The Book-Lovers' Anthology — Context and Discussion

t were days without such fellowship? 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 not commit itself to literature, still we take up the new issue with the old expectation, and again and again, as we try our friends after many failures at conversation, believing this visit will be the favoured hour and all will be told us....

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though preparation is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more;--book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.--A. B. ALCOTT. _Tablets._

A COMPANY OF THE WISEST AND THE WITTIEST

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 experiences, 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 living.

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 and 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 strangers of another age.--R. W. EMERSON. _Books._

We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit.--C. C. COLTON. _Lacon._

A MAGNATE IN THE REALM OF BOOKS

One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore A ready credence in his looks, A lettered magnate, lording o'er An ever-widening realm of books. In him brain-currents, near and far, Converged as in a Leyden jar; The old, dead authors thronged him round about, And Elzevir's grey ghosts from leathern graves looked out.

He knew each living pundit well, Could weigh the gifts of him or her, And well the market value tell Of poet and philosopher. But if he lost, the scenes behind, Somewhat of reverence vague and blind, Finding the actors human at the best, No readier lips than his the good he saw confessed.

His boyhood fancies not outgrown, He loved himself the singer's art; Tenderly, gently, by his own He knew and judged an author's heart. No Rhadamanthine brow of doom Bowed the dazed pedant from his room; And bards, whose name is legion, if denied, Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride.

Pleasant it was to roam about The lettered world as he had done, And see the lords of song without Their singing robes and garlands on. With Wordsworth paddle Rydal mere, Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer, And with the ears of Rogers, at fourscore, Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit once more.

J. G. WHITTIER. _The Tent on the Beach._

CHOOSE an author as you choose a friend.--W. DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON. _Essay on Translated Verse._

All round the room my silent servants wait,-- My friends in every season, bright and dim; Angels and seraphim 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. Oh 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 whereso'er it goes....

B. W. PROCTER. _An Autobiographical Fragment._

Silent 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 tranquil thought; Till, haply 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 unripe musings, told so well.

THE HON. CAROLINE NORTON.

ON PARTING WITH MY BOOKS

Ye dear companions of my silent hours, Whose pages oft before my eyes would strew So many sweet and variegated flowers-- Dear Books, awhile, perhaps for ay, adieu! The dark cloud of misfortune o'er me lours: No more by winter's fire--in summer's bowers, My toil-worn mind shall be refreshed by you: We part! sad thought! and while the damp devours Your leaves, and the worm slowly eats them through, Dull Poverty and its attendant ills, Wasting of health, vain toil, corroding care, And the world's cold neglect, which surest kills, Must be my bitter doom; yet I shall bear Unmurmuring, for my good perchance these evils are.

TO MY BOOKS ON PARTING WITH THEM

As 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! chiefs of elder Art! Teachers of wisdom! 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.--W. ROSCOE.

TRUE FRIENDS THAT CHEER

It is a beautiful incident in the story of Mr. Roscoe's misfortunes, and one which cannot fail to interest the studious mind, that the parting with his books seems to have touched upon his tenderest feelings, and to have been the only circumstance that could provoke the notice of his Muse. The 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 around us, these only retain their steady value. When friends grow 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.--W. IRVING. _The Sketch Book._

Sadly 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 shelf, 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 ways, In which I walked, now clouded and confused.

When I would know thee, Goodyer, my thought looks Upon thy well-made choice of friends, and books; Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends In making thy friends books, and thy books friends: Now must I give thy life and deed the voice Attending such a study, such a choice; Where, though it be love that to thy praise doth move, It was a knowledge that begat that love.

OUR BEST ACQUAINTANCE

While you converse with lords and dukes, I have their betters here--my books; Fixed in an elbow chair at ease I choose my companions as I please. I'd rather have one single shelf Than all my friends, except yourself; For after all that can be said Our best acquaintance are the dead.

