My Books. Sadly as some old medieval knight Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield, Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways, In which I walked, now clouded and confused. December, 1881. GEORGE S. HILLARD (AMERICAN JURIST AND AUTHOR). b. 1808, d.? In books, be it remembered, we have the best products of the best minds. We should any of us esteem it a great privilege to pass an evening with Shakspeare or Bacon, were such a thing possible. But, were we admitted to the presence of one of these illustrious men, we might find him touched with infirmity or oppressed with weariness, or darkened with the shadow of a recent trouble, or absorbed by intrusive and tyrannous thoughts. To us the oracle might be dumb, and the light eclipsed. But, when we take down one of these volumes, we run no such risk. Here we have their best thoughts embalmed in their best words; immortal flowers of poetry, wet with Castalian dews, and the golden fruit of Wisdom that had long ripened on the bough before it was gathered. Here we find the growth of the choicest seasons of the mind, when mortal cares were forgotten, and mortal weaknesses were subdued; and the soul, stripped of its vanities and its passions, gave forth its highest emanations of truth and beauty. We may be sure that Shakspeare never out-talked his Hamlet, nor Bacon his Essays. Great writers are indeed best known through their books. How little, for instance, do we know of the life of Shakspeare; but how much do we know of him! For the knowledge that comes from books, I would claim no more than it is fairly entitled to. I am well aware that there is no inevitable connection between intellectual cultivation, on the one hand, and individual virtue or social well-being, on the other. "The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." I admit that genius and learning are sometimes found in combination with gross vices, and not unfrequently with contemptible weaknesses; and that a community, at once cultivated and corrupt is no impossible monster. But it is no over-statement to say, that, other things being equal, the man who has the greatest amount of intellectual resources is in the least danger from inferior temptations,-if for no other reason, because he has fewer idle moments. The ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour. Occupation is the armour of the soul; and the train of Idleness is borne up by all the vices. I remember a satirical poem, in which the Devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his baits to the taste and temperament of his prey; but the idler, he said, pleased him most, because he bit the naked hook. To a young man away from home, friendless and forlorn in a great city, the hours of peril are those between sunset and bed time; for the moon and the stars see more of evil in a single hour than the sun in his whole day's circuit. The poet's visions of evening are all compact of tender and soothing images. It brings the wanderer to his home, the child to his mother's arms, the ox to his stall, and the weary labourer to his rest. But to the gentle-hearted youth who is thrown upon the rocks of a pitiless city, and stands "homeless among a thousand homes," the approach of evening brings with it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation, which comes down upon the spirit like darkness upon the earth. In this mood his best impulses become a snare to him; and he is led astray because he is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. If there be a young man thus circumstanced within the sound of my voice, let me say to him that books are the friends of the friendless, and that a library is the home of the homeless. A taste for reading will always carry you into the best possible society, and enable you to converse with men who will instruct you by their wisdom, and charm you by their wit; who will soothe you when fretted, refresh you when weary, counsel you when perplexed, and sympathise with you at all times.-Address before the Mercantile Library Association of Boston. 1850. MRS. NORTON (C. E. S. STIRLING- To My Books. Silent companions of the lonely hour, ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT. 1809-1862. An affecting instance of the tenderness and the compensations of Learning is furnished by the old age of Usher, when no spectacles could help his failing sight, and a book was dark except beneath the strongest light of the window. Hopeful and resigned he continued his task, following the sun from room to room through the house he lived in, until the shadows of the trees disappeared from the grass, and the day was gone. How strange and delightful must have been his feelings, when the sunbeam fell brilliantly upon some half-remembered passage, and thought after thought shone out from the misty words, like the features of a familiar landscape in a clearing fog. Pleasant it would be for us, in our gloomier hours of time and sadness, if we might imitate that Indian bird which, enjoying the sunshine all the day, secures a faint reflection of it in the night, by sticking glowworms in the walls of its nest. And something of this light is obtained from the books read in youth, to be remembered in age— "And summer's green all girded up in sheaves." Coleridge said that the scenes of his childhood were so deeply written on his mind, that when upon a still, shining day of summer he shut his eyes, the river Otter ran murmuring down the room, with the soft tints of its waters, the crossing plank, the willows on the margin, and the coloured sands of its bed. What lover of books does not know the sweeter memories that haunt his solitude!-Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. Or else I sate on in my chamber green, And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed My prayers without the vicar; read my books, And calculating profits,—so much help |