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.
We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits—so much help
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 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, 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.
Laws die, Books never.
The Wise
(Minstrel or Sage,) out of their books are clay;
But in their books, as from their graves they rise.
Angels—that, side by side, upon our way,
Walk with and warn us!
Hark, the world so loud,
And they, the movers of the world, so still!
We call some books immortal! Do they live t
If so, believe me, Time hath made them pure.
In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace.
All books grow homilies by time; they are
Temples, at once, and Landmarks.
There is no Past, so long as Books shall live!
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.
Some said, John, print it, others said, Not so;
Some said, It might do good, others said, No.
Bunyan—Apology for his Book. L. 39.
Go now, my little book, to every place
Where my first pilgrim has but shown his face.
Call at their door: if any say "Who's there?"
Then answer thou "Christiana is here."
Bunyan—Pilgrim's Progress. Pt. II.
Some books are lies frae end to end.
Burns—Death and Dr. Hornbook.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a took, although there's nothing in't.
In the poorest; pottage are Books : is one Book,
wherein for several thousands of years the spirit
of man has found Might, and nourishment, and
an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest
in him.
Carlyle—Essays. Corn-Law Rhymes.
If a book come from the heart, it will contrive
to reach other hearts; all art and authorcraft are
of small amount to that.
Carlyle—Heroes and Hero Worship. Lecture
H.
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.
—Carlyle—Heroes and Hero Worship. Lecture
V.
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.
Carlyle—Heroes and Hero Worship. The
Hero as a Man of Letters.
The true University of these days is a collection of Books.
"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."
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.
