Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1890-10-04
HunoeRlNo FOR BOOKS.
The Greed OF the Man Whose Appetite
for Reading Has Beeoms over De-
vefoped.

The Greed Of tine Man Whose Appetite
for Reading Has Become Over : De-
veloped.
j have q picture hanging In my II.
brary, lithograph, of which many OF
my readers may have seen copies. IL
represents o gray-haired old book-lover
at the top OF long fight of steps. He
finds himself in clover. so TO speak,
among rare old editions, books he has
longed 10 look upon and never seen be-
fore, rarities. precious old volumes,
tncundbata cradie-books, printed while
the art was in its infancy--its glorious
infancy. for ii was born a giant The
old bookworm Is so intoxicated with the
sight and handling of the priceless
treasures that he can not bear to put one
Of the volumes back after he has taken
II from the shelf. So there he stands
one book open In his hands. volume
under each arm, and one or more be-
tween his legs-loaded with as many as
he can possibly hold at the same time.
Now, that is just the way In which
the extreme form Of book-hunger shows
itself in the reader whose appetite has
become over developed. He wants TO
read so many books that he over-crams
himself with the crude materials Of
knowledge, which becomes knowledge
only when the mental digestion has time
TO assimilate them. | never can go into
that famous 'csrner book store" and look
over the new books in the row before
me, as | enter the door. without seeing
half dozen which | want to read, OF at
least 10 know something about. i can
not empty my purse OF its contents, and
crowd my book shelves with all those
volumes. The titles of many of them
interest ME. | look into one or two.
perhaps. have some times picked up
line or a sentence, in these momentary
glances between the uncut leaves of
new book, which hav.. ncgcr forgotten.
Asa trivial but bona tde example, one day
Iopened a book on duelling. Iremember
only these words: "C0aserroas-id, cette mo-
bic fnsfuufion." / had never before seen
duelling called a noble institution, and
wish | had taken the name OF the
book. Book-fastiHg Is not necessarily
profitless. but IL is very stimulating, and
makes one hungry for more than he
needs for the nourishment of his think
ing-marrow. To feed this Unsuitable
hunger, the abstracts, the reviews, do
their best But those, again. have
grown so numerous and so crowded with
matter that 1t s hard to find time to
master their contents. We are accus-
toned, therefore. 10 look for analys Of
these periodicals. and at last we have
placed before us formidable-looking
monthly, The Review OF Reviews. After
the analyses comes the newspaper no
tice: and there is still room for the epi-
gram, which sometimes makes short
work with all that has gone before on
the same subject.
1t is just as we'll to recognize the fact
that II one should read day and right,
confining himself to his own language,
he could not pretend to keep up with the
press. lie might az we'll try to race
with locomotive The first discipline,
therefore, is that ofdespair. II you could
stick to your reading day and night for
fifty years, what learned idiot you
would become long before the half-cen-
tury was over! Well, then, there is no
use in gorging ones self with knowledge,
and no need of self-reproach because
one Is content 10 remain more or less
ignorant OF many things which interest
his fellow-creatures. We get good deal
of knowledge through the atmosphere!
we learn a great deal by accidental hear
say, provided we have tho morddnt in
our own consciousness which makes the
wise remark, the significant fact, the
instructive incident. take hold upon it.
After the stage of despair comes the
period OF consolation. We soon find that
we are not so much worse of than most
of our neighbors as we supposed. The
fractional value OF the wisest shows a
small numerator divided by an infinite
denominator of knowledge. - Oliver
Wendell Holmes, in Atlantic.