XIV.
THE PAGEANT OF THE IMMORTALS.
Hi sunt Magistri qui nos instruunt, sine virgis et ferulis, sine cholorâ, sine pecuniâ. Si accedis, non dormiunt; si inquiris, non se abscondunt; non obmurmurant, si oberres; cachinos nesciunt, si ignores.—Richard de Bury.
Pour peu qu’il soit tenu loin du chaud et du frais,
Qu’on y porte une main blanche et respectueuse,
Que le lecteur soit calme et la lectrice heureuse ...
Un livre est un ami qui ne change jamais.
Jules Janin.
I HAVE two chairs for my reading—a stiff one for books I have to read; a luxurious one for books I like to read. My luxurious chair is of dark-green leather, a seat to sink into, modeled after the easy arm-chair of the Eversley Rectory, known from its seductive properties as “Sleepy Hollow.” When I find a volume more than usually delightsome, I call in an extra chair for a foot-rest, so the body may possess the same ease as the mind. And yet the delight a volume affords depends largely upon the mood in which the leaves are turned, and the printer who has turned the leaves.