I am temporarily separated from the bulk of my books and thus more keenly aware than ever of their importance to me. It is not only the contents that I miss but the visible presence of them. I see Bergson's Creative Evolution there next to Wittgenstein's Tractatus .
Books do furnish a mind.
The visual array of them is a house of memory in the form of a mnemonic of evocative spines. Thus I love the look of a library, the frontal phalanx and the ribbed perspective. I love the romance of a library. Among the plum and burgundy and sombre Oxford blue are stored moments of pleasure and enlightenment, moments when I discovered that I could question the printed word, moments when I found that I was not alone in thinking this or feeling that. I love the smell of a library and the feel of books.