tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon a strong
foundation of all the original and manly virtues. But
it is, once more, only a book for those who have the
gift of reading. I will be very frank — I believe it is
so with all good books except, perhaps, fiction. The
average man lives, and must live, so wholly in conven-
tion, that gxmpowder charges of the truth are more apt
to discompose than to invigorate his creed. Either he
cries out upon blasphemy and indecency, and crouches
the closer round that little idol of part-truths and part-
conveniences which is the contemporary deity, or he is
convinced by what is new, forgets what is old, and be-
comes truly blasphemous and indecent himself. New
truth is only useful to supplement the old ; rough truth
is only wanted to expand, not to destroy, our civil and
often elegant conventions. He who cannot judge had
better stick to fiction and the daily papers. There he
will get Uttle harm, and, in the first at least, some good.

R. L. Stevenson
Books which fiaoie influenced Me

Teachers in Life

TN the first place, when we speak about books, let
-^ us avoid the extravagance of expecting too much
from books, the pedant's habit of extolling books as
synonymous with education. Books are no more educa-
tion than laws are virtue ; and just as profligacy is easy
within the strict limits of law, a boundless knowledge
of books may be foimd with a narrow education. A
man may be, as the poet saith, "deep vers'd in books,
and shallow in himself." We need to know in order
that we may feel rightly and act wisely. The thirst
after truth itself may be pushed to a degree where in-
dulgence enfeebles our sympathies and lumerves us
in action. Of all men perhaps the book-lover needs
most to be reminded that man's business here is to
know for the sake of living, not to live for the sake of
knowing.

Frederic Harrison
The Choice of Books

T MUST confess that I like all memoirs. I like them
-^ for their form, just as much as for their matter. In
literature mere egotism is delightful. It is what fasci-
nates us in the letters of personalities so different, as Cicero
and Balzac, Flaubert and Berlioz, Byron and Madame
de Sevign6. Whenever we come across it, and, strangely
enough, it is rather rare, we cannot but welcome it,
and do not easily forget it. Hiunanity will always love
Rousseau for having confessed his sins, not to a priest,
but to the world, and the couchant nymphs that Cellini
wrought in bronze for the castle of King Francis, the
green and gold Perseus, even, that in iVia o^ewYRi.'igea.
at Florence shows the moon the dead tertot xJcaX <5fas»
M i6i

The Friendship of Books

turned life to stone, have not given it more pleasure
than has that autobiography in which the supreme
scoimdrel of the Renaissance relates the stoiy of his
splendor and his shame. The opinions, the character,
the achievements of the man, matter very little. He
may be a sceptic like the gentle Sieur de Montaigne, or
a saint like the bitter son of Monica, but when he tells
us his own secrets he can alwa3rs charm our ears to listen-
ing and our lips to silence. The mode of thought that
Cardinal Newman represented — if that can be called
a mode of thought which seeks to solve intellectual
problems by a denial of the supremacy of intellect —
may not, cannot, I think, survive. But the world will
never weary of watching that troubled soul in its progress
from darkness to darkness. The lonely church at Little-
more, where ''the breath of the morning is damp, and
worshippers are few," will always be dear to it, and when-
ever men see the yellow snapdragon blossoming on the
wall of Trinity, they will think of that gracious under-
graduate who saw in the flower's sure recurrence a proph-
ecy that he would abide forever with the Benign Mother
of his days — a prophecy that Faith, in her wisdom or
her folly, suffered not to be fulfilled. Yes; autobiog-
raphy is irresistible. Poor, siQy, conceited Mr. Secre-
tary Pepys has chattered his way into the circle of the
Immortals, and, conscious that indiscretion is the better
part of valor, bustles about among them in that ''shaggy
purple gown with gold buttons and looped lace" which
he is so fond of describing to us, perfectly at his ease,
and prattling, to his own and our infinite pleasure, of
the Indian blue petticoat that he bought for his wife,
of the "good hog's haislet" and \5afc ''^e5iaasiX.^^Ttf3a.

162 '

Teachers in Life

fricassee of veal" that he loved to eat, of his game of
bowls with Will Joyce, and his "gadding after beauties,"
and his reciting of Hamlet on a Siinday, and his playing
of the viol on week days, and other wicked or trivial
things. Even in actual life egotism is not without its
attractions. When people talk to us about others, they
are usually dull. When they talk to us about themselves,
they are nearly always interesting, and if one could shut
them up, when they become wearisome, as easily as one
can shut up a book of which one has grown wearied, they
would be perfect absolutely.

Oscar Wude
Intentions: The Critic as Artist

T^O read good books. . . . The best books are few ;
^^ to know them is a joy that does not perish. Elnow-
ing them, you can at all times enter the haimted coimtry,
and j&nd your favorite places, and be at rest with that
which is perfect, make acquaintance with the masters,
with the immortals. There are no such good friends
as they are.

Andrew Lang
"Books that have helped Me" {The Forum, June, 1887)

TNTIMATE communion with the minds of the
•*■ wisest and most gifted of our race — the kings of
thought — rarely fails to bring with it, not merely pa-
tience and hope wherewith to meet the imavoidable
cares and disappointments of life, but also fortitude to
bear even its worst calamities.

Alexander Ireland
Preface to The Boofe-lovcr' s EncH\TiAvm^x%'^%

163

The Friendship of Books

"D OOKS I those miraculous memories of high thoughts
^^ and golden moods; those silver shells, tremulous
with the wonderful secrets of the ocean of life ; those
love-letters that pass from hand to hand of a thousand
lovers that never meet; those honey-combs of dreams ;
those orchards of knowledge ; those still-beating hearts
of the noble dead ; those mysterious signals that beckon
along the darksome pathways of the past ; voices through
which the myriad lispings of the earth find perfect speech;
oracles through which its mysteries call like voices in
moonlit woods ; prisms of beauty ; urns stored with all
the sweets of all the summers of time ; immortal night-
ingales that sing forever to the rose of life — Books,
Bibles — ah me! what have ye become to-day!

Richard Le Gallienne
Limited Editions, A Prose Fancy

"DOCKS are not the products of accident and caprice.
^ As Goethe said, if you would understand an
author, you must imderstand his age. The same thing
is just as true of a book. If you would fully comprehend it,
you must know the age. There is an order ; there are causes
and relations between great compositions and the societies
in which they have emerged. Just as the naturalist strives
to imderstand and to explain the distribution of plants and
animals over the surface of the globe, to connect their
presence or their absence with the great geological,
climatic, and oceanic changes, so the student of literature,
if he be wise, imdertakes an ordered and connected survey
of ideas, of tastes, of sentiments, of imagination, of humor,
of invention, as they affect and a& \!tiey ^x^ ^^^^\.^d. Vj

164

Teachers in Life

the ever changing experiences of human nature, and the
manifold variations that time and circumstances are
incessantly working in human society.

Lord Morley
On the Study of Literature

T AM not going to preach to you any artificial stoicism.
-^ I am not going to preach to you any indifference to
money, or to the pleasures of social intercourse, or to the
esteem and good-will of our neighbors, or to any other
of the consolations and necessities of life. But, after
all, the thing that matters most, both for happiness and
for duty, is that we should strive habitually to hve with
wise thoughts and right feelings. Literature helps us
more than our studies to this most blessed companion-
ship of wise thoughts and right feelings.

Lord Morley
On the Study of Literature

TVyTERE scholarship and learning and the knowledge
•^ '^-■- of books do not by any means arrest and dissolve
all the travelling acids of the hiunan system. Nor would
I pretend for a moment that literature can be any sub-
stitute for life and action. Burke said, "What is the
education of the generality of the world? Reading a
parcel of books ? No ! Restraint and discipline, ex-
amples of virtue and of justice, these are what form the
education of the world." That is profoimdly true, it is life
that IS the great education. But the parcel ol VsaQ}6s»^
U they are well chosen, reconciie "vi& \xi XKx^ ^^*2i:^J^^\

i6S

The Friendship of Books

they interpret this virtue and justice; they awaken
within us the diviner mind, and rouse us to a conscious-
ness of what is best in others and ourselves.

LOSD MORLEY

On the Study of Literature

T 1 THY indeed (one is tempted to ask in conclusion)
^ ^ should it be that the poets who have written for us
the poetry richest in skyey grain, most free from admixture
with the duller things of earth — the Shelleys, the Cole-
ridges, the Keats — are the very poets whose lives are
among the saddest records in literature ? Is it that (by
some subtile mystery of analogy) sorrow, passion, and
fantasy are indissolubly connected, like water, fire, and
cloud; that as from sun and dew are bom the vapors, so
from fire and tears ascend the "visions of aerial joy" ; that
the harvest waves richest over the battlefields of the soul ;
that the heart, like the earth, smells sweetest after rain ;
that the spell on which depend such necromantic castles
is some spirit of pain charm-poisoned at their base?
Such a poet, it may be, mists with sighs the window of
his life until the tears run down it; then some air of
searching poetry, like an air of searching frost, turns
it to a crystal wonder. The god of golden song is the
god, too, of the golden sun; so peradventure songlight
is sunlight, and darkens the coimtenance of the soul.
Perhaps the rays are to the stars what thorns are to
the flowers; and so the poet, after wandering over
heaven, returns with bleeding feet.

FRANas Thompson

166

Teachers in Life

"PATHERS of the Church (we would say), pastors
-*• of the Church, pious laics of the Church: you are
taking from its walls the panoply of Aquinas ; take also
from its walls the psaltery of Alighiere. Unroll the pre-
cedents of the Church's past ; recall to your minds that
Francis of Assisi was among the precursors of Dante;
that sworn to Poverty he foreswore not Beauty, but
discerned through the lamp Beauty the Light God; that
he was even more a poet in his miracles than in his
melody ; that poetry climg roimd the souls of his Order.
Follow his footsteps; you who have blessings for men,
have you no blessing for the birds? Recall to your
memory that, in their minor kind, the love poems of
Dante shed no less honor on Catholicism than did the
great religious poem which is itself pivoted on love ; that
in singing of Heaven he sung of Beatrice — this support-
ing angel was still carven on his harp even when he
stirred its strings in Paradise. What you theoretically
know, vividly reaHze: that with many the religion of
beauty must always be a passion and a power, that it
is only evil when divorced from the worship of Primal
Beauty. Poetry is the preacher to men of the earthy
as you of the Heavenly Fairness ; of that earthy fairness
which God has fashioned to his own image and likeness.
You proclaim the day which the Lord had made, and she
exults and rejoices in it. You praise the Creator for
His works, and she shows you that they are very good.
Beware how you misprize this potentially, for hers is the
air of Giotto and Dante : beware how you misprize this
insidious foe, for hers is the art of modem France and
B)nx)n. Her value, if you know it not, God kno^^^ ^^
know the enemies of God. li yoMlia:^^ x^ci xcswcdl Vst.\iS3t

167

The Friendship of Books

beneath the wings of the Holy One, there is place for her
beneath the webs of the Evil One : whom you discard,
he embraces ; whom you cast down from an honorable
seat, he will advance to a haughty throne ; the brows you
dislaurel of a just respect, he will bind with baleful splen-
dors ; the stone which you builders reject, he will make his
head of the comer. May she not prophesy in the temple ?
then there is ready for her the tripod of Delphi. Eye her
not askance if she seldom sing directly of religion : the bird
gives glory to God though it sings only of its innocent loves.
Suspicion creates its own cause ; distrust begets reason
for distrust. This beautiful, wild, feline poetry, wild, be-
cause left to range the wilds, restore to the hearth of your
charity, shelter imder the rafters of your Faith ; discipline
her to the sweet restraints of your household, feed her
with the meat from your table, soften her with the amity of
your children; tame her, fondle her, cherish her — you
will no longer then need to flee her. Suffer her to wanton,
suffer her to play, so she play round the foot of the Cross.

Francis Thompson
Shelley: An Essay

'T'HE practical value of a book is the inherent energy
-■■ and quietness of the ideals in it — the immemorial
way ideals have — have always had — of working them-
selves out in a man, of doing the work of the man and of
doing their own work at the same time.

Inasmuch as ideals are what all real books are written

with and read with, and inasmuch as ideals are the only

known way a human being has of resting, in this present

world, it would be hard to think of any book that would

be more to the point in this modem oN^^MaMo^ xJoaaa. ^

168

Teachers in Life

book that shall tell men how to read to live, — how to
touch their ideals swiftly every day. Any book that
should do this for us would touch life at more points and
flow out on men's minds in more directions than any other
that could be conceived. It would contribute as the
June day, or as the night for sleep, to all men's lives,
to all of the problems of all the world at once. It would
be a night latch — to the ideal.

Gerald Stanley Lee
The Lost Art of Reading

'T'HE test of a real book is that it enables you to find
-■■ yourself; it sends your mind adventuring, and de-
lights your heart in that you have foimd another who has
felt as you feel and who has delivered himself. Such books
cannot be read always ; they rebel against a companion-
ship that breeds contempt. They will entertain you
to a continual intimacy only when you shall have climbed
the heights of your own mental pUgrimage, and have
freed yourself of your soul's burden. . . .

The real books are very particular as to whom they
will know. If they do not like you, you may clothe
them in purple and gold, they will always hide them-
selves from you. If your spirit is attimed to them, they
will be welcome in homespim or common cloth. It is
the nature of great books to be silent and imcommuni-
cative if you do not come to them with your mind dressed
in its best and fit to enter the presence of a king of
thought. They will then not question your dress, your
wealth, or your social standing. They will but ask of
yovu: spirit — "Are you ready?" If it is, they will
come to you as friends with outstTelcfesA. ^.Tav%\ "^qk:^

169

The Friendship of Books

will give you of the riches of their inexhaustible treasure-
houses; they wijQ charm you with the magic of their
music ; they will endow you with the gifts of knowledge ;
and they will bless you with the strength of their wisdom.

