doubtless beat all our modern collectors in his passion for
reading.... Dante puts Homer, the great ancient, in his
Elysium, upon trust; but a few years afterwards, Homer,
the book, made its appearance in Italy, and Petrarch, in
a transport, put it upon his bookshelves, where he adored
it, like 'the unknown God'. Petrarch ought to be the god
of the Bibliomaniacs, for he was a collector and a man of
genius, which is an union that does not often happen. He
copied out, with his own precious hand, the manuscripts
he rescued from time, and then produced others for time
to reverence. With his head upon a book he died.—J. H.
Leigh Hunt. My Books.
The sweet serenity of books.—H. W. Longfellow.
Books are the best type of the influence of the past.... The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.—R. W. Emerson. The American Scholar.
I
Sit here and muse!—it is an antique room—II
III
IV
V
Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book!—a message to us from the dead—from human souls whom we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.... I say we ought to reverence books, to look at them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things, the teacher of all truth, which He has put into the heart of some man to speak, that he may tell us what is good for our spirits, for our bodies, and for our country.—C. Kingsley. Village Sermons: On Books.
To most kind of men it is an extraordinary delight to study. For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader!... What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, &c.! their names alone are the subject of whole volumes; we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them.—R. Burton. The Anatomy of Melancholy.
If I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious principles—but as a taste, an instrument and a mode of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history—with the wisest, the wittiest—with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations—a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.—Sir J. Herschel. Address to the Subscribers to the Windsor Public Library.
I should like you to see the additional book-room that we have fitted up, and in which I am now writing.... It would please you to see such a display of literary wealth, which is at once the pride of my eye, and the joy of my heart, and the food of my mind; indeed, more than metaphorically, meat, drink, and clothing for me and mine. I verily believe that no one in my station was ever so rich before, and I am very sure that no one in any station had ever a more thorough enjoyment of riches of any kind, or in any way. It is more delightful for me to live with books than with men, even with all the relish that I have for such society as is worth having.—R. Southey (Letter to G. C. Bedford).
In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity. Like Plato's disciple who has perceived a truth, 'he is preserved from harm until another period.' In every man's memory, with the hours when life culminated, are usually associated certain books which met his views. Of a large and powerful class we might ask with confidence, What is the event they most desire? What gift? What but the book that shall come, which they have sought through all libraries, through all languages, that shall be to their mature eyes what many a tinsel-covered toy pamphlet was to their childhood, and shall speak to the imagination? Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature. If we encountered a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he read. We expect a great man to be a good reader; or in proportion to the spontaneous power should be the assimilating power. And though such are a most difficult and exacting class, they are not less eager. 'He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding,' said Burke, 'doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.'
We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise. Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest or private addition so rare and insignificant,—and this commonly on the ground of other reading or hearing,—that, in a large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote.—R. W. Emerson. Quotation and Originality.
It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote, and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,—with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.—R. W. Emerson. The American Scholar.
Let us not forget the genial miraculous force we have known to proceed from a book. We go musing into the vault of day and night; no constellation shines, no muse descends, the stars are white points, the roses brick-coloured dust, the frogs pipe, mice peep, and wagons creak along the road. We return to the house and take up Plutarch or Augustine, and read a few sentences or pages, and lo! the air swims with life; the front of heaven is full of fiery shapes; secrets of magnanimity and grandeur invite us on every hand; life is made up of them. Such is our debt to a book.—R. W. Emerson. Thoughts on Modern Literature.
A natural turn for reading and intellectual pursuits probably preserved me from the moral shipwreck, so apt to befall those who are deprived in early life of the paternal pilotage. At the very least, my books kept me aloof from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon, with their degrading orgies. For the closet associate of Pope and Addison—the mind accustomed to the noble, though silent, discourse of Shakespeare and Milton—will hardly seek, or put up with, low company and slang. The reading animal will not be content with the brutish wallowings that satisfy the unlearned pigs of the world.
Later experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow—how powerfully intellectual pursuits can help in keeping the head from crazing, and the heart from breaking,—nay, not to be too grave, how generous mental food can even atone for a meagre diet—rich fare on the paper for short commons on the cloth.
