Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1901-04-10
PLEASURE Of BOOKS.
Like Human Folks the Dress Does Not Always
Tell the Man.

YOU ask me TO write on some DOOhs
that have helped me. I have a few
score companions sitting and lying
around me here. Some are very well
dressed; others somewhat shabbily.
Some have dust on them which have
been slapped on the sides and blown
upon more frequently. AS in my cir
culating library, bound in bone and
flesh and skin, things are not always
as they seem; so In here. I glance
over my shelves and see few bright
backed, gilt-edged fellows, whose mid
wives, tailors and haberdashers have
done all they possibly could for them,
but who are yet very shallow in the
inward parts. Some other few, whose
outward parts are positively plebian,
have hearts Of gold.
AS I look some smile at me: some
wink with merry twinkle; some are
very grave; some make my heart
faint-take all the spirit out Of me;
make me feel like puny ignoramus.
These last are those whose coats are
full Of dates and black and white
facts. The plague on him who Is full
Of dates and facts unless he will keep
them to himself. But the plague In
tenfold fiercer form take him who
comes and punctures my sails with his
question about a date or a fact. I
have no dates and I know no facts.
Get Fred Fooly and Tom Thickhead,
who have been blowing and swelling at
one another for several years, to tell
you their troubles and see how you
come out. There are no facts. There
are assertions and refractions Of some
thing-probably Of beams straight
from the eternal source-which would
register facts If they could hit straight,
but they are obscured and turned
aside. I renounce all help from dates
and those stubborn things. I have
tried to tie some Of them to me at
times, but they jingled and dangled
about me so that 1 think should have
gone mad with them.. I carry none
with me. I have a repository for them
here in these shelves. I shall hence
forth handle them physically. And
you, man, whoever you are, when you
come upon me sailing along serenely
on the wings Of fancy, all radiant with
the coloring extracted from the dry
bones and sticks of your so-called
truths and facts, and you prod me
with who Built Westminster Abb
bey?" How far is Sleepy Hollow
from Greater New York;" I'll say-I
think you are fit only to look at men
in straightjackets and at lambs, kit
tens and little boys when they are
asleep.
The only books that have helped me
are the books that I love, and have
absorbed and woven into my heart
and soul. I am fond enough to think
that I have put a few through that
process. I do not speak now of the
book of books. 1 hope that we have all
so read it and thought over it that we
conform to it's teachings in thought
and word and act with the certainty
and regularity Of instinct.
read David Copperfield," and
VANITY Fair" quite often, sometimes
twice a year. Il don't read them criti-
cally, and don't want you to ask me.
What do you think about Dora or
Agnes; about old man Osborne or Mrs
O'Dowd?'D I sit with them, talk with
them, fall asleep with them sometimes
like would with you), let them strike
In on me, change color with them, cry
a little with them. laugh some with
them, feel like kissing some Of them
and kicking others of them; and SO
say they get woven up into my life.
What DO care for else? When 1 reach