The best description I can give of its
essential aim, so far as I have seen the
processes (which were tentative and initial), is
this. The masses represented by filled
bookcases are set one in front of another; and,
in order that access may be had as it is
required, they are set upon trams inserted in
the floor (which must be a strong one), and
wheeled off and on as occasion requires.

The idea of the society of books is in a
case of this kind abandoned. But even on this
there is something to say. Neither all men
nor all books are equally sociable. For my
part I find but little sociabilty in a huge wall
of Hansards, or (though a great improvement)
in the Gentleman's Magazine, in the Annual
Registers, in the Edinburgh and Quarterly
Reviews, or in the vast range of volumes
which represent pamphlets innumerable. Yet
each of these and other like items variously
present to us the admissible, or the valuable,
or the indispensable. Clearly these masses,
and such as these, ought to be selected first
for what I will not scruple to call interment.
It is a burial; one, however, to which the
process of cremation will never of set purpose
be applied. The word I have used is
dreadful, but also dreadful is the thing. To have
our dear old friends stowed away in