Poisoned by the malaria of the Dutch marshes, my stomach, for many months, resolutely set itself against fish, flesh, or fowl; my appetite had no more edge than the German knife placed before me. But, luckily, the mental palate and digestion were still sensible and vigorous; and whilst I passed untasted every dish at the Rhenish table d'hôte, I could yet enjoy my Peregrine Pickle, and the feast after the manner of the ancients. There was no yearning towards calf's head à la tortue, or sheep's heart; but I could still relish Head à la Brunnen and the Heart of Midlothian.
Still more recently, it was my misfortune, with a tolerable appetite, to be condemned to lenten fare, like Sancho Panza, by my physician—to a diet, in fact, lower than any prescribed by the poor-law commissioners; all animal food, from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted; as well as all fluids stronger than that which lays dust, washes pinafores, and waters polyanthus. But 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul' were still mine. Denied beef, I had Bulwer and Cowper,—forbidden mutton, there was Lamb,—and in lieu of pork, the great Bacon or Hogg.
Then, as to beverage, it was hard, doubtless, for a Christian to set his face like a Turk against the juice of the grape. But, eschewing wine, I had still my Butler; and in the absence of liquor, all the choice spirits from Tom Browne to Tom Moore.
Thus, though confined, physically, to the drink that drowns kittens, I quaffed mentally, not merely the best of our own home-made, but the rich, racy, sparkling growths of France and Italy, of Germany and Spain—the champagne of Molière, and the Monte Pulciano of Boccaccio, the hock of Schiller, and the sherry of Cervantes. Depressed bodily by the fluid that damps everything, I got intellectually elevated with Milton, a little merry with Swift, or rather jolly with Rabelais, whose Pantagruel, by the way, is quite equal to the best gruel with rum in it.
So far can literature palliate or compensate for gastronomical privations. But there are other evils, great and small, in this world, which try the stomach less than the head, the heart, and the temper—bowls that will not roll right—well-laid schemes that will 'gang aglee'—and ill winds that blow with the pertinacity of the monsoon. Of these, Providence has allotted me a full share; but still, paradoxical as it may sound, my burden has been greatly lightened by a load of books. The manner of this will be best understood by a feline illustration. Everybody has heard of the two Kilkenny cats, who devoured each other; but it is not so generally known that they left behind them an orphan kitten, which, true to the breed, began to eat itself up, till it was diverted from the operation by a mouse. Now, the human mind, under vexation, is like that kitten, for it is apt to prey upon itself, unless drawn off by a new object; and none better for the purpose than a book; for example, one of Defoe's; for who, in reading his thrilling History of the Great Plague, would not be reconciled to a few little ones?
Many, many a dreary, weary hour have I got over—many a gloomy misgiving postponed—many a mental or bodily annoyance forgotten, by help of the tragedies and comedies of our dramatists and novelists! Many a trouble has been soothed by the still small voice of the moral philosopher—many a dragon-like care charmed to sleep by the sweet song of the poet, for all which I cry incessantly, not aloud, but in my heart, Thanks and honour to the glorious masters of the pen, and the great inventors of the press! Such has been my own experience of the blessing and comfort of literature and intellectual pursuits; and of the same mind, doubtless, was Sir Humphry Davy, who went for 'consolations in Travel', not to the inn or the posting house, but to his library and his books.—T. Hood (Letter to the Manchester Athenaeum, 1843).
The commerce of books comforts me in age and solaceth me in solitariness. It easeth me of the burthen of a wearisome sloth: and at all times rids me of tedious companies: it abateth the edge of fretting sorrow, on condition it be not extreme and over-insolent. To divert me from any importunate imagination or insinuating conceit, there is no better way than to have recourse unto books; with ease they allure me to them, and with facility they remove them all. And though they perceive I neither frequent nor seek them, but wanting other more essential, lively, and more natural commodities, they never mutiny or murmur at me; but still entertain me with one and self-same visage....
