f yesterday is sent abroad to the world with the
same methodical indifference with which that of to-day is unshipped. It
is otherwise with the amateur. He feels towards the article he is to
part with all the prejudiced attachment, and all the consequent
over-estimate, of a possessor. Hence he and the market take incompatible
views as to value, and he is apt to become unscrupulous in his efforts
to do justice to himself. Let the single-minded and zealous collector
then turn the natural propensity to over-estimate one's own into its
proper and legitimate channel. Let him guard his treasures as things too
sacred for commerce, and say, _Procul, o procul este, profani_, to all
who may attempt by bribery and corruption to drag them from their
legitimate shelves. If, in any weak moment, he yield to mercenary
temptation, he will be for ever mourning after the departed unit of his
treasure--the lost sheep of his flock. If it seems to be in the decrees
of fate that all his gatherings are to be dispersed abroad after he is
gone to his rest, let him, at all events, retain the reliance that on
them, as on other things beloved, he may have his last look; there will
be many changes after that, and this will be among them. Nor, in his
final reflections on his conduct to himself and to those he is to leave,
will he be disturbed by the thought that the hobby which was his
enjoyment has been in any wise the more costly to him that he has not
made it a means of mercenary money-getting.[36]

[Footnote 36: Atticus was under the scandal of having disposed of his
books, and Cicero sometimes hints to him that he might let more of them
go his way. In truth, Atticus carried this so far, however, that he
seems to have been a sort of dealer, and the earliest instance of a
capitalist publisher. He had slaves whom he occupied in copying, and was
in fact much in the position of a rich Virginian or Carolinian, who
should find that the most profitable investment for his stock of slaves
is a printing and publishing establishment.]

The Desultory Reader or Bohemian of Literature.

Having so put in a plea for this pursuit, as about the least costly
foible to which those who can afford to indulge in foibles can devote
themselves, one might descant on certain auxiliary advantages--as, that
it is not apt to bring its votaries into low company; that it offends no
one, and is not likely to foster actions of damages for nuisance,
trespass, or assault,