Temple Scott
The Pleasure of Reading

170

COMPANIONS IN PLEASURE

^EE world was made for nothing other than to produce
a beautiful book.

Stephane Mallasme
Companions in Pleasure

2D00KS are not seldom talismans and spells.

W. COWPER

The Task, Bk. VI

jJND thus my book hath been so much my pleasure,
and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more,
that in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed, be but
trifles and troubles unto me.^*

Lady Jane Grey
Roger Ascham^s The Schokmasterj Bk. I

ATOTHING can supply the place of books. They are
cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness,
affliction. The wealth of both continents would not com-
pensate for the good they impart. Let every man, if pos-
sible, gather some good books under his roof, and obtain
access for himself and family to some social library.
Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to this.

Dr. W. £. Chamning
Self -Culture

/^ FOR a Booke and a shadie nooke,

^^ eytherin-a-dooreorout;

With the grene leaves whispering overhede,

or the Streete cryes all about.
Where I maie Reade all at my ease,

both of the Newe and Olde ;
For a joUie goode Booke whereon to looke,

is better to me than Gk)lde.

Old English Song

"DUT how can I live here without my books? I
^^ really seem to myself crippled and only half my-
self ; for if, as the great Orator used to say, arms are
a soldier's members, surely books are the limbs of scholars.
Corasius says : Of a truth, he who would deprive me of
books, my old friends, would take away all the delight
of my life, nay, I will even say all desire of living.

Balthasar BoNiFAaus Rhodiginus
Historia Ludicra

The Value and the Charm of Fairy Tales ^'^

"POR so hath all wr3rters in times paste employed their
-■- travell and labours, that their posteritie might re-
ceave some faict-f ull profile by the same. And therefore
the poetes feigned not their fables in vaine, consideringe
that children in time of their first studies, are muche allured
thereby to proceed to more gtav^ aiA ^<t«^ ^^^skssJ^smss.^

175

The Friendship of Books

whereas otherwise their mindes would quickly lothe the
wise and prudent woorkes of learned men, wherein in such
unripe yeeres they take no sparke of delectation at all. And
not onely that profite arriseth to children by suche feigned
fables, but also the vertues of men are covertly thereby
commended, and their vices discommended and abhorred.

William Adlington
The Epistle Dedicatory to his Translation of the
Golden Ass by Apideius {1566)

Sir Nathaniel, Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties
that are bred in a book ;

He hath not eat paper, as it were ; he is only an animal,
only sensible in the duller parts :

And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be.

Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that
do fructify in us more than he.

William Shakespeare
Love*s Labour^ s Lost^ Act IV, Sc. 2

rWE me

Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does
Contain my books, the best companions, is
To me a glorious court, where hourly I
Converse with the old sages and philosophers.
And sometimes for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels ;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got.
Unto a strict account : and in my fancy.
Defaced their ill-planed statues. Can I then
Part with such constant p\ea&Mce&,\.o ea^ia^jt

176

Companions in Pleasure

Uncertain vanities ? No: be it your care
To augment a heap of wealth ; it shall be mine
To increase in knowledge. Lights there for my study !

John Fletcher
The Elder Brother , Act I, Sc. 2

/^ BLESSED Letters ! that combine in one
^^ All Ages past, and make one live with all.

By you we do confer with who are gone,
And the Dead-living unto Council call ;
By you th' unborn shall have Commimion
Of what we feel and what doth us befal.
Soul of the World, Knowledge without thee ;

What hath the Earth that truly glorious is ?

. . . What Good is like to this.

To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the Reading, and the World's Delight?

Samuel Daniel
Musophilus

A ND tho' books, madam, cannot make this Mind,
•^^ Which we must bring apt to be set aright ;
Yet do they rectify it in that Kind,

And touch it so, as that it turns that Way
Where Judgment lies. And tho* we cannot find
The certain Place of Truth ; yet do they stay,
And entertain us near about the same :
And give the Soul the best Delight that may
Enchear it most, and most our Spirits enflame
To Thoughts of Glory, and to worthy Ends.

Samuel Daniel
To The Lady Lucy^ Countess 0^ ^e^w^
N 177

The Friendship of Books

. . . "pAR more seemely were it for thee to have thy
•*■ Studie full of Bookes, than thy Purses full of
Mony. John Lilly

Euphues: the Anaiomy of Wit

"\ 1 7H0 is he that is now wholly overcome with idleness,
^ ^ or otherwise encircled in a labyrinth of worldly
care, troubles, and discontents, that will not be much
hghtened in his mind by reading of some enticing story,
true or feigned, where as in a glass he shall observe what
our forefathers have done, the beginning, ruins, falls,
periods of commonwealths, private men's actions dis-
played to the life, etc. . . . ^Tiosoever he is therefore
that is ovemm with solitariness, or carried away with
pleasing melancholy and vain conceits, and for want of
employment knows not how to spend his time ; or cru-
cified with worldly care, I can prescribe him no better
remedy than this of study. . . . Garden calls a library the
physic of the soul ; " divine authors fortify the mind, make
men bold and constant ; and (as Hyperius adds) godly con-
ference will not permit the mind to be tortured with absurd
cogitations. " Rhasis enjoins continual conference to such
melancholy men, perpetual discourse of some history, tale,
poem, news, etc., which feeds the mind as meat and drink
doth the body, and pleaseth as much. . . . Saith Lipsmus,
"When I read Seneca, methinks lam beyond all human
fortune, on the top of a hill above mortality." ... I
would for these causes wish him that is melancholy to use
both himian and divine authors, voluntarily to impose some
task upon himself to divert his melancholy thoughts. . . .

Robert Burton
TKe Analow^ oj "MLdatvcVwl^

17&

Companions in Pleasure

T_TE that loveth a book will never want a faithful
■*■ ■*■ friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful compan-
ion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by
thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly
entertain himself, as in all weathers, so in all fortunes.

Isaac Barrow

ATADAM,

^^^ Those writers, who solicit the protection of the
noble and the great, are often exposed to censure by the
impropriety of their addresses: a remark that will per-
haps be too readily applied to him, who having nothing
better to offer than the rude Songs of ancient Minstrels,
aspires to the patronage of the Countess of Northimiber-
land, and hopes that the barbarous productions of impol-
ished ages can obtain the approbation or the notice of
her, who adorns courts by her presence, and diffuses
elegance by her example.

But this impropriety, it is presumed, will disappear,
when it is declared that these poems are presented to
your Ladyship, not as labors of art, but as effusions
of nature, showing the first efforts of ancient genius, and
exhibiting the customs and opinions of remote ages, —
of ages that had been almost lost to memory, had not
the gallant deeds of your illustrious Ancestors preserved
them from oblivion.

No active or comprehensive mind can forbear some
attention to the reliques of antiquity : it is prompted by
natural curiosity to survey the progress of life and manners,
and to inquire by what gradations barbarity was
civilized, grossness refined, and ignorance instructed : but
this curiosity, Madam, must be stronger in thosa^^ta ^^aka.

179

The Friendship of Books

your Ladyship, can remark in every period the influence
of some great Progenitor, and who still feel in their
effects the transactions and events of distant centuries.
By such Bards, Madam, as I am now introducing
to your presence, was the infancy of genius nurtured and
advanced; by such were the minds of unlettered war-
riors softened and enlarged ; by such was the memory
of illustrious actions preserved and propagated ; by such
were the heroic deeds of the Earls of Northiunberland
sung at festivals in the hall of Alnwick: and those
Songs which the bounty of your ancestors rewarded,
now return to your Ladyship by a kind of hereditary
right ; and, I flatter myself, will find such reception as is
usually shown to poets and historians by those, whose
consciousness of merit makes it their interest to be long
remembered.

I am. Madam,

Your Ladyship's most himible,
and most devoted servant,

Thomas Percy .
Dedication of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
to the Countess of Northumberland, 1765

AT TINGS have we, — and as far as we can go
^ ^ We may find pleasure : wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.
Dreams, books, are each a world ; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good :
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood.
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,

Companions in Pleasure

Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear ;

Two shall be named, preeminently dear, —

The gently Lady married to the Moor ;

And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.

William Wordsworth
Personal Talk, HI

A POET ! — He hath put his heart to school,
-^^^ Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff

Which Art hath lodged within his hand — must laugh
By precept only, and shed tears by rule.

Thy Art be Nature ; the live current quaff.
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool

Have killed him. Scorn should write his epitaph.
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold ?

Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold ;

And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould.

But from its own divine vitality.

William Wordsworth
A Poet ! — He hath put his heart to school

The Garden of Boccaccio ^^^ ^^^ -«o -«o

/^F late, in one of those most weary hours,
^-^ When life seems emptied of all genial powers,
A dreary mood, which he who ne*er has known
May bless his happy lot, I sate alone ;
And, from the numbing spell to win relief,
Called on the Past for thought oi ^\tG ox ^<d.

i8i

The Friendship of BcK>ks

In vain ! bereft alike of grief and glee,
I sate and cow*r'd o'er my own vacancy !
And as I watched the full continuous ache,
Which, all else slumbering, seem'd alone to wake;

Friend ! long wont to notice yet conceal,
And soothe by silence what words cannot heal,

1 but half saw that quiet hand of thine
Place on my desk this exquisite design,
Boccaccio's Garden and its faery.

The love, the joyaimce, and the gallantry I
An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm.
Framed in the silent poesy of form.
Like flocks a-down a newly bathed steep

Emerging from a mist : or like a stream
Of music soft, that not dispels the sleep.

But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream,
Gazed by an idle eye with silent might
The picture stole upon my inward sight.
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest.
As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast.
And one by one (I know not whence) were brought
All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought
In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost
Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost ;
Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above.
Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love ;
Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan
Of manhood, musing what and whence is man !
Wild strains of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves
Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves ;
Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids.
That called on Hertha in deep iote&l %\ades\

1^2

Companions in Pleasure

Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast ;

Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest,

Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array,

To high-church pacing on the great saint's day.

And many a verse which to myself I sang.

That woke the tear yet stole away the pang,

Of hopes which in lamenting I renewed.

And last, a matron now, of sober mien,

Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen,

Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd

Even in my dawn of thought — Philosophy ;

Though then unconscious of herself, pardie,

She bore no other name than Poesy ;

And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee.

That had but newly left a mother's knee.

Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone,

As if with' elfin playfellows well known,

And life reveal'd to innocence alone.

Thanks, gentle artist ! now I can descry

Thy fair creation with a mastering eye.

And all awake ! And now in fixed gaze stand,

Now wander through the Eden of thy hand ;

Praise the green arches, on the foimtain clear

See fragment shadows of the crossing deer ;

And with that serviceable nymph I stoop

The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.

I see no longer ! I myself am there.

Sit on the groimd-sward, an,d the banquet share.

'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings.

And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings ;

Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells

From the high tower, and tliVDlk V5aa\. >i)!asx^ ^^ $!iw€Ji&,

1^3

The Friendship of Books

With old Boccaccio*s soul I stand possest,

And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest.

The brightness of the world, O thou once free,
And always fair, rare land of courtesy !
O Florence ! with the Tuscan fields and hills
And famous Arno, fed with all their rills ;
Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy !
Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine,
The golden com, the olive, and the vine,
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old.
And forests, where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn ;
Palladian palace with its storied halls ;
Foimtains, where Love lies listening to their falls ;
Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span,
And Nature makes her happy home with man :
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed.
And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head,
A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn
Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn ; —
Thine all delights, and every muse is thine ;
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine
Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance !
Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance,
See ! Boccace sits, imfolding on his knees
The new-found roll of old Maeonides ;
But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart,
Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart I

O all-enjoying and all-blending sage,
Long be it mine to con thy mazy pa%«&,

Companions in Pleasure

Where, half conceard, the eye of fancy views

Faiins, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy

muse!
Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks,
And see in Dian's vest between the ranks
Of the twin vines, some maid that half believes
The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves,
With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves!

S. T. Coleridge

T MUST confess that I dedicate no inconsiderable
^ portion of my time to other people^s thoughts. I
dream away my Uf e in others* speculations. I love to lose
myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I
am reading ; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me.

I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel
for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. I can read anything
which I call a book. There are things in that shape
which I cannot allow for such.

In this catalogue of books which are no books — btblia-
a-biblia — I reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket
Books (the Literary excepted). Draught Boards, boimd
and lettered on the back. Scientific Treatises, Almanacs,
Statutes at Large : the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robert-
son, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and generally, all those
volumes which "no gentleman's library should be with-
out": the Histories of Flavins Josephus (that learned
Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these excep-
tions, I can read almost anything. I bless my stars
for a taste so catholic, so unexcluding.

I confess that it moves my spleen to see tlaftsfc \Vvm^
in books* clothing perched upon ^dv^^'^SsA \a^afc '5aJco^s.^

The Friendship of Books

usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary,
thrusting out the legitimate occupants. To reach down
a well-boimd semblance of a volume, and hope it some
kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what "seems its
leaves," to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay.
To expect a Steele or a Farquhar, and find — Adam
Smith. To view a weU-arranged assortment of block-
headed Encyclopaedias (AngUcanas or MetropoUtanas)
set out in an array of russia, or morocco, when a tithe
of that good leather would comfortably re-clothe my
shivering folios, would renovate Paracelsus himself, and
enable old Raymimd Lully to look like himself again
in the world. I never see these impostors, but I long to
strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils.
To be strong-backed and neat-boimd is the desideratum
of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when
it can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds
of books indiscriminately. I would not dress a set of
magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille,
or half binding (with russia backs ever), is our costimie.
A Shakespeare or a Milton (imless the first editions)
it were mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The
possession of them confers no distinction. The exterior
of them (the things themselves being so conmion), strange
to say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of
property in the owner. Thomson's Seasons, again,
looks best (I maintain it) a Uttle torn and dog's-eared.
How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the
sullied leaves, and womout appearance, nay, the very
odor (beyond russia) if we would not forget kind feelings
In /astidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom
Jones, or Vicar of Wake^e\d\ "ftsrw >iiae^ ^^jeak. qI \3aft

1^6

Companions in Pleasure

thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages
with delight ! — of the lone sempstress, whom they may
have cheered (milliner or harder- working mantua-maker)
after her long day's needle-toil, running far into mid-
night, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from
sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spell-
ing out their enchanting contents! Who would have
them a whit less soiled? What better condition could
we desire to see them in ?