The sick man is not to be moaned that hath his health in his sleeve. In the experience and use of this sentence, which is most true, consisteth all the commodity I reap of books. In effect I make no other use of them than those who know them not. I enjoy them, as a miser doth his gold; to know that I may enjoy them when I list, my mind is settled and satisfied with the right of possession. I never travel without books, nor in peace nor in war: yet do I pass many days and months without using them. It shall be anon, say I, or to-morrow, or when I please; in the meanwhile the time runs away, and passeth without hurting me. For it is wonderful what repose I take, and how I continue in this consideration, that they are at my elbow to delight me when time shall serve; and in acknowledging what assistance they give unto my life. This is the best munition I have found in this human peregrination, and I extremely bewail those men of understanding that want the same. I accept with better will all other kinds of amusements, how slight soever, forsomuch as this cannot fail me.—Montaigne.
The diversions of reading, though they are not always of the strongest kind, yet they generally leave a better effect than the grosser satisfactions of sense: for, if they are well chosen, they neither dull the appetite nor strain the capacity. On the contrary, they refresh the inclinations, and strengthen the power, and improve under experiment: and, which is best of all, they entertain and perfect at the same time; and convey wisdom and knowledge through pleasure. By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past. And this way of running up beyond one's nativity is much better than Plato's pre-existence; because here a man knows something of the state and is the wiser for it; which he is not in the other.
In conversing with books we may choose our company, and disengage without ceremony or exception. Here we are free from the formalities of custom and respect: we need not undergo the penance of a dull story from a fop of figure; but may shake off the haughty, the impertinent, and the vain, at pleasure. Besides, authors, like women, commonly dress when they make a visit. Respect to themselves makes them polish their thoughts, and exert the force of their understanding more than they would or can do in ordinary conversation: so that the reader has as it were the spirit and essence in a narrow compass; which was drawn off from a much larger proportion of time, labour, and expense. Like an heir, he is born rather than made rich; and comes into a stock of sense, with little or no trouble of his own. 'Tis true, a fortune in knowledge which descends in this manner, as well as an inherited estate, is too often neglected and squandered away; because we do not consider the difficulty in raising it.
Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from being a burthen to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things; compose our cares and our passions; and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation. However, to be constantly in the wheel has neither pleasure nor improvement in it. A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges Nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vigour to the mind. Neither ought we to be too implicit or resigning to authorities, but to examine before we assent, and preserve our reason in its just liberties. To walk always upon crutches is the way to lose the use of our limbs. Such an absolute submission keeps us in a perpetual minority, breaks the spirits of the understanding, and lays us open to imposture.
But books well managed afford direction and discovery. They strengthen the organ and enlarge the prospect, and give a more universal insight into things than can be learned from unlettered observation. He who depends only upon his own experience has but a few materials to work upon. He is confined to narrow limits both of place and time: and is not fit to draw a large model and to pronounce upon business which is complicated and unusual. There seems to be much the same difference between a man of mere practice and another of learning as there is between an empiric and a physician. The first may have a good recipe, or two; and if diseases and patients were very scarce, and all alike, he might do tolerably well. But if you inquire concerning the causes of distempers, the constitution of human bodies, the danger of symptoms, and the methods of cure, upon which the success of medicine depends, he knows little of the matter. On the other side, to take measures wholly from books, without looking into men and business, is like travelling in a map, where, though countries and cities are well enough distinguished, yet villages and private seats are either overlooked, or too generally marked for a stranger to find. And therefore he that would be a master must draw by the life, as well as copy from originals, and join theory and experience together.—J. COLLIER. Essays upon several Moral Subjects.
Books, we are told, propose to instruct or to amuse. Indeed! However, not to spend any words upon it, I suppose you will admit that this wretched antithesis will be of no service to us.... For this miserable alternative being once admitted, observe what follows. In which class of books does the Paradise Lost stand? Among those which instruct or those which amuse? Now, if a man answers, among those which instruct,—he lies: for there is no instruction in it, nor could be in any great poem, according to the meaning which the word must bear in this distinction, unless it is meant that it should involve its own antithesis. But if he says, 'No—amongst those which amuse,'—then what a beast must he be to degrade, and in this way, what has done the most of any human work to raise and dignify human nature. But the truth is, you see, that the idiot does not wish to degrade it; on the contrary, he would willingly tell a lie in its favour, if that would be admitted; but such is the miserable state of slavery to which he has reduced himself by his own puny distinction; for, as soon as he hops out of one of his little cells he is under a necessity of hopping into the other. The true antithesis to knowledge in this case is not pleasure, but power. All, that is literature, seeks to communicate power; all, that is not literature, to communicate knowledge.—T. De Quincey. Letters to a Young Man.
