“Perchance, O book, you will survive Alexander, and worms will eat me before the book-worm gnaws you; for my body is due the worms and book-worms will demolish you. You are the mirror of my soul, the interpreter of my meditations, the surest index of my meaning, the faithful messenger of my mind’s emotions, the sweet comforter of my grief, the true witness of my conscience. To you as faithful depositary I have confided my heart’s secrets; you restore faithfully to me those things which I have committed to your trust; in you I read myself. You will come, you will come into the hands of some pious reader who will deign to pour forth prayers for me. Then indeed, little book, you will profit your master; then you will recompense your Alexander by a most grateful interchange. There will come, nor do I begrudge my labor, the devotion of a pious reader, who will now let you repose in his lap, now move you to his breast, sometimes place you as a sweet pillow beneath his head, sometimes gently closing you with glad hands, he will fervently pray for me to Lord Jesus Christ, who with Father and Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through infinite cycles of ages. Amen.”
[546] I, 37 and II, 158.
[547] For references to the sources for the above facts of Neckam’s life see the first few pages of the preface to Thomas Wright’s edition of the De naturis rerum, and the De laudibus divinae sapientiae, in Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, vol. 34, London, 1863. All references in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, will be to this volume, and to the book and chapter of the De naturis rerum.
[548] II, 21.
[549] II, 174.
[550] S. Lane-Poole, The Story of Cairo, London, 1902, p. 124.
[551] II, 21.
[552] II, 98. Wright, Volume of Vocabularies, p. 96.
[553] II, 154, and Wright, Preface, p. 1, note. Wright gives no authority for his further observation, “The employment of glass for mirrors was known to the ancients, but appears to have been entirely superseded by metal.”
[554] I, 14.