O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnished me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
And deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book.
And in such indexes (although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes) there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large.
Their books of stature small they take in hand,
Which with pellucid horn secured are;
To save from finger wet the letters fair.
You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.
Nor wyll suffer this boke
By hooke ne by crooke
Printed to be.
Some books are drenched sands,_
On which a great soul's wealth lies all in
Like a wrecked argosy.
When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what
manner a man might best become learned, he
answered, "By reading one book." The homo
unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to
all conversational figurantes.
Go, little Book! Prom this my solitude
I cast thee on the Waters,—go thy ways:
And if , as I believe, thy vein be good,
The World will find thee after many days.
Be it with thee according to thy worth:
Go, little Book; in faith I send thee forth.
Books, the children of the brain.
Aquinas was once asked, with what compendium a man might become learned? He answered "By reading of one book."
Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.
But every page having an ample marge,
And every marge enclosing in the midst
A square of text that looks a little blot.
Thee will I sing in comely wainscot bound
And golden verge enclosing thee around;
The faithful horn before, from age to age
Preserving thy invulnerable page.
Behind thy patron saint in armor shines
With sword and lance to guard the sacred lines;
Th' instructive handle's at the bottom fixed
Lest wrangling critics should pervert the text.
They are for company the best friends, in Doubt's Counsellors, in Damps Comforters, Time's Prospective the Home Traveller's Ship or Horse, the busie Man's best Recreation, the Opiate of idle Weariness, the Mindes best Ordinary, Nature's Garden and Seed-plot of Immortality.
O for a Booke and a shadie nooke, eyther in-adoore or out;
With the grene leaves whisp'ring overhede,
or the Streete cries all about.
Where I maie Eeade all at my ease,
both of the Newe and Olde;
For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke,
is better to me than Golde.
Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Bound these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double;
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.
A dedication is a wooden leg.
