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Books are delightful when prosperity happily smiles; when adversity threatens, they are inseparable comforters. They give strength to human compacts, nor are grave opinions brought forward without books. Arts and sciences, the benefits of which no mind can calculate, depend upon books. j.

RICHARD AUNGERVYLE (Richard De
Bury)-Philobiblon.

You, O Books, are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the clerical militia with which the missiles of the most wicked are destroyed; fruitful olives, vines of Engaddi, fig-trees knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be ever held in the hand.

lc. RICHARD AUNGERVYLE (Richard De Bury)-Phiobiblon.

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I 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 mastadon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!

At last, because the time was ripe,
I chanced upon the poets.

r. E. B. BROWNING-Aurora Leigh. Line 830.

Bk. I.

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d.

CARLYLE-Essays. Goethe's Helena.

In the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nour. ishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest in him.

e. CARLYLE-Essays. Corn-Law Rhymes. 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 faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I 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 human 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.

ƒ- CHANNING--On Self-Culture.

It 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 most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

J. CHANNING-On Self-Culture. And as for me, though than I konne but lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful 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, whan that the monthe of May Is comen, and that I here the foules synge, And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge, Farwel my boke, and my devocion.

h. CHAUCER-Legende of Goode Women. Prologue. Line 29.

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It is saying less than the truth to affirm, that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful appetite. j. COLERIDGE-Literary Remains.

Prospectus of Lectures. Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night. kc. COWLEY-Of Myself. Books cannot always please; however good; Minds are not ever craving for their food. CRABBE-The Bourough. Letter XXIV. Schools.

1.

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Books should to one of these four ends conduce,

For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

0.

Sir JOHN DENHAM-Of Prudence.
Golden volumes! richest treasures,
Object of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits and musing sages,
Lights who beam'd through many ages!
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achiev'd,
Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
p.
ISAAC DISRAELI-Curiosities of

Literature. Libraries. Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners.

q. ISAAC DISRAELI-Curiosities of

Literature. The Bibliomania. Living more with books than with men, which is often becoming better acquainted with man himself, though not always with men, the man of letters is more tolerant of opinions than opinionists are among them-selves.

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EMERSON--Letters and Social Aims.
Quotation and Originality.

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. e. FULLER—The Holy and the Profane State. Of Books.

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Books are necessary to correct the vices of the polite; but those vices are ever changing, and the antidote should be changed accordingly-should still be new.

h. GOLDSMITH-The Citizen of the World. Letter LXXV.

I armed her against the censures of the world, showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it. i. GOLDSMITH- Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. XXII. In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary.

J.

GOLDSMITH—The Citizen of the World.
Letter LXXV.

Of every wisdom the parfit
The highe god of his spirit
Yaf to men in erthe here
Upon the forme and the matere

Of that he wolde make hem wise.
And thus cam in the first apprise
Of bokes and of alle good
Through hem, that whilom understood
The lore, which to hem was yive,
Wherof these other, that now live,
Ben every day to lerne new.

k.

JOHN GOWER-Confessio Amantis.
Bk. IV.

The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on a sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow. HOLMES-The Poet at the BreakfastTable. Ch. XI.

0.

Medicine for the soul.

p.

Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes. Diodorus Simlus. 1. Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though without any 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.

q. SAM'L JOHNSON--The Adventurer.

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BOOKS.

As companions and acquaintances books are without rivals; and they are companions and acquaintances to be had at all times and under all circumstances. They are never out when you knock at the door; are never "not at home" when you call. In the lightest as well as in the deepest moods they may be applied to, and will never be found wanting. In the good sense of the phrase, they are all things to all men, and are faithful alike to all.

a.

LANGFORD-The Praise of Books.
Preliminary Essay.

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 humanity, and peopling the desert with their own bright creations.

b. LANGFORD-The Praise of Books. Preliminary Essay.

A wise man will select his books, for he would not wish to class them all under the sacred name of friends. Some can be accepted only as acquaintances. The best

books of all kinds are taken to the heart, and cherished as his most precious possessions. Others to be chatted with for a time, to spend a few pleasant hours with, and laid aside, but not forgotten.

C. LANGFORD--The Praise of Books.
Preliminary Essay.

Books are also among man's truest consolers. In the hour of affliction, trouble, or he can turn to them with confidence sorrow, and trust.

d. LANGFORD-The Praise of Books. Preliminary Essay.

Books are friends, and what friends they are! Their love is deep and unchanging; their patience inexhaustible; their gentleness perennial; their forbearance unbounded; and their sympathy without selfishness. Strong as man, and tender as woman, they welcome you in every mood, and never turn from you in distress.

e.

LANGFORD-The Praise of Books.
Preliminary Essay.

Books are friends which every man may call his own. The friendship of books never dies; it grows by use, increases by distribution, and possesses an immortality of perpetual youth. It is the friendship, not of dead things" but of ever-living souls; and books are friends who, under no circumstances, are ever applied to in vain. They can be relied on, whoever else, or whatever else may fail.

66

f. LANGFORD-The Praise of Books. Preliminary Essay.

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