et it occupies itself no more room than a moderate
folio? For there perspective lies by the side of perspective, and hill
and dale and stream and wide, immeasurable prospects. So with purposes.
Weakly as our Puritan or our friend Dietrich look, they still can
carry, in good resolutions, more than ten elephants or twenty camels.
How weak I am myself in this virtue, I know better than any one, and
hence my reverence for those in whom I perceive such powers.

"Now, as we are not all susceptible of this inspiration, we sit here at
this table as at a crossway, whence several roads branch off in various
and opposite directions. At leading points of this sort, it is usual
for the distances of towns towards all the four quarters of the world
to be inscribed on a pyramidal post. The same may be said, under a not
unjoyous image, to be the case here. These oysters, taken in excess,
lead to sickness; this Burgundy, after a few stages, to red noses;
these truffles, with the appurtenances, to dropsy, cardialgy and
similar complaints. Our Edward however disdaining all this moves on
towards virtue. Fare thee well then on thy lonesome path, and we that
are not so much afraid of carbuncled faces, pot-bellies and short
breath, proceed along our road. But I too shall shortly leave you, my
dearest companions. A generous stranger, whose name I may not yet
mention, will animate my genius to the highest performances. He will in
distant regions dispose me to receive the unction of idealism, and, if
I may so speak, etherialize me. Our pious, warm-hearted Dietrich, with
whom we have scarcely become acquainted, pursues his course along
painted aisles and decorates his country's altars. What shall I say of
thee, librarian, thou who standest before the empty bookcases, and hast
not merely read, but literally swallowed, the works? O thou cormorant
of erudition, thou of the sect of the Mussulman Omar, canker-worm of
libraries, ravager of literature, thou that couldst destroy a new
Alexandrian collection, simply by the excellent new device of drawing
thy salary, not intellectually, but really, from its books. All the
booksellers of the Roman empire ought to send thee round to reduce
collections to atoms by thy destructive power, and create a demand for
new works. Thou, more than reviewer and worse than Saturn, who only
devoured what he had himself begotten: where are they, thy wards, thy
pupils, that with their gilt backs and edges so sweetly smiled on