Charles Lamb
Last Essays of Elia: Detached Thoughts on Books

AT UCH have I travelled in the realms of gold,
^^^ And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold :
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken ;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats
On first looking into Chapman's Homer

ILJE found shelter among books, which insult not.
-*• -*• Charles Lmcr

ElirfsEssa-^s: PooTBi\,QX\w«

1S7

The Friendship of Books

n^HEY [Books] are the nearest to our thoughts ; they
•^ wind into the heart; the poet*s verse slides into
the current of our blood. We read them when yoimg, we
remember them when old. We read there of what has
happened to others ; we feel that it has happened to our-
selves. They are to be had everywhere cheap and good.
We breathe but the air of books : we owe everything to
their authors, on this side barbarism ; and we pay them
easily with contempt, while living, and with an epitaph,
when dead ! . . . there are neither picture-galleries nor
theatres-royal on Salisbury-plain, where I write this ; but
here, even here, with a few old authors, I can manage
to get through the summer or the winter months, with-
out ever knowing what it is to feel ennui. They sit with
me at breakfast ; they walk out with me before dinner.
After a long walk through unfrequented tracks, after start-
ing the hare from the fern, or hearing the wing of the
raven rustling above my head, or being greeted by the
woodman's "stem good-night," as he strikes into his
narrow homeward path, I can "take mine ease at mine
inn," beside the blazing hearth, and shake hands with
Signor Orlando Friscobaldo, as the oldest acquaintance
I have. Ben Jonson, learned Chapman, Master Webster,
and Master Heywood, are there; and seated roimd,
discourse the silent hours away. Shakespeare is there
himself, not in Gibber's manager's coat. Spenser is
hardly yet returned from a ramble through the woods,
or is concealed behind a group of nymphs, faims, and
satyrs. Milton lies on the table, as on an altar,
never taken up or laid down without reverence. Lyly's
Endymion sleeps with the moon, that shines in at the
window; and a breath oi wind sdtf«i% ^x. ^^^Xasi^^^fcecosk

Companions in Pleasure

a sigh from the tree under which he grew old. Faustus
disputes in one corner of the room with fiendish faces, and
reasons of divine astrology. Bellafront soothes Matheo,
Vittoria triumphs over her judges, and old Chapman re-
peats one of the hymns of Homer, in his own fine transla-
tion! I should have no objection to pass my life in
this manner out of the world, not thinking of it, nor it
of me ; neither abused by my enemies, nor defended by
my friends ; careless of the future, but sometimes dream-
ing of the past which might as well be forgotten !

William Hazlitt
Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth

T) Y conversing with the mighty dead^ we imbibe senti-
^^ ment with knowledge. We become strongly at-
tached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve
us, except through the influence which they exert over the
mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives im-
mortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the
flame of enthusiasm from all ages and nations. ... As
to the books you will have to read by choice or for amuse-
ment, the best are the commonest. The names of many
of them are already familiar to you. Read them as you
grow up with all the satisfaction in your power, and make
much of them. It is perhaps the greatest pleasure you
will have in life, the one you will think of longest, and
repent of least. If my life had been more full of calamity
than it has been (much more than I hope yours will be),
I would live it over again, my poor little boy, to have
read the books I did in my youth.

William Hazlitt
On the Conduct of LifCy w Ad-oice to a Sc\voo\>av^

189

The Friendship of Books

A CRICKET chirps on the hearth, and we are re-
-^^ minded of Christmas gambols long ago. The very
cries in the street seem to be of a former date ; and the
dry toast eats very much as it did — twenty years ago.
A rose smeUs doubly sweet, after being stifled with tinc-
tures and essences ; and we enjoy the idea of a journey
and an inn the more for having been bed-rid. But a book
is the secret and sure charm to bring aU these implied
associations to a focus. I should prefer an old one, Mr.
Lamb's favorite, the Journey to Lisbon, by Henry
Fielding ; or the Decameron, if I could get it. . . . Well,
then, I have got the new paraphrase on the Beggar^ s Opera,
— Paid Clifford, — by Bulwer, am fairly embarked in
it ; and at the end of the first volume, where I am gallop-
ing across the heath with the three highwaymen,
while the moon is shining full upon them, feel my
nerves so braced, and my spirits so exhilarated, that, to
say truth, I am scarce sorry for the occasion that has
thrown me upon the work and the author — have quite
forgot my sick room, and am more than half ready to
recant the doctrine that a free admission to the

theatre is —

" The true pathos and sublime

Of human life ; "

for I feel as I read that if the stage shows us the masks
of men and the pageant of the world, books let us into
their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
They are the first and last, the most home-felt, the most
heart-felt of aU our enjoyments !

William Hazlitt
The Sick Chamhtr (^Ncw Monildy Magazine,
August^ 1S36)
190

Companions in Pleasure

"\TOW, of all the amusements which can possibly be im-
^ ^ agined for a hard-working man, after his daily toil,
or in its intervals, there is nothing like reading an enter-
taining book, supposing him to have a taste for it, and
supposing him to have the book to read. It calls for
no bodily exertion, of which he has had enough or too
much. It relieves his home of its dullness and sameness,
which, in nine cases out of ten, is what drives him out
to the ale-house, to his own ruin and his family^s. It
transports him into a livelier, and gayer, and more
diversified and interesting scene, and while he enjoys
himself there, he may forget the evils of the present
moment, fully as much as if he were ever so drunk,
with the great advantage of finding himself the next
day with his money in his pocket, or at least laid out
in real necessaries and comforts for himself and his
family, — and without a headache. Nay, it accompanies
him to his next day's work, and if the book he has been
reading be anything above the very idlest and Hghtest,
gives him something to think of besides the mere mechani-
cal drudgery of everyday occupation, — something he can
enjoy while absent, and look forward with pleasure to
return to.

But supposing him to have been fortunate in the choice
of his book, and to have alighted upon one really good
and of a good class. What a source of domestic en-
joyment is laid open ! What a bond of family imion !
He may read it aloud, or make his wife read it, or his eldest
boy or girl, or pass it round from hand to hand. All have
the benefit of it — all contribute to the gratification of
the rest, and a feeling of common interest. ^.TA^\st"b»^«&
is excited. Nothing unites peop\e^5ikfc cotk^^^^'^j*^^ ""^

191

The Friendship of Books

intellectual enjoyment. It does more, it gives them mu-
tual respect, and to each among them self-respect — that
comer-stpne of all virtue.

Sir John Herschel
An Address to the Subscribers to the Windsor and Eton
Public Library and Reading Roonif Janimry 2p,

1833-

A RE books, in truth, a dead letter ? To those who
-^^ have no bright mirror in their own bosoms to
reflect their images, they are ! but the lively and active
scenes, which they call forth in well-framed minds, exceed
the liveliness of reality. Heads and hearts of a coarser
grain require the substance of material objects to put
them in motion. Books instruct us calmly, and without
intermingling with their instruction any of those pain-
ful impressions of superiority, which we must necessarily
feel from a living instructor. They wait the pace of each
man*s capacity ; stay for his want of perception, without
reproach ; go backward and forward with him at his wish ;
and furnish inexhaustible repetitions. . . . Above all
there is this value in books, that they enable us to con-
verse with the dead. There is something in this beyond
the mere intrinsic worth of what they have left us. When
a person's body is mouldering, cold and insensible, in
the grave, we feel a sacred sentiment of veneration for
the living memoriab of his mind.

Sir Egerton Brydges
TheRuminatar: Books

F all the human re\axal\oi\&^\i\c:\i ^t^ itee from guilt
perhaps there is none so ^®M5ie^ «& x^^^m^^l, \x

Companions in Pleasure

is no little good to while away the tediousness of exist-
ence in a gentle and harmless exercise of the intellectual
faculties. If we build castles in the air that vanish as
quickly as the passing clouds, still some beneficial result
has been obtained; some hours of weariness have been
stolen from us; and probably some cares have been
robbed of their sting. I do not here mean to discuss
the scale of excellence among the various studies that
books afford. It is my purpose to show that even the
most trifling books, which give harmless pleasure, produce
a good far exceeding what the world ascribed to more high-
sounding occupations. When we recollect of how many
it is the lot, even against choice, to pass their days in
solitude, how admirable is the substitute for conversation,
which the powers of genius and art of printing bestow !

Sir Egerton Brydges
The Ruminaior : On the Pleasures of Reading

TT is Books that teach us to refine on our pleasures
■^ when yoimg, and which, having so taught us, enable
us to recall them with satisfaction when old. For let the
half-witted say what they wiU of delusions, no thorough
reader ever ceased to believe in his books, whatever
doubts they might have taught him by the way. They
are pleasures too palpable and habitual for him to deny.
The habit itself is a pleasure. They contain his yoimg
dreams and his old discoveries ; all that he has lost, as well
as all that he has gained ; and, as he is no surer of the gain
than of the loss, except in proportion to the strength of
his perceptions, the dreams, in being renewed, become
truths again. He is again in communion with the ijastv
again mterested in its advenlvrces, %rifcNm% ^wiiis^. ^^
o 193

The Friendship of Books

griefs, laughing with its merriment, forgetting the very
chair and room he is sitting in. Who, in the mysterious
operation of things, shall dare to assert in what unreal
comer of time and space that man's mind is ; or what
better proof he has of the existence of the poor goods and
chattels about him, which at that moment (to him) are
non-existent? "Oh!" people say, "but he wakes up,
and sees them there." Well; he woke daivn then, and
saw the rest. What we distinguish into, dreams and reali-
ties, are, in both cases, but representatives of impressions.
Who shall know what difference there is in them at all,
save that of degree, till some higher state of existence
help us to a criterion ?

For our part, such real things to us are books, that, if
habit and perception make the difference between real and
imreal, we may say that we more frequently wake out of
common life to them, than out of them to common life.
Yet we do not find the life the less real. We only feel books
to be a constituent part of it ; a world, as the poet says,

"Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood.
Our pastime and our happiness will grow."

Leigh Hunt
A Book for a Corner — Introduction

/^ OLDEN volumes ! richest treasures I
^-^ Objects of delicious pleasures I
You my eyes rejoicing please.
You my hands in rapture seize I
Brilliant wits, and musing sages.
Lights who beamed through many ages.
Left to your conscious leaves their glory,
And dared to trust yoM mVk >i)Mi\t ^Xarj \

194

Companions in Pleasure

And now their hope of fame achieved !
Dear volumes ! you have not deceived I

Isaac DIsraeii
Imitated from Rantzau

TV yf EN of letters find in books an occupation congenial
''"^-■- to their sentiments ; labor without fatigue ; repose
with activity ; an emplo3maent, interrupted without incon-
venience, and exhaustless without satiety.' They remain
ever attached to their studies. Their library and their
chamber are contiguous; and often in this contracted
space, does the opulent owner consume his delicious
hours. — His pursuits are ever changing, and he en-
livens the austere by the Ughter studies. It was said of
a great himter, that he did not live, but hunted ; and it
may be said of the man of letters, that he does not live,
but meditates. He is that happy man who creates
hourly wants, and enjoys the voluptuousness of imme-
diate gratification. . . .

Those who feel with enthusiasm the eloquence of a
fine writer, insensibly receive some particles from it; a
virtuous writer communicates virtue ; a refined writer,
a subtile delicacy; a sublime writer, an elevation of sen-
timent. All these characters of the mind, in a few
years, are diffused throughout the nation. Among us,
what acute reasoners has the refined penetration of
Hume formed ; what amenity of manners has not Ad-
dison introduced ; to how many virtuous youths have
not the moral essays of Johnson imparted fortitude, and
illumined with reflection ?

Isaac DTssaeu
On the Manner and Genitis of iHe LUet at'^ C\ianwX«t

19S

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

Books our Friends in Distress -'s^ ^^^^

nrHE scholar only knows how dear these silent yet
-^ eloquent companions of pure thoughts and innocent
hours become in the seasons of adversity. When all
that is worldly turns to dross aroimd us, these only
retain their steady value. When friends go cold, and the
converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility
and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered
countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true
friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow.

Washington Irving
The Sketch Book: Roscoe

(^\P the pleasures of reading I will say, that there is no
^^ man so high as to be enabled to dispense with them ;
and no man so humble who should be compelled to forego
them. Rely upon it, that in the highest fortime and the
highest station, hours of lassitude and weariness will
intrude, imless they be cheered by intellectual occupation.
Rely on it, also, that there is no life so toilsome, so devoted
to the cares of this world, and to the necessity of pro-
viding the daily bread, but what it will afford intervals
(if they be only sought out) in which intellectual pleasures
may be cultivated and oblivion of other cares enjoyed.
Depend upon it that these are pleasures, which he who
condemns will find himself a miserable loser in the end.

Lord Mahon
Address to Manchester Athenceumf 1848

IN the highest civilization the book is still the highest
de%ht. He who has once known its satisfactions
Is provided with a resoutce a^aVx^t ca^a-xD^X.^ , lika

196

Companions in Pleasure

Plato's disciple who has perceived a truth, "he is pre-
served from harm imtil another period." In every
man's memory, with the hours when life culminated
are usually associated certain books which met his
views. Of a large and powerful class we might ask
with confidence. What is the event they most desire ?
what gift ? What but the book that shall come, which
they have sought through all libraries, through all lan-
guages, that shall be to their mature eyes what many a
tinsel-covered toy pamphlet was to their childhood,
and shall speak to the imagination ? Oiu: high respect for
a well-read man is praise enough of literature. If we
encoimtered a man of rare intellect, we should ask him
what books he read. We expect a great man to be a
good reader ; or in proportion to the spontaneous power
should be the assimilating power. And though such are
a more difficult and exacting dass, they are not less
eager. "He that borrows the aid of an equal imder-
standing," said Burke, "doubles his own; he that uses
that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that
he contemplates."

