THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS.
To many peaceful men of the legal robe the companionship of books is inexpressibly dear. What a privilege it is to summon the greatest and most charming spirits of the past from their graves, and find them always willing to talk to us! How delightful to go to our well-known book-shelves, lay hands on our favorite authors—even in the dark, so well do we know them—take any volume, open it at any page, and in a few minutes lose all sense and remembrance of the real world, with its strife, its bitterness, its disappointments, its hollowness, its unfaithfulness, its selfishness, in the pictures of an ideal world! The real world, do we say? Which is the real world, that of history or that of fiction? In this age of historic doubt and iconoclasm, are not the heroes of our favorite romances much more real than those of history? Captain Ed’ard Cuttle, mariner, is much more real to us than Captain Joseph Cook; Cooper’s Two Admirals than the great Nelson; Leather-Stocking than the yellow-haired Custer; Henry Esmond than any of the Pretenders; Hester Prynne and Becky Sharp than Catherine of Russia or Aspasia or Lucrezia; Sidney Carton than Philip Sidney. Even the kings and heroes who have lived in history live more vividly for us in romance. We know the crooked Richard and the crafty Louis XI. most familiarly, if not most accurately, through Shakespeare and Scott; and where in history do we get so haunting a picture of the great Napoleon and Waterloo as in Victor Hugo’s wondrous but inaccurate chapter? Happy is the man who has for his associates David, Solomon, Job, Paul, and John, in spite of the assaults of modern criticism upon the Scriptures! No one can shake our faith in Don Quixote, although the accounts of the Knight “without fear and without reproach” are so short and vague. There is no doubt about the travels of Christian, although those of Stanley may be questioned. The Vicar of Wakefield is a much more actual personage than Peter who preached the Crusades. Sir Roger de Coverley and his squire life are much more probable to us than Sir William Temple in his gardens There is no character in romance who has not or might not have lived, but we are thrown into grave doubts of the saintly Washington and the devilish Napoleon depicted three quarters of a century ago. We cast history aside in scepticism and disgust; we cling to romance with faith and delight “The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.” So let the writer hereof sing a song in praise of
MY FRIENDS THE BOOKS.
Friends of my youth and of my age
Within my chamber wait,
Until I fondly turn the page
And prove them wise and great.
At me they do not rudely glare
With eye that luster lacks,
But knowing how I hate a stare,
Politely turn their backs.
They never split my head with din,
Nor snuffle through their noses,
Nor admiration seek to win
By inartistic poses.
If I should chance to fall asleep,
They do not scowl or snap,
But prudently their counsel keep
Till I have had my nap.
And if I choose to rout them out
Unseasonably at night,
They do not chafe nor curse nor pout,
But rise all clothed and bright.
They ne’er intrude with silly say,
They never scold nor worry;
They ne’er suspect and ne’er betray,
They’re never in a hurry.
Anacreon never gets quite full,
Nor Horace too flirtatious;
Swift makes due fun of Johnny Bull,
And Addison is gracious.
Saint-Simon and Grammont rehearse
Their tales of court with glee;
For all their scandal I’m no worse,—
They never peach on me.
For what I owe Montaigne, no dread
To meet him on the morrow;
And better still, it must be said,
He never wants to borrow.
Paul never asks, though sure to preach,
Why I don’t come to church;
Though Dr. Johnson strives to teach,
I do not fear his birch.
My Dickens never is away
Whene’er I choose to call;
I need not wait for Thackeray
In chill palatial hall.
I help to bring Amelia to,
Who always is a-fainting;
I love the Oxford graduate who
Explains great Turner’s painting.
My memory is full of graves
Of friends in days gone by;
But Time these sweet companions saves,—
These friends who never die!
SO HERE ENDETH “IN THE TRACK OF THE BOOK-WORM.” PRINTED BY ME, ELBERT HUBBARD, AT THE ROYCROFT SHOP IN EAST AURORA, N. Y., U. S. A., AND COMPLETED THIS TWENTY-SIXTH DAY OF JUNE, MDCCCXCVII.
