"The Egyptians were versed in the very profoundest philosophy of all these questions; — they were taught also in Rome and in Greece.
"Nevertheless, there are people in these days who imagine they can write something new upon the subject."
And saying these things he putteth the new book aside, and he taketh a duster and dusteth tenderly the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle and Socrates, and patteth the good old books on the back.
Never doth he lose patience — not even when bibliophilists steal his books —
Nor when cockroaches devour the backs of Aristophanes and Pliny, and of Diodorus Siculus, of Athenæus and Sophocles and Petronius —
Nor when bookworms bore holes through the Elzevir text of the Fathers of the Church —
Nor when, having bought a book for a
