n the world in which it is
possible to be happy. But pride is still out of the question. To be
proud of having two thousand books would be absurd. You might as well
be proud of having two top-coats. After your first two thousand
difficulty begins, but until you have ten thousand volumes the less
you say about your library the better. _Then_ you may begin to speak.

It is no doubt a pleasant thing to have a library left you. The
present writer will disclaim no such legacy, but hereby undertakes to
accept it, however dusty. But good as it is to inherit a library, it
is better to collect one. Each volume then, however lightly a
stranger's eye may roam from shelf to shelf, has its own
individuality, a history of its own. You remember where you got it,
and how much you gave for it; and your word may safely be taken for
the first of these facts, but not for the second.

The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate
himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own
existence. No other man but he would have made precisely such a
combination as his. Had he been in any single respect different from
what he is, his library, as it exists, never would have existed.
Therefore, surely he may exclaim, as in the gloaming he contemplates
the backs of his loved ones, "They are mine, and I am theirs."

But the eternal note of sadness will find its way even through the
keyhole of a library. You turn some familiar page, of Shakespeare it
may be, and his "infinite variety," his "multitudinous mind," suggests
some new thought, and as you are wondering over it you think of
Lycidas, your friend, and promise yourself the pleasure of having his
opinion of your discovery the very next time when by the fire you two
"help: waste a sullen day." Or it is, perhaps, some quainter, tenderer
fancy that engages your solitary attention, something in Sir Philip
Sydney or Henry Vaughan, and then you turn to look for Phyllis, ever
the best interpreter of love, human or divine. Alas! the printed page
grows hazy beneath a filmy eye as you suddenly remember that Lycidas
is dead--"dead ere his prime"--and that the pale cheek of Phyllis will
never again be relumined by the white light of her pure enthusiasm.
And then you fall to thinking of the inevitable, and perhaps, in your
present mood, not unwelcome hour, when the "ancient peace" of your old
friends will be disturbed, when rude hands will dislodge them from
their accustom