In his treatise on Fortune, Petrarch has left us a study on book-collecting in the form of a dialogue between his natural genius and his critical reason. He argues, as it were, in his own person against the imaginary opponent. A paraphrase will show the nature and the result of the contest.
'Petrarch. I have indeed a great quantity of books.
Critic. That gives me an excellent instance. Some men amass books for self-instruction and others from vanity. Some decorate their rooms with the furniture that was intended to be an ornament of the soul, as if it were like the bronzes and statues of which we were speaking. Some are working for their own vile ends behind their rows of books, and these are the worst of all, because they esteem literature merely as merchandise, and not at its real value; and this new fashionable infliction becomes another engine for the arts of avarice.
Pet. I have a very considerable quantity of books.
Crit. Well! it is a charming, embarrassing kind of luggage, affording an agreeable diversion for the mind.
Pet. I have a great abundance of books.
Crit. Yes, and a great abundance of hard work and a great lack of repose. You have to keep your mind marching in all directions, and to overload your memory. Books have led some to learning, and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest. In the mind, as in the body, indigestion does more harm than hunger; food and books alike must be used according to the constitution, and what is little enough for one is too much for another.
Pet. But I have an immense quantity of books.
Crit. Immense is that which has no measure, and without measure there is nothing convenient or decent in the affairs of men.
Pet. I have an incalculable number of books.