THE TRUE ELYSIAN FIELDS

In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums 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 unrolls before me. I breathe morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses yet lingered 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 ground 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 spectacle it is! What kingly pomp, what processions file past, what cities burn 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 shaking the 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 unpeopled Syrian 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 unappalled. 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 myself a solitary, but sometimes I think I misapply the term. No man sees more company than I do. I travel with 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.--A. SMITH. _Dreamthorp._

One drachma for a good book, and a thousand talents for a true friend;-- So standeth the market, where scarce is ever costly: Yea, were the diamonds of Golconda common as shingles on the shore, A ripe apple would ransom kings before a shining stone: And so, were a wholesome book as rare as an honest friend, To choose the book be mine: the friend let another take.

M. F. TUPPER. _Proverbial Philosophy._

A blessed companion is a book,--a book that, fitly chosen, is a life-long friend.--D. JERROLD. _Books._

May I a small house and large garden have! And a few friends, and many books, both true.

A. COWLEY. _The Wish._

THE DESIRABLE TABERNACLE

O celestial gift of divine liberality, descending from the Father of light to raise up the rational soul even to heaven!... Undoubtedly, indeed, thou hast placed thy desirable tabernacle in books, where the Most High, the Light of light, the Book of Life, hath established thee. Here then all who ask receive, all who seek find thee, to those who knock thou openest quickly. In books cherubim expand their wings, that the soul of the student may ascend and look around from pole to pole, from the rising to the setting sun, from the north and from the sea. In them the most high incomprehensible God Himself is contained and worshipped....

Let us consider how great a commodity of doctrine exists in books, how easily, how secretly, how safely they expose the nakedness of human ignorance without putting it to shame. These are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you.--R. DE BURY. _Philobiblon._

Books are a part of man's prerogative, In formal ink they thoughts and voices hold, That we to them our solitude may give, And make time present travel that of old. Our life fame pieceth longer at the end, And books it farther backward do extend.

SIR T. OVERBURY. _The Wife._

Bright books: the perspectives to our weak sights, The clear projections of discerning lights, Burning and shining thoughts, man's posthume day, The track of fled souls and their Milky Way, The dead alive and busy, the still voice Of enlarged spirits, kind Heaven's white decoys! Who lives with you, lives like those knowing flowers, Which in commerce with light spend all their hours; Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun, But with glad haste unveil to kiss the Sun. Beneath you, all is dark, and a dead night, Which whoso lives in, wants both health and sight. 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 dies Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flies. 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 a weed! Not wanting knowledge, but for want of heed. Then thank thyself, wild fool, that wouldst not be Content to know--what was too much for thee.

THE LEGACIES OF GENIUS

Quod nec Iovis ira, nec ignis, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.--OVID.

Aristotle tells us, that the world is a copy or transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in the mind of man are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of man, and that writing or printing is the transcript of words. As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed, his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which, by this great invention of these latter ages, may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley, in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe, has these admirable lines:

Now all the wide extended sky, And all the harmonious worlds on high And Virgil's sacred work shall die.

There is no other method of fixing those thoughts which arise and disappear in the mind of man, and transmitting them to the last periods of time; no other method of giving a permanency to our ideas, and preserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.--J. ADDISON. _Spectator_, 166.

O happy be the day which gave that mind Learning's first tincture--blest thy fostering care, Thou most beloved of parents, worthiest sire! Which, taste-inspiring, made the lettered page My favourite companion: most esteemed, And most improving! Almost from the day Of earliest childhood to the present hour Of gloomy, black misfortune, books, dear books, Have been, and are, my comforts. Morn and night, Adversity, prosperity, at home, Abroad, health, sickness,--good or ill report, The same firm friends; the same refreshment rich And source of consolation. Nay, e'en here Their magic power they lose not; still the same, Of matchless influence in this prison-house, Unutterably horrid; in an hour Of woe, beyond all fancy's fictions drear.

W. DODD. _Thoughts in Prison._

THE DEPOSITARY OF EVERYTHING HONOURABLE

Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man. Literature, taken in all its bearings, 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, of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions, 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 chameleon, assuming the colour of the substances on which I rest. He that revels in a well-chosen library has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour. 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 refinement from them all. His varieties of thinking baffle calculation, and his powers, whether of reason or fancy, become eminently vigorous.--W. GODWIN. _The Inquirer: Of an Early Taste for Reading._