take something from the shelves that is a
book; but where no particular book can
except by the purest accident, be found.

Such being the outlook, what are we to do
with our books? Shall we be buried under
them like Tarpeia under the Sabine shields?
Shall we renounce them (many will, or will
do worse, will keep to the most worthless
part of them) in our resentment against their
more and more exacting demands? Shall we
sell and scatter them? as it is painful to see
how often the books of eminent men are
ruthlessly, or at least unhappily, dispersed
on their decease. Without answering in
detail, I shall assume that the book-buyer is a
book-lover, that his love is a tenacious, not
a transitory love, and that for him the
question is how best to keep his books.

I pass over those conditions which are the
most obvious, that the building should be
sound and dry, the apartment airy, and with
abundant light. And I dispose with a passing
anathema of all such as would endeavour to
solve their problem, or at any rate
compromise their difficulties, by setting one row
of books in front of another. I also freely
admit that what we have before us is not
a choice between difficulty and no difficulty,