Litchfield enquirer., 1859-03-10
THE DUTY or OWNING BOOKS.
sY HENRY WARD BEEcHrR.

THE DUTY or OWNING BOOKS.
 sY HENRY WARD BEEcHrR.
 Weform judgments of men from little things about their house, of which the owner, per naps, never thinks. In earlier years, when travelling in the West, when taverns were either scarce, or, in some places unknown, and every settlers house was house of Enter tainment," !" it was matter of some importance and some experience to select wisely where you would put up And we always looked fo1 flowers. If there were no trees for shade, no patch of flowers in the yard, we were suspi. cious of the place. But, no matter how rude the cabin, or rough the surroundings, if we saw that the window held little trough for flowers, and that some vines twined about strings let down from the caves, we were con hdent that there was some taste and careful ness in the log cabin. In new country, where people have to tug for living, no one will take the trouble to rear flowers, unless the love of them is pretty strong-and this taste bios soming out of plain and uncultivated people IS, itself, like clump of hare-bells growing out ofthe seams of a rock. We were seldom ms led. A patch of flowers came to signify kind people, clean beds and good bread.
 But. other signs are more significant in other states of society. Flowers about rich mans house may signify only that he has good gar dener, or that he has re6ued neighbors, and does what he sees them do.
 But men are not accustomed to buy books unless they want them. t, on visiting the dwelling of man of slender means, find the reason wliy he has cheap carpets, and very plain furniture, to be that he may purchase books, he rises at once in my esteem. Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes house. The plainest row of books that cloth or paper ever covered is more significant of refinement than the most elaborately-carved etagsre or side board.
 Give me house furnished with books rather than furniture Both, if you can, but books as gay rate To spend several days in friends house, and hunger for soemthing to read, while you are treading on costly carpets, and sitting upon Luxurious chairs, and sleeping upon down, is as if one were bribing your body for the sake of cheating your mind. >
 Is it not pitiable to sec man growing rich, and beginning to augment the comforts of home, and lavishing money on ostentatious up heastery, upon the table, upon everything but what the soul needs?
 We know of many and many rich mans heuse where it would not be safe to ask for the commonest English classics. A few gar ish annuals on the table, a few pictorial mon- strosities, together with the stock religious books of his ''persuasion," and that is all !! Norange of poets, no essayists Ho selection of Aisssrians, no travels or biographies--no select ictions or curious legendary lore: but then, the walls have paper on which cost three dol lars roll, and the floors have carpets that cost four dollars yard Books are the windows through which the soul looks out A house wikeut books is like room without windows. No man has right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is wrong to his family. He cheats them Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading, and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge in young Mind, is almost warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices
 Let us pity those poor rich men who live barrenly in great bookless houses l Let us congratulate the poor that, in our day, books are 50 cheap that . man may every year add a hundred volumes to his library for the price of what his tobacco and his beer would cost him. Among the earliest ambitions to be excited in clerks, workmen, journeymen, and, iadeed, among oil that are struggling up in life from nothing to something, is that of owning, and constantly adding to, a library of good books A little library growing larger every year is m honorable part of young mans history. Itis mans duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.--N Y. Ledger.