denly die!
But pray do not shudder. There is no occasion.

Their spirit shall survive. I declare this from inward conviction, and
also from scientific information received lately. For observe: the
circulating libraries are human institutions. I beg you to follow me
closely. They are human institutions, and being human, they are not
animal, and, therefore, they are spiritual. Thus, any man with enough
money to take a shop, stock his shelves, and pay for advertisements shall
be able to evoke the pure and censorious spectre of the circulating
libraries whenever his own commercial spirit moves him.

For, and this is the information alluded to above, Science, having in its
infinite wanderings run up against various wonders and mysteries, is
apparently willing now to allow a spiritual quality to man and, I
conclude, to all his works as well.

I do not know exactly what this "Science" may be; and I do not think that
anybody else knows; but that is the information stated shortly. It is
contained in a book reposing under my thoughtful eyes. {5} I know it is
not a censored book, because I can see for myself that it is not a novel.
The author, on his side, warns me that it is not philosophy, that it is
not metaphysics, that it is not natural science. After this
comprehensive warning, the definition of the book becomes, you will
admit, a pretty hard nut to crack.

But meantime let us return for a moment to my opening remark about the
physical effect of some common, hired books. A few of them (not
necessarily books of verse) are melodious; the music some others make for
you as you read has the disagreeable emphasis of a barrel-organ; the
tinkling-cymbals book (it was not written by a humorist) I only met once.
But there is infinite variety in the noises books do make. I have now on
my shelves a book apparently of the most valuable kind which, before I
have read half-a-dozen lines, begins to make a noise like a buzz-saw. I
am inconsolable; I shall never, I fear, discover what it is all about,
for the buzzing covers the words, and at every try I am absolutely forced
to give it up ere the end of the page is reached.

The book, however, which I have found so difficult to define, is by no
means noisy. As a mere piece of writing it may be described as being
breathless itself and taking the reader's breath away, not by the
magnitude of its message but by a sort of anxious volubility in the
delivery. The constantly elusiv