The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-07-18
HUNeERING FOR BOOKS /


The Greed of the Man Whose Appetite
for Reading Has Become Over De-
VelOped.
have a picture hanging in nv Ii.
brary, Autograph, of which many of
my readers may have seen copies Ii
represents gray-baired old book-loyer
at the top of long fight of steps. He
finds himself in clover, so to sneak,
among rare old editions, books he lhas
| longed to look upon and never seenlbe-
fore, rarities, precious old volumes,
incundbula cradle-books, printed while
the art was in it's infancy--its glorious
infancy, for it 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
it from the shelf. So there he stands
one book open in his hands, a 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. l never can go into
that famous corner bookstore" and look
over the new books in the row before
me, as l enter the door, without seeing
half dozen which want to read, or at
least to know something about. / 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 sometimes picked up
line or a sentence, in these momentary
glances between the uncut leaves of a
new book, which have never forgotten.
Asa trivial but bona tile example, one day
topeneda book on duelling. remember
only these words: "CjnSerUOns-ld, cette no
bic jnSt5tutjOn." hsd never before seen
1uelling called noble institution, and
[ wish | had taken the name of the
book. Book-tdsting is not necessarily
orotitless, but it is very stimulating, and
makes one hungry for more than he
reeds for the nourisiment of his think
jng-marrow. To fed this Unsuitable
hunger, the abstracts the reviews, do
their best. But those, again, have
grown SO numerous and so crowded with
matter that it $ hand to find time to
master their contens. We are accus-
toned therefore, to box for analyses of
these periodicals, and at last we have
placed before us Misunderstanding
monthly, The Reviewed. Reviews. After
the analyses comes the newspaper no.
tice: and there is still room for the cpl
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 if one should read day and night,
combining himself to his own language,
he could notpretend to keep up with the
press. He might as we'll try to race
with locomotive. The first discipline,
therefore, is that ofdespair. If you could
stick to your reading day and night for
fifty years, what learned idiot you
would become long before the half.cen-
fury was over! Well, then, there is no
use in gorging ones self with knowledge,
and no need of self-reproach because
one is content to remain more or less
ignorant of many things which interest
his fellow-creatures. We get good deal
of knowledge through the atmosphere!
we learn great deal by accidentalhear-
say, provided we have the mOrdant 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 off 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.
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