R. W. Emerson
Letters and Social A ims : Quotation and OriginalUy

IVrOVELS are sweets. All people with healthy literary
-*- ^ appetites love them — almost aU women ; a vast
number of clever, hard-headed men, judges, bishops,
chancellors, mathematicians, are notorious novel-readers,
as well as yoimg boys and sweet girls, and their kind,
tender mothers.

W. M. Thackeray
Rounda\>ou\. "Pa^^t^

197

The Friendship of Books

T SHOULD never forgive myself if I forgot The Egoist,
■^ It is art, if you like, but it belongs purely to didactic
art, and from all the novels I have read (and I have read
thousands) stands in a place by itself. Here is a Nathan
for the modem David ; here is a book to send the blood
into men's faces. Satire, the angry picture of human
faults, is not great art; we can all be angry with our
neighbor; what we want is to be shown, not his defects,
of which we are too conscious, but his merits, to which we
are too blind. And The Egoist is a satire; so much must
be allowed ; but it is a satire of singular quality, which
tells you nothing of that obvious mote, which is engaged
from first to last with that invisible beam. It is yourself
that is hunted down; these are your own faults that are
dragged into the day and numbered, with lingering relish,
with cruel cunning and precision. A young friend of Mr.
Meredith's (as I have the story) came to him in an agony.
"This is too bad of you," he cried. "WiUoughby is
me! " " No, but my dear fellow," said the author; " he is
aU of us." I have read The Egoist five or six times
myself, and I mean to read it again; for I am hke the
young friend of the anecdote — I think Willoughby an
unmanly but a very serviceable exposure of myself.

R. L. Stevenson
Books which have influenced Me

IVrOT all men can read aH books ; it is only in a chosen
-*- ^ few that any man will find his appointed food; and
the fittest lessons are the most palatable, and make them-
selves welcome to the mind. A writer learns this early,
and it is his chief support ; he goes on imafraid, laying
down the law ; and he is sure at Ykeait >i)fcka.\.tCLQisX. oJl ^VvjaX

19&

Companions In Pleasure

he says is demonstrably false, and much of a mingled
strain, and some hurtful, and very little good for service ;
but he is sure besides that when his words fall into the
hands of any genuine reader, they will be weighed and
winnowed, and only that which suits will be assimilated ;
and when they fall into the hands of one who cannot
intelligently read, they come there quite silent and in-
articulate, falling upon deaf ears, and his secret is kept
as if he had not written.

R. L. Stevenson
Books which have influenced Me

f^VfE me a nook and a book,

^^ And let the proud world spin round :

Let it scramble by hook or by crook

For wealth or a name with a soimd.
You are welcome to amble your ways,

Aspirers to place or to glory ;
May big bells jangle your praise.

And golden pens blazon your story I
For me, let me dwell in my nook.
Here, by the curve of this brook.
That croons to the time of my book,
Whose melody wafts me forever
On the waves of an unseen river.

Give me a book and a nook
Far away from the glitter and strife ;

Give me a staff and a crook.
The calm and the sweetness of life :

• •••••

Vain world, let me ie\®Q.mxa^ tlq^^

199 4

The Friendship of Books

King of this kingdom, my book,
A region by fashion forsook :
Pass on, ye lean gamblers for glory.
Nor mar the sweet tune of my story I

William Freeland
A Birth Song and other Poems

T ^ /"HAT I would speak of now is the engrossing and
^ ^ all-absorbing quality of books. Reflection itself,
of course, possesses the same attribute, in a less degree ;
but we cannot sit down to reflect at a moment's notice —
deeply or earnestly enough to forget what is passing
around us — and be perfectly sure of doing it, any more
than we can be sure of going to sleep when we wish to do
so. Now, a congenial book can be taken up by any
lover of books, with the certainty of its transporting the
reader within a few minutes to a region immeasurably
removed from that which he desires to quit. . . . Books
are the blessed chloroform of the mind. We wonder how
folks in trouble did without them in old time.

It is not a very high claim that is here set forth on
behalf of Literature — that of Pass-time, and yet what
a blessed boon even that is ! Conceive the hours of
inertia (a thing different from idleness) that it has mer-
cifully consmned for us ! hours wherein nothing could
be done, nothing, perhaps, be thought, of our own selves,
by reason of some impending calamity.

I am writing of the obligation which we owe to Litera-
ture, and not to Religion ; yet I cannot but feel "thank-
ful" — using the word in its ordinary and devotional
sense — to many a book which is no sermon, nor tract,
nor conuneBtary, nor any tSamg ol tlloaX^siiA ^.\. ^, 'Wsjaa^

200

Companions in Pleasure

I have cause to revere the name of Defoe, who reached
his hand down through a century and a half to wipe
away bitter tears from my childish eyes. The going
back to school was always a dreadful woe to me, casting
its black shadow far into the latter part of my brief
holidays. I have had my share of suffering and sorrow
since, like other men, but I have seldom felt so abso-
lutely wretched as when, a little boy, I was about to
exchange my pleasant home-life for the hardships and
imcongenialities of school. . . . And yet, I protest, I
had but to take up Robinson Crusoe, and in a very few
minutes I was out of all thought of the approaching "
calamity. ... I had travelled over a thousand leagues
of sea, I was in my snug, well-fortified cave, with the
ladder upon the right side of it, "so that neither man nor
beast could get at me," with my half-a-dozen muskets
loaded, and my powder distributed in separate parcels,
so that not even a thunderbolt should do me any irrep-
arable injury. Or, if not quite so secure, I was visiting
my summer plantation among my goats and com, or
shooting, in the still astonished woods, birds of marvellous
beauty ; or l)dng upon my stomach upon the top of the
hill, watching through my spy-glass the savages putting
to sea, and not displeased to find myself once more
alone in my own little island. No living himian being
could just then have done me such a service as dead
Defoe.

Again, during that agonizing period which intervened
between my proposal of marriage by letter to Jemima Anne,
and my reception of her reply, how should I ever have
kept myself alive, save for the chivalrous aidollVs&\!>\aj^
Knight in Ivanhoe. To him, maVxA:^, ^»s^\^\.^ \s^ '^^-

20X

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

becca, and (I am bound to say) by that scoundrel Brian
de Bois Guilbert, are my obligations due, that I did not
— through the extremities of despair and hope, suffered
during that interval — become a drivelling idiot.

When her answer did arrive— in the negative— what
was it which preserved me from the noose, the razor, or
the stream, but Mr. Carlyle's French RevoltUion. In
the woes of poor Louis Capet, I forgot my own. . . . Who,
having a grateful heart, can forget these things, or deny
the Blessedness of Books? If it were only for the
hours of weary waiting which they have consumed for
me at desolate railway stations, I pay them grateful
homage.

Nay, under far more serious circmnstances, when dis-
appointment has lain heavy on my soul, and once when
ruin itself seemed overshadowing me and mine, what
escape have I not found from irremediable woes in taking
the hand of Samuel Johnson (kindly introduced to that
great man by Mr. Boswell), and hearing him discourse
with wondrous wisdom upon all things under heaven,
sometimes at a dub of wits and men of letters, and some-
times at a common tavern table, and sometimes even in
an open boat upon the Hebridean seas.

I often think, if such be the fascination exercised by
books upon their readers, how wondrous must be the
enchantment wrought upon the Writers themselves!
What human sorrow can afflict, what prosperity dazzle
them, while they are describing the fortunes of the off-
spring of their own imagination? They have only to
close their study door, and take their magic pen in hand,
and lot they are at once ttaiispotted from this weary world
of duns, and critics, aiidpub%\ieT^/mVc>^V^\&N«^\^"^^^

202

Companions in Pleasure

and time they will. Yes, truly, it is for authors them-
selves, more than for any other order of men whatever,
to acknowledge the Blessedness of Books.

James Payn
The Blessedness of Books

TTAPPY is he who, when the day's work is done,
-'' -■■ finds his rest, and solace, and recreation in com-
munion with the master minds of the present and of the
past — in study, in literature, and the enjo)mient of
pleasures which are to be derived from this source. If
I might address to the younger portion of the community
a few words of advice and exhortation — trusting to one
who has been as hard a worker as the hardest workers
amongst you — I would say there is no rest, no recreation,
no refreshment to the wearied and jaded body and mind,
worn by work and toil, equal to the intellectual pleasures
to which I have just been referring. Let them bear in
mind that the time will come when the pleasures that now
allure them and draw them away from intellectual pur-
suits will come to an end. Old age will take the place
of bodily vigor. Let them again trust to one who is
advancing fast in declining years — there is no enjo)mient
to equal the enjoyment of the great intellectual treasures
which are always at hand and always at your disposal.

Lord Chief Justice Cockburn

Address to the Manchester Athenceum

IDUT the finest music in the room is that which
^■^ streams out to the ear of the spirit in many an
exquisite strain from the hanging sheU ot bocks. <2i^ NJc^^
opposite wall. Every volume l^iei^ \& ^^ YCfiSccssss^Kc^.

203

The Friendship of Books

which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrat-
ing with music, as a flower shakes out its perfume or a
star shakes out its light. Only listen, and they soothe
all care, as though the silken-soft leaves of poppies had
been made vocal and poured into the ear.

James Lane Allen
A Kentucky Cardinal, Ch. I

TT is the first trait of a great book, it seems to me, that
'■' it makes all other books — little hurrying, petulant
books — wait. A kind of immeasurable elemental hunger
comes to a man out of it. Somehow I feel I have not
had it out with a great book if I have not faced other
great things with it. I want to face storms with it,
hours of weariness and miles of walking with it. It
seems to ask me to. It seems to bring with it something
which makes me want to stop my mere reading-and-do-
ing kind of life, my ink-and-paper imitation kind of life,
and come out and be a companion with the silent shining,
with the eternal going on of things It seems to be
written in every writing that is worth a man's while
that it cannot — that it shall not — be read by itself.
It is written that a man shall work to read, that he must
win some delight to do his reading with. Many and
many a winter day I have tramped with four lines down
to the edge of the night, to overtake my soul — to read
four lines with. I have faced a wind for hours — been
bitterly cold with it — before the utmost joy of the book
I had lost would come back to me. I find that when I
am being normal (vacations mostly) I scarcely know
what it is to give myself over to another mind for more
than an hour or so at a Ime. li a. OQa.^\w. \iask ^\S3-

20^

Companions in Pleasure

thing in it, I want to do something with it, go out and
believe it, live with it, exercise it a while.

Gerald Stanley Lee
The Lost Art of Reading

A MONG the most satisf)dng of all pleasures is the
-^^ pleasure of reading. The mind i^ fed with noble
thoughts and the soul delighted with the revealing beauty
of verbal expression. It is also the most subtle of all
pleasures, appealing to our pure imagination. It de-
mands of us, for its real enjoyment, the finer accomplish-
ments of mind and heart, the exercise of our highest
powers.

The words and sentences of the printed page are the
stimuli to the imagination which refashions experiences
of sense into ideal existences. The reader thus lives
in the Realm of the Ideal. The more real this Realm
is to him, and the more vividly his imagination creates
it for him, the greater will be his pleasure and the keener
his personal enjoyment ; for the clearer his understand-
ing of the matter in hand the greater will be his sense of
personal accomplishment and personal power.

Temple Scott
The Pleasure of Reading

SILENT FRIENDLY SPIRITS

^jTHE words of tke good are like a staff in a slippery
place.

Hindoo Saying

DOOKS are the immortal sons deifying their sires.

Plato

TJ/IBILE you converse with lords and dukes,

I have their betters here — my books:
Fixed in an elbow-chair at ease,
I choose companions as I please.
Vd rather have one single shelf
Than all my friends y except myself;
For after aU that can be said
Our best acquaintance are the dead.

Thomas Sheridan
Poem to Jonathan Swift

T ET us thank God for books. When I consider what
some books have done for the world, and what ihey are
doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and
faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those whose homes
are hard and cold, bind together distant ages and foreign
lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths from
heaven — / give eternal blessings for this gift, and pray that
we may use it aright, and abuse it not.

James Freeman Clarkb

aio

A ND as for me, though that I konne but lyte,
-^^ On boke for to rede I me delyte,
And to hem )dve I ieyih and f ul credence,
And in myn herte have hem in reverence
So hertely, that ther is game noon,
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seldome on the holy day.
Save, certeynly, when that the monthe of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge.
And that the floures g3amen for to spr3mge,
Farewel my boke, and my devodon.

Geoffkey Chaucer
Legende of Goode Women

T does not matter how many, but how good, books

you have.

Seneca

Concerning the Honor of Books o

OINCE honor from the honorer proceeds,

^ How well do they deserve, that memorize

And leave in books for all posterities

The names of worthies and their virtuous deeds;

When all their glory else, like water-weeds

Without their element, presently dies.

And all their greatness quite forgotten lie&^

And when and how they fLovxn^"^ xtfi \aa.\i\iR8^»\

2X1.

The Friendship of Books

How poor remembrances are statues, tombs
And other monuments that men erect
To princes, which remain in closed rooms.
Where but a few behold them, in respect
Of Books, that to the universal eye
Show how they lived ; the other where they lie !

John Florio
Prefixed to the second edition of John Flori6*s
Translation of Montaigne* s Essays, i6ij

TVyTE, poor man, my library
lYX ^g^ dukedom enough.

W. Shakespeare
The Tempest, Act I, Sc. 2

ly^NOWING that I loved my books, he furnished me,
-^^^ From my own library, with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.

