h one of which, by that breathing process peculiar to
books, consumes several thousand cubic feet of air every twenty-four
hours.

Professor Huxley wondered for a long time why the atmosphere of the
British Museum should be poisonous while other libraries were free from
the poison; a series of experiments convinced him that the presence of
poison in the atmosphere was due to the number of profane books in the
Museum. He recommended that these poison-engendering volumes be
treated once every six months with a bath of cedria, which, as I
understand, is a solution of the juices of the cedar tree; this, he
said, would purge the mischievous volumes temporarily of their evil
propensities and abilities.

I do not know whether this remedy is effective, but I remember to have
read in Pliny that cedria was used by the ancients to render their
manuscripts imperishable. When Cneius Terentius went digging in his
estate in the Janiculum he came upon a coffer which contained not only
the remains of Numa, the old Roman king, but also the manuscripts of
the famous laws which Numa compiled. The king was in some such
condition as you might suppose him to be after having been buried
several centuries, but the manuscripts were as fresh as new, and their
being so is said to have been due to the fact that before their burial
they were rubbed with citrus leaves.

These so-called books of Numa would perhaps have been preserved unto
this day but for the fanaticism of the people who exhumed and read
them; they were promptly burned by Quintus Petilius, the praetor,
because (as Cassius Hemina explains) they treated of philosophical
subjects, or because, as Livy testifies, their doctrines were inimical
to the religion then existing.

As I have had little to do with profane literature, I know nothing of
the habits of such books as Professor Huxley has prescribed an antidote
against. Of such books as I have gathered about me and made my
constant companions I can say truthfully that a more
delectable-flavored lot it were impossible to find. As I walk amongst
them, touching first this one and then that, and regarding all with
glances of affectionate approval, I fancy that I am walking in a
splendid garden, full of charming vistas, wherein parterre after
parterre of beautiful flowers is unfolded to my enraptured vision; and
surely there never were other odors so delightful as the odors which my
books exhale!

My garden aboundeth in pleasa