library more and more an organism. Among
others I plead for individual men as centres
of subdivision: not only for Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, but for Johnson, Scott, and
Burns, and whatever represents a large and
manifold humanity.

The question of economy, for those who
from necessity or choice consider it at all, is
a very serious one. It has been a fashion to
make bookcases highly ornamental. Now
books want for and in themselves no
ornament at all. They are themselves the
ornament. Just as shops need no ornament,
and no one will think of or care for any
structural ornament, if the goods are
tastefully disposed in the shop-window. The man
who looks for society in his books will
readily perceive that, in proportion as the face of
his bookcase is occupied by ornament, he
loses that society; and conversely, the more
that face approximates to a sheet of
bookbacks, the more of that society he will enjoy.
And so it is that three great advantages come
hand in hand, and, as will be seen, reach
their maximum together: the sociability of
books, minimum of cost in providing for
them, and ease of access to them.

In order to attain these advantages, two