W. Shakespeare
The Tempest, Act I, Sc. 2

t^OME, and take a choice of all my library ;
^^ And so beguile thy sorrow.

W. Shakespeare
Titus Andronicus, Act IV, Sc. i

"I T TBEN I would know thee, Goodyere, my thought
^^ looks

Upon thy well-made dioVc^ ol lnfcxA% ^\A\iw3*s»\

21^

Silent Friendly Spirits

Then do I love thee and behold thy ends
In making thy friends books, and thy books friends.

Ben Jonson
To Sir Henry Goodyere

T HAVE heard some with deep sighs lament the lost
-*■ lines of Cicero ; others with as many groans deplore
the combustion of the library of Alexandria : for my own
part, I think there be too many in the world ; and could
with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican,
could I, with a few others, recover the perished leaves
of Solomon. . . . Tis not a melanchloy utinam of
my own, but the desires of better heads, that there were
a general synod — not to unite the incompatible dif-
ference of religion, but, — for the benefit of learning,
to reduce it, as it lay at first, in a few and solid authors ;
and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of
rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the
weaker judgments of scholars, and to maintain the trade
and mystery of typographers.

Sir Thomas Browne
Religio Medici

T ^ /"HEN there is no recreation or business for thee
^ ^ abroad, thou may'st have a company of honest old
fellows in their leathern jackets in thy study which wiU find
thee excellent divertisement at home. . . . To divert at any
time a troublesome fancy, run to thy books ; they presently
fix thee to them, and drive the other out of thy thoughts.
They always receive thee with the same kindness.

Thomas Fxiiajs.^
The Hol'^J Stale: O^ ^oo\c&

213

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

\7'0V shall therefore wit, that this gentleman above
^ named pDon Quixote], the spurts that he was idle
(which was the longer part of the year), did apply him-
self whoUy to the reading of books of Knighthood, and
that with such gusts and delights, as he almost wholly
neglected the exercise of hxmting; yea, and the very
administration of his household affairs. And his curios-
ity and folly came to that pass, that he made away many
acres of arable land to buy him books of that kind, and
therefore be brought to his house as many as ever he
could get of that subject. . . .

In resolution, he plimged himself so deeply in his
reading of these books, as he spent many times in the
lecture of them whole days and nights ; and in the end
through his little sleep and much reading, he dried up
his brains in such sort as he lost wholly his judgment.
Has fantasy was filled with those things that he read, of
enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds,
wooings, loves, tempests, and other impossible follies.
And these toys did so firmly possess lus imagination
with an infallible opinion that all that machina of
dreamed inventions which he read was true, as he
accoimted no history in the world to be so certain and
sincere as they were. . . .

Finally, his wit being whoUy extinguished, he fell into
one of the strangest conceits that ever mad man stimibled
on in this world ; to wit, it seemed unto him very requi-
site and behooveful, as well for the augmentation of
his honor as also for the benefit of the commonwealth,
that he himself should become a knight-errant, and go
ihrougjaout the world, with his horse and armor, to
seek adventures, and practice 'va. v^ts^xl ^^^oaXV^W^

21^

Silent Friendly Spirits

read was used by knights of yore ; revenging of all kinds
of injuries, and offering himself to occasions and dangers
which, being once happily achieved, might gain him eter-
nal renown. The poor soul did already figure himself
crowned, through the valor of his arm, at least Emperor of
Trapisonda ; and led thus by these soothing thoughts, and
borne away with the exceeding delight he found in them,
he hastened all that he might, to effect his urging desires.

MiGXTEL D£ Cervantes

The History of Don Quiooote
Translated by Thomas Shdton,

T7OR Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe
■*■ contain a potende of Life in them to be as active
as that Soide was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do
preserve, as in a violl, the purest efficacie and extraction
of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are
as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous
Dragons teeth ; and being sown up and down, may chance
to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand
imlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as
kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable
creature, Gods Image; but hee who destroyes a good
Booke, kills Reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as
it were in the eye. Many a Man lives a burden to the
Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a
master spirit, imbalm'd and treasured up on purpose to
a Life beyond Life. John Milton

AreopagUica

/^F bad books we can never read too little: of the
^-^ good never too much. . . .
Only those writers profit us -wViosfc >3kiA«sX^^^^^ "^

2x5

The Friendship of Books

quicker, more lucid than our own, by whose brain we
indeed think for a time, who quicken our thoughts, and
lead us whither alone we could not find our way.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Parerga und Paralipomena

>OOKS, dear books.
Have been, and are my comforts, mom and night,
Adversity, prosperity, at home.
Abroad, health, sickness, — Good or ill report,
The same firm friends ; the same refreshments rich.
And source of consolation.

Rev. William Dodd
Thoughts in Prison

T MIGHT fitly speak to you of books ; and here, while
-*■ considering principles to govern the student in his
reading, it would be pleasant to dwell on the profitable
dehghts, better than a "shower of cent percent," on the
society, better than fashion or dissipation, and on that
completeness of satisfaction, outvying the possession
of wealth, and making the "Hbrary dukedom large
enough," — all of which are foimd in books.

Charles Sumner
Address on Granville Sharp

The Souls of Books ^s> ^^ ^^ -'^ -«;>y

IT here and muse! — it is an antique room —
High-roof'd, with casements, thro' whose purple

pane

216

Silent Friendly Spirits

Unwilling Daylight steals amidst the gloom,
Shy as a fearful stranger.

There they reign
(In loftier pomp than waking life had known)
The Kings of Thought ! — not crowned imtil the grave.
When Agamemnon sinks into the tomb,
The beggar Homer moimts the Monarch's throne!
Ye ever living and imperial Souls,
Who rule us from the page in which ye breathe,
All that divide us from the clod ye gavel —
Law — Order — Love — Intelligence — The Sense
Of Beauty — Music and the Minstrel's wreath! —
What were our wanderings if without your goals ?
As air and light, the glory ye dispense,
Becomes our being — who of us can tell
What he had been had Cadmus never taught
The art that fixes into form the thought —
Had Plato never spoken from his cell.
Or his high harp blind Homer never strung ? —
Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakespeare
sung!

Hark! while we muse, without the walls is heard
The various murmur of the laboring crowd.
How still, withip those archive-cells interred.
The Calm Ones reign! — and yet they rouse the loud
Passions and tumults of the circling world!
From them, how many a youthful Tully caught
The zest and ardour of the eager Bar ;
From them, how many a youn^ Aiab\\kiiTL ^cwjigp&.

217

The Friendship of Books

Gay meteors glancing o'er the sand afar —

By them each restless wing has been imfurl'd,

And their ghosts urge each rival's rushing car!

They made yon Preacher zealous for the truth ;

They made yon Poet wistful for the star ;

Gave Age its pastime — fired the cheek of Youth —

The unseen sires of all our beings are, —

And now so still I This, Cicero, is thy heart;
I hear it beating thro' each purple line.
This is thyself, Anacreon — yet, thou art
Wreath'd, as in Athens, with the Cnidian vine.
I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold.
Thy spirit meets me in the haimted groimdl —
Sublime and eloquent, as while, of old,
"It flamed and sparkled in its crystal bound ;"
These are yourselves — your life of life I The Wise
(Minstrel of Sage) out of their books are day ;
But in their books, as from their graves, they rise,
Angels — that, side by side, upon our way.
Walk with and warm us!

Hark! the world so loud.
And they, the movers of the world, so still!
What gives this beauty to the grave ? the shroud
Scarce wraps the Poet than at once there cease
Envy and Hate ! "Nine cities claim him dead.
Thro' which the living Homer begg'd his bread ! "
And what the charm that can such health distil
From wither'd leaves — oft poisons in their bloom ?
We call some books ixnmoidil Do ike^ live?

21^

Silent Friendly Spirits

If so, beKeve me, time hath made them pure.

In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace —

God wills that nothing evil should endure ;

The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole,

As the dust leaves the disembodied soid !

Come from thy niche, Lucretius ! Thou didst give

Man the black creed of Nothing in the tomb I

Well, when we read thee, does the dogma taint ?
No ; with a listless eye we pass it o'er,
And linger only on the hues that paint
The Poet's spirit lovelier than his lore.
None learn from thee to cavil with their God ;
None commime with thy genius to depart
Without a loftier instinct of the heart.
Thou mak'st no Atheist — thou but mak'st the mind
Richer in gifts which Atheists best confute —
Fancy and thought! 'Tis these that from the sod,
Lift us I The life which soars above the brute
Ever and mightiest, breathes from a great Poet's lute I
Lo ! that grim Merriment of Hatred ; — bom
Of him, — the Master-Mocker of Mankind,
Beside the grin of whose malignant spleen,
Voltaire's gay sarcasm seems a smile serene, —
Do we not place it in our children's hands.
Leading young Hope through Lemuel's fabled lands ? -
God's and man's libel in that foid yahoo I —
Well, and what mischief can the libel do ?
O impotence of Genius to belie
Its glorious task — its mission from the sky I
Swift wrote this book to wreak a ribald scorn
On aught the Man should love or Priest ?ivcii>iV^^ccL<2wr^

219

The Friendship of Books

And lo ! the book, from all its ends beguil'd,
A harmless wonder to some happy child 1

AU books grow homilies by time ; they are
Temples, at once, and Landmarks. In them, we
Who but for them, upon that inch of ground
We call "the'present," from the cell coidd see
No daylight trembling on the dimgeon bar ;
Turn, as we list, the globe's great axle round,
Traverse all space, and number every star.
And feel the Near less household than the Far !
There is no Past, so long as Books shall live I
A disinterred Pompeii wakes again
For him who seeks yon well ; lost cities give
Up then: untarnished wonders, and the reign
Of Jove revives and Saturn : — At our wiU
Rise dome and tower on Delphi's sacred hill;
Bloom Cimon's trees in Academe ; — along
Leucadia's headland, sighs the Lesbian's song ;
With Egj^t's Queen once more we sail the Nile,
And learn how worlds are bartered for a smile ; -
Rise up, ye waUs, with gardens blooming o'er,
Ope but that page — lo, Babylon once more 1

Ye make the Past our heritage and home ;
And is this all ? No ; by each prophet-sage —
No ; by the herald souls that Greece and Rome
Sent forth, like hymns, to ^tel \3ajb Matoia^ Star

220

Silent Friendly Spirits

That rose on Bethlehem — by thy golden page
Melodious Plato — by thy solemn dreams,
World-wearied Tully ! — and, above ye all,
By THIS, the Everlasting Monument
Of God to mortals, on whose front the beams
Flash glory-breathing day — our lights ye are
To the dark Bourne beyond ; in you are sent
The types of Truths whose life is the to-come ;
In you soars up the Adam from the fall ;
In you the future as the past is given —
Ev'n in our death ye bid us hail our birth ; —
Unfold these pages, and behold the Heaven,
Without one grave-stone left upon the Earth ?

Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton

A NATURAL turn for reading and intellectual pur-
'^^^ suits probably preserved me from the moral ship-
wreck so apt to befall those who are deprived in early
life of the paternal pilotage. At the least my books
kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, the saloon,
with their degrading orgies. For the closet associate of
Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble
though silent discourse of Shakespeare and Milton, will
hardly seek or put up with low company and slang. Later
experience enables me to depose to the comfort and
blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness
or sorrow — how powerfully intellectual pursuits can
help in keeping the head from crazing, and the heart
from breaking — nay, not to be too grave, how generous
mental food can even atone for too meagre diet — rich
fare on the paper for short commons on the doth. . . .
Many, many a dreary, weary ho\\i laaNfc \ %^\. ^n^s. —

221

The Friendship of Books

many a gloomy misgiving postponed — many a mental
or bodily annoyance forgotten, by help of the tragedies
and comedies of our dramatists and novelists! Many
a trouble has been soothed by the still small voice of
the moral philosopher — many a dragon-like care
charmed to sleep by the sweet song of the poet ; for all
which I cry incessantly, not aloud, but in my heart,
thanks and honor to the glorious masters of the pen,
and the great inventors of the press !

Thomas Hood
Letter to the Manchester AthefUBum

"pOETRY has a key which unlocks some more in-
-■■ ward cabinet of my nature than is accessible to
any other power. I cannot explain it or account for
it, or say what facidty it appeals to. The chord which
vibrates strongly becomes blurred and invisible in pro-
portion to the intensity of its impulse. Often the mere
rhyme, the cadence and sound of the words, awaken
this strange feeling in me. Not only do all the happy
associations of my early life, that before lay scattered,
take beautiful shapes, like iron dust at the approach
of the magnet; but something dim and vague beyond
these moves itself in me with the imcertain soimd of a
far-off sea. My sympathy with the remotest eld becomes
that of a bystander and an actor. . . .

The grand symphony of Wordsworth's Ode rolls
through me, and I tremble, as the air does with the
gathering thimders of the organ. My clay seems to
have a sympathy with the mother earth whence it was
taken, to have a memory of all that our orb has ever
intnessed of great and iio\i\&, ol ^rtcs^ul and glad.

222

Silent Friendly Spirits

With the wise Samian, I can touch the mouldering
buckler of Euphorbus and claim an interest in it deeper
than that of its antiquity. I have been the bosom friend
of Leander and Romeo. I seem to go behind Musaeus
and Shakespeare, and to get myintelligence at fijrst hand.
Sometimes in my sorrow, a line from Spenser steals in
upon my memory as if by some vitality and external
volition of its own, like a blast from the distant trump
of a knight pricking towards the court of Faerie, and I
am straightway lifted out of that sadness and shadow
into the sunshine of a previous and long-agone experience.
Often, too, this seemingly lawless species of association
overcomes me with a sense of sadness. Seeing a waterfall
or a forest for the first time, I have a feeling of something
gone, a vague regret, that in some former state, I have
drank up the wine of their beauty, and left to the de-
frauded present only the muddy lees. Yet, again, what
divine over-compensation, when the same memory (shall I
call it ?), or phantasy, lets fall a drop of its invisible elixir
into my cup, and I behold to-day, which before showed but
forlorn and beggared, clothed in the royal purple, and
with the golden sceptre of a line of majestical ancestry !

