ient chamber in some corner of my humble habitation where they may
repose in peace; for these friends are more delighted by the tranquility
of retirement than with the tumults of society."

--_Petrarch._

134

BOOKS.

Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the
presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they
said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we are
participators in their thoughts; we sympathize with them, enjoy with
them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if
we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.

135

BOOK-LENDING.

Those who have collected books, and whose good nature has prompted them
to accommodate their friends with them, will feel the sting of the
answer made by a man of wit to one who lamented the difficulty which he
found in persuading his friends to return the volumes that he had lent
them:

"Sir," said he, "your acquaintances find, I suppose, that it is much
more easy to retain the books themselves, than what is contained in
them."

136

The following gives a pathetic description of a studious boy lingering
at a bookstall:

I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,
And read, as he'd devour it all;
Which, when the stall-man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
"You, sir, you never buy a book,
Therefore in one you shall not look."
The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh
He wished he never had been taught to read,
Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need.

--_Mary Lamb._

137

Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are
the most useful after all. A man will often look at them, and be tempted
to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size
and of a more erudite appearance.

--_Dr. Johnson._

138

COSTLY, YET USEFUL BOOKS.

How foolish is the man who sets up a number of costly volumes, like
superfluous furniture, for mere ornament, and is far more careful to
keep them from contracting a single spot of ink, than to use them, as
the means of instructing his ignorance, and correcting his faults!
Better a man without books, than books without a man.