and philosophers have acquired a fragrance that exalteth the soul
and quickeneth the intellectuals! Let me paraphrase my dear
Chaucer and tell thee, thou waster of substances, that

For me was lever han at my beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Than robes rich, or fidel, or sautrie;
But all be that I ben a philosopher
Yet have I but litel gold in cofre!


Books, books, books--give me ever more books, for they are the
caskets wherein we find the immortal expressions of humanity
--words, the only things that live forever! I bow reverently to
the bust in yonder corner whenever I recall what Sir John
Herschel (God rest his dear soul!) said and wrote: ``Were I to
pay for a taste that should stand me in stead under every variety
of circumstances and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to
me during 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. Give a man this taste and a means of gratifying it,
and you can hardly fail of making him 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, 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.''