James Russell Lowell
Conversations on Some of the Old Poets

"D OOK-LOVE is a home-feeling — a sweet bond of
-^ family union — and a never-failing source of domes-
tic enjoyment. It sheds a charm over the quiet fireside,
imlocks the hidden sympathies of human hearts, beguiles
the weary hours of sickness or solitude, and unites kindred
spirits in a sweet companionship of sentiment and idea.

Frazer's MxGKcm^\ l&ooV. luw«.
223

The Friendship of Bcx)ks

"DOOK-LOVE is the angel that keeps watch by the
•*-^ poor man's hearth, and hallows it; saving him
from the temptations that lurk beyond its charmed
circle ; giving him new thoughts and noble aspirations,
and lifting him, as it were, from the mere mechanical
drudgery of his everyday occupation. The wife blesses
it, as she sits smiling and sewing, alternately listening to
her husband's voice, or hushing the child upon her knee.
She blesses it for keeping him near her, and making him
cheerful, and manly, and kind-hearted, — edbeit imder-
standing little of what he reads, and reverencing it for
that reason all the more in him.

Frazer's Magazine: Book Lave

'T'HERE are some books which forcibly recall calm
-*• and tranquil scenes of by-gone happiness. We
hear again the gentle tones of a once familiar voice long
since hushed. We can remember the very passage where
the reader paused awhile to play the critic, or where
that eloquent voice suddenly faltered. . . . Books
read for the first time at some particular place or period
of our existence may thus become hallowed forevermore,
or we love them because others loved them also in by-
gone days.

Books written by those with whom it has been our
happy privilege to dwell in c^lose companionship and
sweet interchange of sentiment and idea are exceedingly
predpus. In reading them, we converse, as it were,
with the author in his happiest mood, recognize the rare
eloquence to which we have often sat and listened spell-
bound, and feel proud to find our affectionate and rever-
ential homage coiAraied 'b'j \3tka \3ai^T!Mfta>as. -^awdsL^ of

Silent Friendly Spirits

the world. The golden key, before mentioned, has been
given into our keeping, and we unlock at will the sacred
and hidden recesses of Genius and association.

Frazer's Magazine: Book Love

A S to collectors, ft is quite true that they do not in
•^^ general read their books successively straight
through, and the practice of desultory reading, as it
is sometimes termed, must be treated as part of their
case, and if a failing, one cognate with their habit of
collecting. They are notoriously addicted to the prac-
tice of standing arrested on some roimd of a ladder,
where, having moimted up for some certain book,
they have by wayward chance fallen upon another,
in which, at the fijrst opening, has come up a passage
which fascinates the finder as the eye of the Ancient
Mariner fascinated the wedding-guest, and compels h\m
to stand there, poised on his imeasy perch, and read.
Peradventure the matter so perused suggests another
passage in some other voliune which it will be satisfac-
tory and interesting to find, and so another and another
search is made, while the hours pass by unnoticed, and
the day seems all too short for the pursuit which is a
luxury and an enjoyment, at the same time that it
fills the mind with varied knowledge and wisdom.

John Hill Burton
The Book-Hunter

T^NGLAND has two books, one which it has made
•*-' and one which has made it: Shakespeare and the
Bible.

Q 22$

The Friendship of Bcx>ks
My Books ^^^ ^^^ '"^^ '•^^ '^^ '^ '^^

A H ! well I love these books of mine,
-^^ That stand so trimly on their shelves,
With here and there a broken line

(Flat "quartos" jostling modest "twelves") —
A curious company, I own ;

The poorest ranking with their betters :
In brief, — a thing almost imknown, —

A Pure Democracy of Letters.

A motley gathering are they, —

Some fairly worth theif weight in gold ;
Some just too good to throw away ;

Some scarcely worth the place they hold.
Yet well I love them, one and all, —

These friends so meek and imobtrusive,
Who never fail to come at call.

Nor (if I scold them) turn abusdve I

If I have favorites here and there,

And, like a monarch, pick and choose,
I never meet an angry stare

That this 1 take and that refuse ;
No discords rise my soul to vex

Among these peaceful book-relations.
Nor envious strife of age or sex

To mar my quiet lucubrations.

And they have still another merit.

Which otherwhere one vainly seeks,
Wliate'er may be an au\]bat'^ ^^VAx.,

126

Silent Friendly Spirits

He never uninvited speaks ;
And should he prove a fool or clown,

Unworth the precious time you're spending,
How quickly you can "put him down,"

Or "shut him up," without offending I

Here — pleasing sight ! — the touchy brood

Of critics from dissension cease ;
And — stranger still ! — no more at feud,

Polemics smile, and keep the peace.
See ! side by side, all free from strife

(Save what the heavy page may smother),
The gentle "Christians" who in life,

For conscience' sake, had burned each other I

I call them friends, these quiet books ;

And well the title they may claim,
Who always give me cheerful looks ;

(What living friend has done the same ?)
And, for companionship, how few.

As these, my cronies, ever present,
Of all the friends I ever knew

Have been so useful and so pleasant ?

John Godfrey Saxe

T 1 TIE are here invited to trace the stream of English
^ ^ poetry. But whether we set ourselves, as here,
to follow only one of the several streams that make the
mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know them
all, our governing thought should be the same. We
should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly
than it has been the custom to ooticeiN^ ^^. '"^X. ^^^

227

The Friendship of Books

should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called
to higher destinies, than those which in general men have
assigned to hitherto. More and more mankind will dis-
cover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for
us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our
science will appear incomplete; and most of what now
passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced
by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without
it. For finely and truly does Wordsworth call poetry
"the impassioned expression which is in the countenance
of all science"; and what is a countenance without its
expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls
poetry "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge";
our religion, parading evidences such as those on which
the popular mind relies now ; our philosophy, pliuning
itself on its reasonings about causation and finite and in-
finite being ; what are they but the shadows and dreams
and false shows of knowledge ? The day will come when
we shall wonder at ourselves for having trusted to them,
for having taken them seriously ; and the more we per-
ceive their hollowness the more we shall prize "the
breath and finer spirit of knowledge" offered to us by
poetry.

But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of
poetry, we must also set our standard for poetry high,
since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling such high destinies,
must be poetry of a high order of excellence. We must
accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a strict
judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day
said, when somebody was spoken of in his presence as a
charlatan: "Charlatan as much as you please; butwheic
is there not eharlatamsni'^ " — "X^^,'^ ^s^s^^ts* ^^.vate-

Silent Friendly Spirits

Beuve, "in politics, in the art of governing mankind, that
is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art,
the glory, the eternal honor, is that charlatanism shall
find no entrance ; herein lies the inviolableness of that
noble portion of man's being." It is admirably said, and
let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought and
art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honor, that charla-
tanism shall find no entrance ; that this noble sphere be
kept inviolate and inviolable. Charlatanism is for con-
fusing or obliterating the distinctions between excellent
and inferior, soimd and imsoimd or only half-sound,
true and imtrue or only half -true. It is charlatanism,
conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or oblit-
erate these. And in poetry, more than anywhere else, it
is impermissible to confuse or obliterate them. For in
poetry the distinction between excellent and inferior,
sound and imsound or only half-soimd, true and untrue or
only half-true, is of paramount importance. It is of
paramount importance because of the high destinies of
poetry. In poetry, as a criticism of life under the con-
ditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic
truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find,
we have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its
consolation and stay. But the consolation and stay will
be of power in proportion to the power of the criticism of
life. And the criticism of life will be of power in propor-
tion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than
inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-soimd, true
rather that untrue or half -true.

The best poetry is what we want ; the best poetry will
he foimd to have a power of forming, sustaining, and
delighting us, as nothing else can, K dsa-x^^, ^ssr-v^

229

The Friendship of Books

sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and joy to
be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we
can gather from a poetical collection. . . . And yet
in the very nature and conduct of such a collection there
is inevitably something which tends to obscure in us the
consciousness of what our benefit should be, and to dis-
tract us from the pursuit of it. We should therefore
steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and should
compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of
it as we proceed.

Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the
best, the really excellent, and of the strength and joy
to be drawn from it, should be present in our minds
and should govern our estimate of what we read. But
this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be
superseded, if we are not watchful, by two other kinds
of estimate, the historic estimate and the personal esti-
mate, both -of which are fallacious. A poet or a poem
may count to us historically, they may count to us on
grounds personal to ourselves, and they may count to
us really. They may count to us historically. The
course of development of a nation's language, thought,
and poetry is profoundly interesting; and by regard-
ing a poet's work as a stage in this course of develop-
ment we may easily bring ourselves to make it of
more importance as poetry than in itself it really is,
we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated
praise in criticising it; in short, to overrate it. So
arises in our poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the
estimate which we may call historic. Then, again, a
poet or a poem may coimt to us on grounds personal to
ourselves. Our personal afiuDiM"&s, Y^Bk^^g*, ^sA ^<:>asQc-

130

Silent Friendly Spirits

stances have great power to sway our estimate of this
or that poet's work, and to make us attach more impor-
tance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses,
because to us it is, or has been, of high importance.
Here also we overrate the object of our interest, and
apply to it a language of praise which is quite exag-
gerated. And thus we get the source of a second
fallacy in our poetic judgments — the fallacy caused by
an estimate which we may call personal.

Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally
the study of the history and development of a poetry may
incline a man to pause over reputations and works once
conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel with a
careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradi-
tion and habit, from one famous name or work in its
national poetry to another, ignorant of what it misses,
and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, and of the
whole process of growth in its poetry. The French have
become diligent students of their own early poetry, which
they long neglected ; the study makes many of them dis-
satisfied with their so-called classical poetry, the court-
tragedy, of the seventeenth century, a poetry which
Pellisson long ago reproached with its want of the true
poetic stamp, with its polilesse sterile et rampante, but
which nevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely
as if it had been the perfection of classical poetry indeed.
The dissatisfaction is natural; yet a lively and accom-
plished critic, M. Charles d'H6ricault, the editor of
Clement Marot, goes too far when he says that "the
cloud of glory playing roimd a classic is a mist as danger-
ous to the future of a literature as it is intolerable for
the purposes of history." "It Yiindet&J^ \jk& ^k:^^^ ^^^^

231

The Friendship of Books

ttu

it hinders us from seeing more than one single point,
the cuhninating and exceptional point; the summary,
fictitious and arbitrary, of a thought and of a work. It
substitutes a halo for a physiognomy, it puts a statue
where there was once a man, and hiding from us all trace
of the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures,
it claims not study but veneration ; it does not show us
how the thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above
all, for the historian this creation of classic personages is
inadmissible; for it withdraws the poet from his time,
from his proper life, it breaks historical relationships,
it blinds criticism by conventional admiration, and
renders the investigation of literary origins imacceptable.
It gives us a human personage no longer, but a God
seated immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter
on Olympus ; and hardly will it be possible for the young
student, to whom such work is exhibited at such a dis-
tance from him, to believe that it did not issue ready made
from that divine head."

All this is brilliantly and telling said, but we must
plead for a distinction. Everything depends on the reality
of a poet's classic character. If he is a dubious classic,
let us sift him; if he is a false classic, let us explode him.
But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class
of the very best (for this is the true and right meaning
of the word classic, classicoT), then the great thing for
us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we
can, and to appreciate the wide difference between it and
all work which has not the same high character. This is
what is salutary, this is what is formative; this is
the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry.
Everything which inteiietes m\3!a. \x., ^VVsk Vsiaders it,

232

Silent Friendly Spirits

is injurious. True, we must read our classic with open
eyes, and not with eyes blinded with superstition; we
must perceive when his work comes short, when it
drops out of the class of the very best, and we must
rate it, in such cases, at its proper value. But the use of
this negative criticism is not in itself, it is entirely in its
enabling us to have a clearer sense and a deeper enjoy-
ment of what is truly excellent. To trace the labor,
the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of a genuine
classic, to acquaint oneself with his time and his life
and his historical relationships, is mere literary dilettant-
ism unless it has that clear sense and deeper enjoyment
for its end. It may be said that the more we know about
a classic, the better we shall enjoy him ; and, if we lived
as long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of periect
clearness and wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be
true in fact as it is plausible in theory. But the case
here is much the same as the case with the Greek and
Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philo-
logical groundwork which we require them to lay is in
theory an admirable preparation for appreciating the
Greek and Latin alithors worthily. The more thoroughly
we lay the groundwork, the better we "shall be able, it
may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were
not so short, and schoolboys* wits not so soon tired and
their power of attention exhausted ; only, as it is, the
elaborate philological preparation goes on, but the authors
are little known and less enjoyed. So with the investi-
gator of "historic origins" in poetry. He ought to enjoy
the true classic all the better for his investigations ; he
often is distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and
with the less good he overbusives Vdrx^ss?^, ^tA\^ t^-^sss^s^

The Friendship of Books

to overrate it in proportion to the trouble which it has
cost him.

Matthew Arnold
The Study of Poetry

TVrOT a valuable set,
•^ ^ Does it follow therefore
That I may not have a pet
Book or two to care for ?
Tell me, does a man of sense
Judge of books by their expense ?

How, alas ! can I afford

Precious vellum covers
Stamped with badge of prince or lord

Or of royal lovers ?
Long must be their purse who gain
Specimens of Roger Payne.

Some begin but never end.

Some have no beginning,
Some are tattered and transcend

All the arts of pinning.
Children love with love most warm
Dolls with least of human form.

Some are clean, the average

Are a trifle dirty.
Time is apt to soil a page

Say of sixteen-thirty.
Shall I value comrades less
For their unbecomm^ ^x^^a*^

Silent Friendly Spirits

Some are Latin, some are Greek,
Some are French and Spanish,

One or two can even speak
Portuguese or Danish.

