Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-04-29
no You Own any IsoOI1s9

If, on visiting the dwelling of a man of
slender means, find the reason why 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 refine
ment than the most elaborately carved etG7
0ere, or sidebOard. 9f
rather than furniture! Both. If you can, but
books at any ratel To spend several days
at friends house, and hunger for some
thing 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. f-.es, = e5I,l
| Is it not pitiable to see man growing
rich, and beginning to augment the COM
forts Of home, and lavishing money on os-
tentatious upholstery, upon the table, upon
everything but what the soul needs?
We know Of many and many a rich
mans house, where it would not be safe
| TO ask for the, commonest English classics.
A few garish ANIMALS on the table, q few
pictorial monstrosites, together with the
stock religious book of his "persuasion," !"
and that is all No range of poets, no es-
savists, no selection Of historians, no trav-
els or biographies, no select fctions or curl
GUS legendary lore; but then the walls
have paper which cost three dollars roll,
dollars yard Books are the windows
through which the soul looks out. A house
without books is like room without VIM
dows. No man has right to bring up his
children without surrounding them with
books, If he has the means to buy them. 1t
Is a wrong to his family. He cheats them
Children learn to read by being in the pres
| - 11xy lyr,a yl<<1r
comes with reading, and grows upon It,
And the love of knowledge, in young
mind, is almost a warrant against the in-
i ferior excitement of passions and vices.
Let as pity these poor rich men who live
barrenly in great, bcokless houses! Let
US congratulate the poor that in our day
books are so cheap that man may every
year add a hundred volumes 70 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
ljourneymen, and, indeed. among all that
4 are struggling up in life from nothing to
4 something, is that of owning and constantly
adding to a library of good books. A little
i library, growing larger every year, is ar
honorable part of young mans history
It is mans duty to have books. A library
is not luxury, but one of the necessaries
of life. se y. s.s-r,s. -, s.,r.-
A good book is thing as separate anG
distinct from all other creations, as birC
is from a flower, or a jewel from a stone
Books are at once our masters and our ser
wants. They have a silent independence
an unchanging voice, a calm declaration o
truth, as they will. But they are unobtru
sive. They wait for our moods and ou
leisure. They are never jealous if we neg
lect them, nor quarrelsome when we arr
familiar. They wait upon US in youth. il
manhood, and in old age, with vivacity
, that time never chills, and an instructive
ness that repetition never wearies. MeI
! grow old, and children are the only re
prints allowed. The same volume is neve
, reproduced. But books come again, il
successive editions, with the same life, tn
same disposition, the same offices of low
and goodness. Their joints never stitfen
E Their heads never grow gray. All hinge
, but book-hinges at Times door CRATE. Blu
the unoiled pages turn smoothly forever
Books gradually lose their inert and deat
form, and become to us like persons tha
: have pulse and articulate voice. We fee
more Intimately acquainted with author
two hundred years dead, than we do wit
! our daily companions. We never let livin;
creatures enter into our soul with sue
universal liberty as authors assume. AM
scholar is never alone among books, no
, is lie ever lonesome, except among crowd
; of talking, trading, trit1ing men. A boo
is better for WEAKNESS than sleep; bette
. for cheerfulness than wine; and it will hol
: out with the longest night that watche
a ever saw. 1t often is better physician
: than the doctor, better preacher than til
: minister, a better sanctuary than tn
drOwSv church Norfon,e Tifer0S7f Letter