In the shelves of those libraries which are our
pride, libraries public or private, circulating or very stationary, are
to be found those great books of the world _rari nantes in gurgite
vasto_,[26] those books which are truly "the precious life-blood of a
master-spirit." But the very familiarity which their mighty fame has
bred in us makes us indifferent; we grow weary of what every one is
supposed to have read; and we take down something which looks a little
eccentric, some worthless book, on the mere ground that we never heard
of it before.
Thus the difficulties of literature are in their way as great as those
of the world, the obstacles to finding the right friends are as great,
the peril is as great of being lost in a Babel of voices and an
ever-changing mass of beings. Books are not wiser than men, the true
books are not easier to find than the true men, the bad books or the
vulgar books are not less obtrusive and not less ubiquitous than the bad
or vulgar men are everywhere; the art of right reading is as long and
difficult to learn as the art of right living.
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