Confessions of a Book-Lover by E. Walter Walters

Come, and take choice of my library, / And so beguile thy sorrow. / GOLDSMITH.

NOW let us dwell upon our every-day and every-hour books -- our dear old familiar friends. ‘On a shelf in my bookcase,' says Alexander Smith, ‘are collected a number of volumes which look somewhat the worse for wear. Those of them that originally possessed gilding have had it fingered off, each of them has leaves turned down, and they open of themselves in places wherein I have been happy, and with whose every word I am familiar as with the furniture of the room in which I nightly slumber; each of them has remarks relevant and irrelevant scribbled on their margins. Those favourite volumes cannot be called peculiar glories of literature; but out of the world of books I have singled them, as I have singled my intimates out of the world of men.'