From my own Apartment, March 16, 1709
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. As by the one health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated; by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed. But as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and burdensome when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in virtue. For this reason the virtue which we gather from a fable or an allegory is like health we get by hunting; as we are engaged in an agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.—Sir R. Steele. Tatler, 147.
Books were invented to take off the odium of immediate superiority and soften the rigour of duties prescribed by the teachers and censors of human kind—setting at least those who are acknowledged wiser than ourselves at a distance. When we recollect, however, that for this very reason they are seldom consulted and little obeyed, how much cause shall his contemporaries have to rejoice that their living Johnson forced them to feel the reproofs due to vice and folly—while Seneca and Tillotson were no longer able to make impression except on our shelves.—T. Percy.
It is difficult to enumerate the several motives which procure to books the honour of perusal: spite, vanity, and curiosity, hope and fear, love and hatred, every passion which incites to any other action, serves at one time or another to stimulate a reader.
Some are found to take a celebrated volume into their hands, because they hope to distinguish their penetration by finding faults that have escaped the public; others eagerly buy it in the first bloom of reputation, that they may join the chorus of praise, and not lag, as Falstaff terms it, in 'the rearward of the fashion'.
Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge, and are no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral prudence than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering attentively the proportions of a temple.
Some read that they may embellish their conversation, or shine in dispute; some that they may not be detected in ignorance, or want the reputation of literary accomplishments: but the most general and prevalent reason of study is the impossibility of finding another amusement equally cheap or constant, equally independent of the hour or the weather. He that wants money to follow the chase of pleasure through her yearly circuit, and is left at home when the gay world rolls to Bath or Tunbridge; he whose gout compels him to hear from his chamber the rattle of chariots transporting happier beings to plays and assemblies, will be forced to seek in books a refuge from himself.—S. Johnson. Adventurer, 137.
Every person of tolerable education has been considerably influenced by the books he has read, and remembers with a kind of gratitude several of those that made without injury the earliest and the strongest impression. It is pleasing at a more advanced period to look again into the early favourites, though the mature person may wonder how some of them had once power to absorb his passions, make him retire into a lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the approaches of sleep, or, when it came, infect it with visions. A capital part of the proposed task would be to recollect the books that have been read with the greatest interest, the periods when they were read, the partiality which any of them inspired to a particular mode of life, to a study, to a system of opinions, or to a class of human characters; to note the counteraction of later ones (where we have been sensible of it) to the effect produced by the former; and then to endeavour to estimate the whole and ultimate influence.
Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, and characters, which have been contemplated by a person who has read much, the effect, one would think, must have been very great. Still, however, it is probable that a very small number of books will have the pre-eminence in our mental history. Perhaps your memory will promptly recur to six or ten that have contributed more to your present habits of feeling and thought than all the rest together.—J. Foster. On a Man's Writing Memoirs of Himself.
Cultivate above all things a taste for reading. There is
no pleasure so cheap, so innocent, and so remunerative as
the real, hearty pleasure and taste for reading. It does
not come to every one naturally. Some people take to it
naturally, and others do not; but I advise you to cultivate
it, and endeavour to promote it in your minds. In order to
do that you should read what amuses you and pleases you.
You should not begin with difficult works, because, if you
do, you will find the pursuit dry and tiresome. I would
even say to you, read novels, read frivolous books, read
anything that will amuse you and give you a taste for
reading. On this point all persons could put themselves
on an equality. Some persons would say they would rather
spend their time in society; but it must be remembered
that if they had cultivated a taste for reading beforehand
they would be in a position to choose their society, whereas,
if they had not, the probabilities were that they would have
to mix with people inferior to themselves.—R. Lowe, Lord
Sherbrooke. Speech to the Students of the Croydon Science
and Art Schools, 1869.