A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps;
for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always
live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.
A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it
always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of
companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress.
It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us
in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they
have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration
which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb, "Love me, love my dog."
But there is more wisdom in this:" Love me, love my book." The book is a
truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with
each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and
he in them.
A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could
think out; for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of
his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden
thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant
companions and comforters.
Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting
products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is
of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first
passed through their author’s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought
still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of
time have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can
long survive e but what is really good.
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the
greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see
the as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve
with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure
actors with them in the scenes which they describe.