|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 43
The only occasion upon which I felt bitterly toward Dr. O'Rell
was when that personage observed in my hearing one day that
Bunyan was a dyspeptic, and that had he not been one he would
doubtless never have written the ``Pilgrim's Progress.''
I took issue with the doctor on this point; whereupon he cited
those visions and dreams, which, according to the light of
science as it now shines, demonstrate that Bunyan's digestion
must have been morbid. And, forthwith, he overwhelmed me with
learned instances from Galen and Hippocrates, from Spurzheim and
Binns, from Locke and Beattie, from Malebranche and Bertholini,
from Darwin and Descartes, from Charlevoix and Berkeley, from
Heraclitus and Blumenbach, from Priestley and Abercrombie; in
fact, forsooth, he quoted me so many authorities that it verily
seemed to me as though the whole world were against me!
I did not know until then that Dr. O'Rell had made a special
study of dreams, of their causes and of their signification. I
had always supposed that astrology was his particular hobby, in
which science I will concede him to be deeply learned, even
though he has never yet proved to my entire satisfaction that the
reason why my copy of Justinian has faded from a royal purple to
a pale blue is, first, because the binding was renewed at the
wane of the moon and when Sirius was in the ascendant, and,
secondly, because (as Dr. O'Rell has discovered) my binder was
born at a moment fifty-six years ago when Mercury was in the
fourth house and Herschel and Saturn were aspected in
conjunction, with Sol at his northern declination.
Dr. O'Rell has frequently expressed surprise that I have never
wearied of and drifted away from the book-friendships of my
earlier years. Other people, he says, find, as time elapses,
that they no longer discover those charms in certain books which
attracted them so powerfully in youth. ``We have in our earlier
days,'' argues the doctor, ``friendships so dear to us that we
would repel with horror the suggestion that we could ever become
heedless or forgetful of them; yet, alas, as we grow older we
gradually become indifferent to these first friends, and we are
weaned from them by other friendships; there even comes a time
when we actually wonder how it were possible for us to be on
terms of intimacy with such or such a person. We grow away from
people, and in like manner and for similar reasons we grow away
from books.''
Is it indeed possible for one to become indifferent to an object
he has once loved? I can hardly believe so. At least it is not
so with me, and, even though the time may come when I shall no
longer be able to enjoy the uses of these dear old friends with
the old-time enthusiasm, I should still regard them with that
tender reverence which in his age the poet Longfellow expressed
when looking round upon his beloved books:
Sadly as some old mediaeval knight
Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield--
The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white;
So I behold these books upon their shelf
My ornaments and arms of other days;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways
In which I walked, now clouded and confused.
If my friend O'Rell's theory be true, how barren would be Age!
Lord Bacon tells us in his ``Apothegms'' that Alonzo of Aragon
was wont to say, in commendation of Age, that Age appeared to be
best in four things: Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink;
old friends to trust; and old authors to read. Sir John Davys
recalls that ``a French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three
kinds of companions: Men, women and books,'' and my revered and
beloved poet-friend, Richard Henry Stoddard, has wrought out this
sentiment in a poem of exceeding beauty, of which the concluding
stanza runs in this wise:
Better than men and women, friend,
That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain,
Are the books their cunning hands have penned,
For they depart, but the books remain;
Through these they speak to us what was best
In the loving heart and the noble mind;
All their royal souls possessed
Belongs forever to all mankind!
When others fail him, the wise man looks
To the sure companionship of books.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|