(Names of nations must at times

Be content with "printers* rimes.")

Here is farce or comedy,
Here grave verse like Dante's,

Bacon or Pascal may be
Neighbors of Cervantes ;

Books like strangers in a street

Know not whom they chance to meet.

Delicate Italian charm,

Sagas grim from Sweden,
Songs that breathe a holy calm

Like the calm of Eden,
Scarce a page that has not taught
Something worthy to be thought.

Most of them are of the past,

Of a bygone fashion,
Some of them are deeply cast

In a mould of passion.
Others treat the world and men
With a Rabelaisian pen.

Many a book of olden time

Opens with a sonnet,
Once no work appeared but rime

Must be written on iX.\

23S

The Friendship of Books

'Twas no credit to compose
Flatteries in humble prose.

Comrades, let me dwell with you,

Hear your sobs and laughter,
Men have never been as true,

Will they be hereafter ?
None knows solitude who spends
Life with books when books are friends.

James Williams
A Lawyer^ s Leisure

T CANNOT think the glorious world of mind,
■■" Embalmed in books, which I can only see
In patches, though I read my moments blind.
Is to be lost to me.

I have a thought that, as we live elsewhere.
So will these dear creations of the brain ;

That what I lose unread, I'll find, and there
Take up my joy again.

O then the bliss of blisses, to be freed

From all the wonts by which the world is driven ;
With liberty and endless time to read
The libraries of Heaven !

Robert Leighton
Records and Other Poems

A S roimd these well-selected shelves one looks,
-^^ Remembering years of reading leisure flown.
It kills all hope to think how many books
He still must leave \vriiLiv(y«Ti.

Silent Friendly Spirits

But when to thoughts, instead of books, he comes,
Request grows less for what he cannot read,

If he reflects how many learned tomes
One thought may supersede.

So, let him be a toiling, imread man,

And the idea, like an added sense,
Of God informing all his life, he can

With many a book dispense.

The fine conviction, too, that Death', like Sleep,

Wakes into higher dreams — this thought will brook
Denial of the libraries, and keep
The key of many a book.

Robert Leighton
Records and Other Poems

The Solace of Books ^vi». <::> ^v> <::> -^^^

/^ FINEST essence of delicious rest !

^^ To bid for some short space the busy mill

Of anxious, ever grinding thought be still ;
And let the weary brain and throbbing breast
Be by another's cooling hand caressed.

This volume in my hand, I hold a charm

Which lifts me out of reach of wrong or harm.
I sail away from trouble ; and most blessed
Of every blessing, can myself forget :

Can rise above the instance low and poor
Into the mighty law that governs yet.

This hinged cover, like a well-hung door.
Shuts out the noises of the jangling day,
These fair leaves fan imwelcome thoughts away.

r/ie S J)ectaior , ^^tl. ^fc , ^^^^
237

The Friendship of Books
Ballade of the Bookworm

T^AR in the Past I peer, and see
-^ A Child upon the Nursery floor,
A Child with books upon his knee,
Who asks, like Oliver, for more I
The number of his years is IV,
And yet in Letters hath he skiU,
How deep he dives in Fairy-lore I
The Books I loved, I love them still !

One gift the Fairies gave me : (Three
They commonly bestowed of yore)
The love of Books, the Golden Key
That opens the Enchanted Door ;
Behind it Bluebeard lurks, and o'er
And o'er Jack his Giants kill.
And there is all Aladdin's store, —
The Books I loved, I love them still !

Take all, but leave my Books to me !

These heavy creels of old we bore

We fill not now, nor wander free.

Nor wear the heart that once we wore ;

Not now each River seems to pour

His waters from the Muses' hill ;

Though something's gone from stream and shore,

The Books I loved, I love them still I

ENVOY

Fate, that art Queen by shore and sea.
We bow submissive to 1i\xv V^,

2'^

Silent Friendly Spirits

Ah grant, by some benign decree,
The Books I loved — tx) love them still.

Andrew Lang
BaUades in Blue China

Ballade of his Books -^^^ <:b^ <::> -^^^

TTERE stand my Books, line upon line
-*• -^ They reach the roof, and row by row,

They speak of faded tastes of mine.
And things I did, but do not, know:
Old school books, useless long ago,
Old Logics, where the spirit, railed in.
Could scarcely answer "yes" or "no" —
The many things I Ve tried and failed in I

Here's Villon, in morocco fine
(The Poet starved, in mud and snow)
Glatigny does not crave to dine.
And Rent's tears forget to flow.
And here's a work by Mrs. Crowe,
With hosts of ghosts and bogies jailed in ;
Ah, all my ghosts have gone below —
The many things I've tried and failed in I

He's touched, this mouldy Greek divine,
The Princess D'Este's hand of snow ;
And here the arms of D'Ho)an shine,
And there's a tear-bestained Rousseau :
Here's Carlyle shrieking "woe on woe"
(The first edition, this, he wailed in) ;
I once believed in him — but oh,
"The many things I've tried aiA laSL^a^mV

239

The Friendship of Books

ENVOY

Prince, tastes may differ ; mine and thine
Quite other balances are scaled in ;
May you succeed, though I repine —
"The many things IVe tried and failed in ! "

Andrew Lang
Ballades in Blue China

Ballade of the Book-hunter '^;> -cy -q^ ^;>

TN torrid heats of late July,

■■- In March, beneath the bitter Bise,

He book-himts while the loimgers fly, —

He book-himts, though December freeze;

In breeches baggy at the knees.

And heedless of the public jeers.

For these, for these, he hoards his fees, —

Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

No dismal stall escapes his eye.
He turns o'er tomes of low degrees,
There soiled romanticists may lie,
Or Restoration comedies ;
Each tract that flutters in the breeze
For him is charged with hopes and fears,
In mouldy novels fancy sees
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

With restless eyes that peer and spy.
Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees.
In dismal nooks he loves to pry.
Whose motto evermore is spesi
But ah I t]ielab\edlTeasxa^^<«&\

2AP

Silent Friendly Spirits

Grown rarer with the fleeting years,

In rich men's shelves they take their ease, —

Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs I

ENVOY

Prince, all the things that tease and please, —
Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears.
What are they but such toys as these —
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs ?

Andrew Lang
Ballades in Blue China

"X 7[ THEN do I love you most, sweet books of mine ?
^ ^ In strenuous moms when o'er your leaves I pore.
Austerely bent to win austerest lore,
Forgetting how the dewy meadow'd shine ;
Or afternoons when honeysuckles twine
About the seat, and to some dreamy shore
Of old romance, where lovers evermore
Keep blissful hours, I follow at your sign ?

Yei 1 ye are precious then, but most to me
Ere lamplight dawneth, when low croons the Are
To whispering twilight in my little room ;
And eyes read not, but, sitting silently,
I feel your great hearts throbbing deep inquire.
And hear your breathing roimd me in the gloom.

RiCHASD LeGallienne

INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES OF

WORKS QUOTED

Adlengion, William, (EpUOe Dtdi- Brydozs, Snt Egertow, {The RMmi-

caforv to Translation of Apn- nator), 192-193.

leius^s Golden Ass), 175-176. Burns, Robert, {The Cotter's Satur-

Alcott, a. Bronson, (Tablets), day Night), 11.

ay-ap. Burton, John Hnx, (The Booh

(Table Talk), 137-139. Hunter), 225.

Allen, James Lane, (A Kentucky Burton, Robert, (Tke Anatomy of

Cardinal), 203-204. Melancholy), 178.

Anonymous, (Prom Introduction to Bury, Richard De, (PhUobiblon),

AUibone's Dictionary of English 5-6.

Literature), 131.
(From Preface to Translation of r'.^,^-. tw^.-.» if\^ n^ j

ioccacdo's Decameron, 1620), ^'^Sf ' J=°JKf' ^^ ^^"^ ''"*'

131-132. Worship), 107-109.

Arnold, Matihew, (TJte 5<«iv «/ ;; — (.^rtor Resartus), 136-137.

PcMirv) 227-S^i Carr, Frank, 49.

Arnott, Dr., (ffc Elements of Cz^y*^^. Migjjkl de, (Don Quiz-

AuGu^'ST.:'(c^nA«i.w), s. ^^^^^^TfiK.^;, ^-^ (•^««^^«^«''''>'

H5~"i*o, 174.

Bacon, Lobj», (Essays), 90^1. ^S^ Wo^)^r\ ^^'"^ "^

Balthasar BoNiTAaus Rhodi- rrA»^T/t«.?1?i;,»L;„ «,^

GiNUS, (Historia Ludicra), 175. ^^l^l^'^I^^f^i H^c,.^

Barrow, Isaac, (Sermons), 60; 179. ^°^^' ^^ £™^! /^^2^*

Baxter, RiCHiiu), (Chriitian Bi (Address to the Manchester Athe-

rectorv) i«^-x46 naum), 203.

BEACONS^Eiij). Eiii: OF, (S^eecA to C^^^^' ?^^^ .Ta™»» (f**

the Members of the Ma^^ter rr.rPjt'^^flrPj'^'^l' '*'"'*?L-

Athenamm), 116-117. Coluer. Jeremy, (Essays upon

Bedford. Wil^m, EXrl of, (Ad- f**^"' ^^<^ 5i*^«;/j), 132-

B^ES^,Hi^w!£^Ayermons), CoM^^iix, Barry. (Fra,««,/), 25-

Blackwood's Maoahne, (r*« C(wii- n-^JL^T .tt»,^t^ .«

BuoxjNT, CEAiLis, (A J^t Vindica- ^^pjSilu^^^* ^^** CAe/Aa«i

tion of Learning), 103. -Ciftforaf), 16-17.
Borrow, George, (Lavengro), 141-

146. Daniel, Samuel, (Musophilus), 177.

Bray, Charles, (Phases of Opinion (To the Lady Lucy), 177.

and Experience), 33-34. Dawson, George, (Address at Sir-

Bright, John, (Speeches), 40-41. mingham Pru Library), 14&-147.

Browne, Sir T&omas, (Religio De Quincey, Thomas, (Essays on

Medici), 213. Pope), 61.

Browning, Euzabbtb B., (Aurora DIsraeu, Isaac, (Imitation of

Leigh), 34^35' Ranizau)^ 194-19$.

Index

DIsRAEU, Isaac, (On the Manner and
Genius of 'the LUerary Character),

195*
DoDD, Rkv. William, (Thoughts in

Prison), 3x6.

EuoT, George, (The MiU on the

Floss), 67-60.
Emerson, R. W., (Society and Sidi-

tude), 30-31 : 66-67.
(Letters and Social Aims), 188,

106-197.

(Essays), 139-140.

Erasmus, Desiderius, (Colloquies),

89-90.

Fenelon, Abp., 126.

Ferguson, Charles, (The Religion

of Democracy), 83.
Fern, Fanny, (Fern Leaves), 34.
Fletcher, John, (The Elder Brother),

176-177.
Florio, John, (Sonnet prefixed to

Montaigne* s Essays), aii-aia.
Foster, John, (Introduction to Dod-

ridfe's Rise and Progress of Re-
ligion in the Soul), 70-72.
Frazer's Magazine, (Booh Love),

223-225.
Freeland, William, (A Birth Song),

199-200.
Friswell, James Hain, (The Gentle

Life), 153-154.
Froude, James Anthony, (Short

Studies on Great SutgecU), 73-74.
Fuller, Thomas, (The Holy StaU),

2x3.

Gibbon, Edward, (Autobiography),

X03-X04.
Gladstone, W. E., (Addresses), 52.
Godwin, William, (The Enquirer),

X04-X05.
Goethe, Johann W. von, (Faust),

11-12.

Goldsmith, Oliver, (The Vicar of

Wakefield), 10.

(Citizen of the World), 88.

Grey, Lady Jane, (The Scholemaster

by Roger Ascham), 174.

Harrison, Frederic, (The Choice of

Books), 44-47; i6i.
Hazlitt, William, (The Plain

Speaker), 15-22.
(Lectures on the Dramatic Liiera-

ture of the Age of Elvsabeih), 188-

189.

Hazutt, Wiliiak, (On ike Conduct of
Life), 189.

(The Sich Chamber), 190.

Helps, Sir Arthur, (Companions of
my Solitude), 48.

Herschel, Sir John, (Address at
Windsor Public Library), 140-
141: X9X-192.

Hood, Thomas, (Letter to Manchester
Athenaum), 221-222.

Houghton, LorDj (Speech at Man-
chester Free Library), 70.

Hugo, Victor, (V Annie TerriUe),
76-78; 225.

Hunt, Leigh, (The Literary Exami-
ner), 22-2S.

(A Booh for a Comer), 193-194.

Huxley, Thomas Henry, 126.

Ireland, Alexander, (Preface to
Book-lover's Enchiridion), 163.

Irving, Washington, (The Sketch
Booh), 26 ; 196.

Johnson, Samuel, (The Adventurer),

X32.
JoNSON, Ben, j^y/w), I30-I3X.
(To Sir Henry Goodyere), 212-

3x3.

Keats, John, (On first looking into
Chapman's Homer). 187.

Kenyon, John, (Po«iim), 36-37.

KiNGSLEY, Charles, (village Ser-
mons), 78-79.

Lamb, Charles, (Essays of Elia)^
14-15 ; 187.

(Last Essays of Elia), 185-187.
:oNT, Alexander, (Wayside
Weas), so.

Landor, W. S., (Imaginary Conversa-
tions), 1$.
Lang, Andrew, (The Library), 51;

83.
(Books that have helped Me),

X63.
(Ballades in Blue China), 338-

24X.
Langforo. J. A., (The Praise of

Books), 154-156.
Lee, Gerald Stanley, (The Lost

Art of Reading), 168-169 > 304-

205.
Le Galliennb, Richard, (LimHed

Editions), 164.

