The Pleasures of Life

ooke and a

in door

e leaves whis

eete cryes

e reade all

the newe

oode booke whe

to me th

NGLIS

ntury there is none, perhaps, for which we ought to

rd words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches,

y, and dismiss them from it, whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my desires, an

nsellor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one m

rather more m

ong the dea

me I

se casual ey

ty minds

iling frien

converse d

nestimable privilege should we think it!-how superior to all common enjoyments! But in a well-furnished library we, in fact, possess this power. We can question Xenophon and Caesar on their campaigns, make Dem

urthen to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things; compose our cares and our passions; and lay our disappointments

t on his anvil in the long summer evenings and read it aloud to a large and attentive audience. It is by no means a short book, but they fairly listened to it all. At length, when the happy turn of fortune arrived, which brings the hero a

into solitudes with Gray; shake honest hands with Sir Roger de Coverley; be ready to embrace Parson Adams, and to chuck Pounce out of the window instead of the hat; will travel with Marco Polo and Mungo Park; stay at ho

that a collection of boo

to be endowed with miraculous power. There is an Arabic proverb, that "a wise man's day is worth a fool's life," and another-though it refl

ursuit of knowledge forgot his food, who in the joy of its attainment fo

limpse of the books, even the school-books, of one hundred years hence. A hundred years ago not only were books extremely expensive and cumbrous, but many of the most delightful were still uncreated-such as the works of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, and Trollope, not to mention living authors. How much more interesting science has become especial

body without a soul. But it is by no means n

r. Frederic Harrison, in his excellent article on the "Choice of Books," "I put

he Legende of Goode

though that I

r to rede I

ve I feyth an

rte have him

that ther

bokes maketh

eldome on t

, when that th

that I here th

loures gynnen

boke and m

vantages, he could have been so certain of te

He has told us how his debt to them was incalculable; how they guided him to truth; how they filled his mind with noble and graceful images; how they stood by him in all vicissitudes- comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude, the old friends who are never seen with new faces; who are the same

lding, Horace Walpole or Boswell." The love of reading which Gibbon declared he would not exchange for all the treasures of India was, in fa

her wrinkles or gray hair, privileging him with the experience of

areful not to forget other duties for them; in c

Ascham (Lady Jane Gray), who, while the horns were sounding and dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immor

ved, [2] those who do not find time for ex

nd, to whose charming little Book Lover's Enchiridion, in common with every lover of reading. I am greatly indebted, tells us that when a boy

description of a studious b

boy with

ook upon

as he'd de

the stall

boy I hear

you never

one you sha

d slowly on,

ever had been

rl's books he shoul

ourney, for instance, many persons take only a single book. The consequence is that, unless it is a story, after half an hour or an hour they are quite tired of it. Whereas, if they had two, or still better three books, on different subjects, and one of them of an amusing char

some books which we must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But these are exceptions. As regards by far the larger number, it is probably better to read them quickly, dwelling only on the best and most important passages. In this way, no doubt, we shall lose much, but we gain more by ranging over a wider field. We may, in fact, I

may suit himself. Th

ld see for ourselves. The world itself has no limits for us; Humboldt and Herschel will carry us far away to the mysterious nebulae, beyond the sun and even the stars: time has no more bounds than space; history stretches out behind us, and geology will carry us back for

e, at least, wealth gives no advantage. We may make a library, if we do but rightly use it, a true paradise on earth, a garden of Eden without its one drawback; for all is open to us, including, and especially, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, for which we are told that our first mother sacrificed all the Pleasures of P

Maca

Liverpool C

Marl

Matt