The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-21
From 'The Pleasures of Life" by si John Lubbock.

From "The Pleasures of bfe, by BIT
 John Lubbock.
 UNF all the privileges we enjoy in k(OJ this Nineteenth century there Is O none, perhaps, for which we ought to be more thankful than TOT 'he easier access of books.
 The debt we owe to books was well ex- pressed by Richard de Bury, bishop or Durham, author of "Philobiblon," writ ten as long ago as 1344, and the earliest English treatise on the delights Of htera- ture These" he says, 'are the masters who instruct us without rods and fer rules. without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you ap- proach them. they are not asleep; II in- yestigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; If you mistake them. they never grumble; if you arc ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. The library there- fore, of wisdom Is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with It. Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges him self to be zea4ous follower of truth, Of happiness. of wisdom, of science. or even of the faith. must of necessity make him self a lover of books" But if the debt were great then, how much more now.
 He that loveth a book" says Isaac Barrow, twill never want faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter By study by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers. so in all for tunes"
 Macauley had all that wealth and fame, rank and talent could give, yet, we are told, he derived his greatest happiness from books Sir G. Trevelyan, in his charming biography, says that "of all the feelings which Macauley entertained to- wards t..e great minds of bygone ages 1t Is not for anyone except himself to speak. He has told us how his debt to them was incalculable; how they guided him to truth; how they filled his with noble and graceful images; how they stood by him in all cissitudes-comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude the old friends who are never seen with new faces who are the same in wealth and in poverty, in glory and obscurity. Great as were the honors and possessions which Macauley acquired by his pen, all who knew him were well aware that the titles and rewards which he gained by his own works were as nothing in the bal ance compared with the pleasure he de- rived from the works of others"
 There was no society in London so
 
 ferred it at breakfast or at dinner Ito the company of Strene or Fielding, Hor- ace Walpole or Boswell" The love of reading which Gibbon declared he would not exchange for all the treasures of h. da was in fact with Macauey "a main element of happiness in one of the hap piest of lives that 1t has ever fallen to the lot of the biographer to record"
 In old days books were rare and dear. Now. on the contrary, it may be said with greater truth than ever, that
 Words are things, and a small drop of
 ink,
 Falling like dew upon thought, pro-
 duces
 That which makes thousands perhaps
 millions. think
 Our ancestors had a difficulty in pro- curing them. Our difficulty now is what to select. We must be careful what we read, and not like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure not only lest we should even fall into er- TOT of the Greeks. and suppose that lan- guage and definition can be instruments of investigation as we'll as of thought. but lest, as too often happens, we should waste time over trash.
 I am sometimes disposed to think that the great readers of the next generation will be, not our lawyers and doctors. shop keepers and manufacturers. but the la