(When do I love you most»

s«Mibook& of mtiMf)^ 34Z.

^AA

Index

LnoBTON, Robert, (Records), 336-

237.
LxLLY, John, (Euphues), 178.
LiNCOur, Abkaham, (Address before

the Wisconsin State Agricultural

Society), loo-iio.
Longfellow, H. W., 35-56-
Lowell, James Russell, (Under the

Willows), 48.
(Conoersatums on Some of the

Old Pods), 222-323.
Lubbock, Sir John, (The Pleasures

of Life), si-S»'
Luther, Martin, (TaUe Talh), 127-

128.
Lytton, Bulwer, (The Caxtons),

110-115.
(The Souls of Boohs), 216, aaz.

Macaulay, Lord, (Essays), 105-
107.

Machiavelu, Niccolo, (Opere), 6.

Mahon, Lord, (Address at Manches-
ter Athenteum), 196.

MATJABlrf, STEPHANE. 1 74.

Milton, John, (Paradise Regained),

S8.

(Areopagitica), 215.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortlby,

(Letters), 126.
Montaigne, Michael de, (Essays),

128-130.
MoRLEY, Lord, (On the Study of

Literature), 164-165, 165-166.

New Testament, Tte, 88.
Norton, Mrs. C, (To My Boohs),
36.

Old English Song, (0, for a Boohe
and a shadie noohe), 175*

Osborne, Francis, (Advice to a Son),
91-94.

Parker, Theodore, (Lessons from

the World of Matter and the

World of Man, 75-76.
Parton, Sara P., (Pern Leaves), 34.
Payn, James, (The Blessedness of

Boohs), 200-203.
Percy, Thomas, (Reliques of Ancient

English Poetry), z8o.
Petrarch, Francesco, (Episieia de

Rebus Pamiliaribus), s^l Z37.
Phillips, George Searlb, (The

Choice of Boohs), 41-43-
Plato, 2x0.

PoRRf , Gilbert ve, (Letters), 7-8.
Proctor. Bryan waller, (Prag-
ment), 25-26.

RoscoE, WmjAM, (To My Boohs on

Parting with Them), 4.
RusEiN, John, (Sesame and Lilies),

148r-152.

Sake, John Godfrey, (The Library),

39-40.

(My Boohs), 226-227.

Schopenhauer, Arthxtr, (Parerga

and Paralipomena), 216.
Scott, Temple, (The Pleasure of

Reading), 52-54; 121; 129-170;

205.
Searle, January, (The Choice of

Boohs), iU-43'
Senancour, Etienne p. de, (Ober-

mann), 74-75-
Seneca, 21Z.

Shakespeare, William, (The Tem-
pest), 212.

(Titus Andronicus), 212.

(Lovers Labour*s Lost), 176.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, (The

Revolt of Islam), 4.

(A Dtfenu of Poetry), 60-61.

Sheridan, Thomas, (To Jonathan

Swift), 210.
Smith, Alexander, (Dreamthorp),

37-39'
SouTHEY, Robert, (The Doctor),

61-63.

(Sir Thomas More), 63-66.

Spectator, The, London, (The Solace

of Books), 237.
Steele, Sir Richard, (The TaOer),

103-104.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, (A

Child's Garden cf Verses), 43-44-
(Books which have influenced

Me), 156-160 ; Z98-190.
Sumner, Charles, (Address on

Granville Sharp), 216.
Swift, Jonathan, (Thoughts on

Various Subjects), 9-10.
Symonds, John Addington, (Cel-

linVs Autobiography), 156-158.

Taine. Henri A., (History of English
Literature), 79-80.

Taylor, Isaac, (Personal Recollec-
tions), 6z.

Thackeray, W. M., (Roumdaboui
Pa^s\«\^n.

^43

Index

T moM n tm, TtLAaem, (SUley: an

Essay), z66-i68.
Thoioon, James, (The Stasans), zo.

VALYitK, Maize, 58.

Vaughan, Hemky, iSiUxSeintiaans),

59-
VOLTAZRB, F. A. IMC., (PhUasopkUol
DieHonary), Z36.

Waixjck, Sir Williaic, (Dirine

MeditatUms). g.
Watts, Isaac, (Improvemetii of the

Mind), 88.

WnicaKcxyiB, BxNjAiinr, (Senmm),

135.
Whipple, Edwin P.. 126.
Whitman, Walt, (Pr^ace, 1855),

67.
(Deffocratic Vistas), 80-82;

IS2-XS3;

Whittiek, Tames Greemleap, (rA«

Library), 3i-:32.
Wilde, Oscar, (Jntandons), 117-

120; 161-163.
Williams, James, (A Lawyer's

Leisure), 23^^-236.
Wordsworth, Wiluam, (JPersond

Talk), 180-181."

%ij^

npHE following pages contain advertisements
of a few of the Macmillan Anthologies

The Book of Love

With an Introduction by MADISON CAWEIN and
Drawings by WLADYSLAW T. BENDA.

CloUh i6mo, decorated cover, $1.25 net

Leather, $1.75 net

"Timely now, as at all seasons, is a small leather-bound
volume bearing on its cover the seductive legend, 'Ihe
Book of Love.' The book is to be commended to those
in love and to those who are not — if such there can be.
The fond words herein sifted are fine things of various ages
that have been sung or sighed over this ubiquitous joy —
or affliction. He whom Cupid is leading chained will
herein find comfort from the words of other captives of the
blind tyrant He who temporarily walks immune may
herein vicariously know some of the roses and raptures of
happy lovers or, less painfully than in actual grim experi-
ence, learn something of their gentle woes.'' — Louisville
Courier Journal.

''The attractive form and the taste shown in selection make
this an ideal little gift book."— World To-day,

** Love in all its moods may be found between the covers
of this attractive little work, and what more appropriate
time for it to become popular than June, largely devoted to
affairs of the heart ? " — Des Moines Capital,

" An admirable collection." — Niew York American*

PUBLISHED BY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

64-66 FIFTH AVKNUK, KEW YQKK

The Book of Christmas

Vriik an Introduction by HAMILTON W. MABIE and
Dnwings by George Wharton Edwards

12 full-pag§ drawings and ra half-tone reproducHons of
famous pamtings, Chth, i6mo, decorated cover ^ $'^5 net

** ' The Book of Christmas ' is one of the happiest anthologies
we have met in a long time. Such a book, as Mr. Mabie sees
it in his inspiring introduction, should be a * text-book of piety,
friendship, merriment,' and that is what he has made his dainty
little volume, giving us more than three hundred pages of prose
and verse drawn from the widest sources, from old writers who
are classics, and from others, who, if not of the same eminence,
have at all events put the spirit of Christmas into their work
with feeling and art ... In its pretty cover of green and gold,
the book is one to win its way anywhere." — New York TriMme,

The Book of Easter

Introduction by the Right Reverend WILLIAM CROSWELL
DOANE^ With decorative drawings by George Wharton
Edwards and twelve full-page half-tones.

Gotht i2mo, $IJ2S net

" A treasury of literary gems bound in green and gold, decorated
with Easter lilies. A daintier Easter gift could not be found."

— Ckristian Observer,

" A very beautiful volume of selections from all sources — an-
cient and modem, sacred and profone. . . . And no more
beautiful Easter gift would it be possible to find."

— Western Christian Advocate,

The Book of Friendship

With an Introduction by SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS
and drawings by Wladyslaw T. Benda.

Cloth^ i6mo, decorated cover ^ $ijis net

" Most varied in its contents and full of all manner of quaint
information." — New York Times,

THE MACMll.1.^^ CO^^K-^Y

The Ladies' Pageant

By E. V. LUCAS

"An unusual collection of poetry and prose in comment upon
the varying aspects of the feminine form and nature, wherein is
set forth for the delectation of man what great writers from
Chaucer to Ruskin have said about the eternal feminine. The
result is a decidedly companionable volume.*' — Tmon and
Country,

"To possess this book is to fill your apartment — your lonely
farm parlor or little 'flat' drawing-room in which few sit —
with the rustle of silks and the swish of lawns ; to comfort your
ear with seemly wit and musical laughter ; and to remind you
how sweet an essence ascends from the womanly heart to the
high altar of the Maker of Women." — The Chicago Tribune.

Some Friends of Mine a rally of men

By E. v. LUCAS

At last the sterner sex is to have its literary dues. In this
little volume Mr. Lucas has essayed to do for men what he did
for the heroines of life and poetry and fiction in ' The Ladies'
Pageant' No other editor has so deft a hand for work of this
character, and this volume is as rich a fund of amusement and
instruction as all the previous ones of the author have been.

"Mr. Lucas does not compile. What he does, rather, is to
assemble a quantity of rough material, quarried from the classics,
and then to fashion out of it a fabric stamped with his own per-
sonality. ... He makes a little book in which old poems and
bits of old prose take on a new character, through being placed
in a relation to one another determined by Mr. Lucas' peculiar
fiincy. ... He will always be sure of an appreciative public."
— Tki New York Tribune,

Cioth, $i^S net

PUBLISHED BY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

64-66 Fifth Ayenue, New York

The Gentlest Art

A Choice of Letters by Entert^ning Ihmds

Edited by E. V. LUCAS

An anthology of lette^•writing so human, interesting, and amus-
ing from first to last, as almost to inspire one to attempt the
restoration of the lost art.

" Letters of news and of gossip, of polite nonsense, of humor
and pathos, of friendship, of quiet reflection, stately letters in
the grand manner, and nalre letters by obscure and ignorant
folk."

Chth,$iasnei

The Second Post

Edited by R V. LUCAS

A further selection of " letters by entertaining hands." a delight-
ful companion to ** The Gentlest Art," with which it is uniform.

Cloth, % I ^S^^

The Friendly Qaft

Edited by ELIZABETH D. HANSCOM

In this volume the author has done for American letters what
Mr. Lucas did for English in " The Gentlest Art."

"... An unusual anthology. A collection of American letters,
some of them written in the Colonial period and some of them
yesterday; all of them particularly human; many of them
charmingly easy and conversational, as pleasant, bookish
friends talk in a fortunate hour. ... It is a great favor to the
public to bring together in just this informal way the delightful
letters of our two centuries of history." — The Independent,

Cloth, $ 1 ,25 net

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 04-ftQ "SU^ kt «uqa 1&««^^'€«.

?ull Fathom Five

A SesL-Anthotogy in Prose and Verse

By HELEN and LEWIS MELVILLE

Bits about the Sea, touching many phases of its call to men, the
soft silver of the moon-path on its shine, the note of its deep
rolling diapason, and all the grandeur of its numberless currents.

Cloth^ $1,^0 net

jon6xx^s Lure

An Anthology in Prose and Verse

By HELEN and LEWIS MELVILLE

A selection of what poets and prose writers have said about the
great metropolis — that capital of all Europe which has fpr most
Americans the closest attraction and the most lasting charm.

Cloth, $Tas nei

rhe Wayfarer in New York

Introduction by E. C. Martin

This book describes New York in much the same way that
London was discussed in " London's Lure," through pictures
of different phases of the modem city, from the yeasty, seething
East side, west to where old Greenwich grimly holds its own ;
from the " granite cliffs " of lower Broadway to where by night
" the serpent of stars " winds around Momingside.

Cloth, $1.2^ nei

THE MACMILLATSi eONV?K?i5X

PnbliBhers 64-66 TiKh A.venue "&«" "^<si«.

A Book of Old English Ballads

Edited with an extended Introduction by HAMILTON W.
MABIE. Decorative drawings by George Wharton Edwards.

Decorated clothe izmo^ $ias ^^

Unless one were brought up on old ballad verse he may never
know the fiill thrill of starting out with the ill-fiUed Earl of
Northumberland

" His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summers days to take/'

of hunting with Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, or of listen-
ing awed to the wave lapping fifty fathoms above where " lies
gude Sir Patrick Spens, wi' the Scots lords at his feet**; but
even so this is a book one thoroughly enjoys owning. Scarcely
a ballad in it but is a favorite in the first rank of its tjrpe, keenly
dramatic in its quaint simplicity.

A Book of Old English Love Songs

Edited with an extended Introduction by HAMILTON W.
MABIE. Decorative drawings by Geoige Wharton Edwards.

Decorated clothe i2mo, $i^s ^^

" The best songs of Elizabethan and Stuart times, which is to say
songs which express the lyric power of the English language at
its highest point." — The New York Sun.

" Old friends are best in literature as m life, and the perennial
charm of the immortal songs that have cheered mortal men for
generations is as fresh and gracious still as when they first
issued forth from the poet's heart." — Pkiiadelphia Evening
Telfgraph.

PUBLISHED BY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

The Golden Treasury

Selected from the best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English
Language and arranged with Notes by FRANCIS T. PAL-
GRAVE, late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford.

A New Edition revised and enlarged

Two volumes in one, in blue andgold^ $^»S^

The first portion of this volume is the exceptional collection
which has been the standard basis for study of the lyrical
literature of England from the earliest times to Wordsworth's
day. It is divided into four books, and to each it may be said
that one of these four poets gives it a distinctive character:
Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Wordsworth. The Second
Series is an attempt to make a similar representation of the
harvest of lyrics more abundant than even those of the famed
Elizabethan period. It is an unrivalled choice of the lyrical
expressions of this subjective age.

Lyric Love An Anthology

Edited by WILLIAM WATSON.

The author's comprehensive aim has been to bring together
the best English poetry having love as its personal inspiration
or its objective theme. An especial interest is lent the volume
by its primary principle of selection, namely, that the poem
shall have a convincing "personal reality."

The volume is bound in the attractive blue and gold of the

Golden Treasury Series.

O^M, $1,00

PUBLISHED BY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

64-66 Fifth A.YeiLue, K^^ Y«tk

SUntom UnlMral!* UbrarlH

nmiilivH

3 6105 127 190 044

488558

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