The multitude of books impresses on us the shortness of human life, and immortality never seems more desirable and necessary than in the presence of a library.
The national library of France contains about three million books and the British Museum requires forty miles of shelves to accommodate its two million volumes. The room which contains the card catalogue of the nine hundred thousand books of the Boston Public Library is as large as the entire space of many a village library.
According to the purposes for which they have been written books may be divided broadly into three classes. In the first place we have books intended to convey information. This class is very numerous as it includes histories, biographies, travels, text books and works on technical subjects.
The second class comprises those written to amuse, and consists mainly of works of fiction. This is also numerous, for it constitutes the chief mental nourishment of the greater number of readers. It is estimated that novels form fully three-fourths of the books issued by circulating libraries.
The last class is composed of books written to inspire, to which belong works of the sacred writers and of the great poets. Such books are comparatively few in number, but they include much of the noblest work of the noblest men whom the world has known.
These three divisions are not separated by hard and fast lines; Hawthorne’s Marble Faun, for example, at once entertains, informs and inspires, while, fortunately for us all, the number of books that amuse and at the same time instruct is sufficient to supply pleasure and profit for the longest life and the most varied tastes.
There is of course still another class of books that are no books, works of this kind far outnumber all the others put together, and it requires constant care in order to avoid them.
“Throw away none of your time,” says Lord Chesterfield, “upon those trivial futile books, published for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers; such sort of books swarm and buzz about one every day; flop them away,—they have no sting.”
Ruskin calls attention to the difference between books written to render thought permanent such as great poems and histories, books of all time he calls them, and books written merely for the hour, the useful or pleasant talk of some person you cannot otherwise converse with, such as travels and novels which he says are not books at all but merely letters or newspapers in print.
“A book,” he says, “is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would—the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead; that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him:—this is the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, ‘This is the best of me; ... this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’ That is his ‘writing’; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a ‘Book’.”