Evening star., 1925-03-05
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

thinks. We frolic and frisk, and have
entertainment for the leisure hours,
too. as thou well knoweth.
Welcome, friend. Givb us thy
hand. We resign ourselves to thee in
the full knowledge that thou wilt not
| break our backs thoughtlessly, or
rumple our leaves with wet thumb,
or go to the extreme of abstracting
whole pages by the roots.
The love for us was implanted in
thee at they blessed mothers knee.
F., Tenderly thy baby fingers were
taught to handle us. Today thou hast
a twofold love for books, loving US
as things, almost persons, and as en-
tertainment, knowledge, help in time
| of need, joy in hours of leisure.
| Friend of books, take into thy
heart the love and gratitude of all
books! When the library door opens.
and we see thee entering, we welcome
| thee with fiuttering pages. Thou art
come into thine own
| II K Il
That place that does contain
l My books. the best companions 10 to
| glorious court, where hourly / converse
| With the old sages and philosophers
The medicine chest of the soul"
said the ancient Greeks of a library.
A library is more than that. Wheth-
| er 1t be deserted, for the time being,
or crowded with readers, keeping as
silent as they may, a library is not
only a medicine chest, where one
may obtain balm for a wounded spirit.
/ A library, at its best, is very
! fountain of health and life itself. 1t
| shows the discriminating what others
have done and thought. and ad
| monishes them to go do likewise.
| Here may be found the very root
| experiences of the human race. All
that time and men, working to-
gether, have been able to find out,
lies enshrined, as flies are supposed
| to be embalmed in amber.
| What deal men have found out,
since the cave dweliers first put flinty
| instrument to smooth wall, and rude
ly carved thereon the first book.
Slowly, line on line, the books Of the
| world have been written. Their num-
ber is so vast, their erudition so
| extensive, their knowledge of some
/ things so pitiful.
| One cannot look at the books of a
| library without feeling, now and then,
that despite this vast pretense OF
knowledge, men know little more to-
| day about many matters than they
| did thousands upon thousands of
| years ago.
| The trouble is, that each man who
| comes into the world must begin
| again. Each life is ike the newspaper
mans day, in which diurnal round
what he writes must stand for him
and be representative of him. What
he wrote yesterday is mostly forgot
| ten-he is judged solely on what he
| writes today.
! So it is with the life of man. Each
] newcomer to this world walks under
| the shadow of his own hat brim,
whether he realizes IL or not, and on
his own efforts, mostly, will the world
! judge him.
Each man has something to over
| come, som ething to learn on his own,
| and in this all the books of the world
| can only help The man may read the
| most true treatise on conduct, and
yet go right out and do the opposite
That is life.
! Books, then, can give one no more
| than life offers. LIES perplexities
doubts, fears. joys, are faithfully
mirrored forth in books. but what
one sees there depends largely upon
| the eyes he has to see with.
| The mysterious. life and fate of man
| the library does not solve. The
| Whence and whittier one can find only
| hinted at in books, whether in a de-
| serted library or a full one.
| The book of the Spirit of Man is
| the last authority.