ABOUT BOOKS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 15 May 1914, Page 7

ABOUT BOOKS.

Man's first great invention was the scheme whereby a vocal sound stands for a specific thought. Then language was born. The second great invention, and the greatest one in the world yet, was making an arbitrary mark stand for a vocal sound. This was the secret of Cadmus, the Phoenician, who invented,the alphabet. Twenty-six little crooked marks called letters, and seven punctuation marks —this is the equipment of the writer. Of course, it must be taken for granted that the man has thoughts. But what thought is, no one yet has ever attempted to say. A 'book is the utilisation of the Oadmean invention. As we grow in spirit and mentality, we want fewer books and better books. Books are not so much to teach us as to suggest and make us think for ourselves. Reading is self-revelation. You like that author only who reflects your own thought. In the book you discover yourself. Only the wiser mind reads much and delves and dives into bookish depths. Do not worship a book. You would never worship the author if you knew him. Treat a book with dignity. Stand shoulder to shoulder with an author. Love his book, but lion't munch it. \ Good books are companions, it is beautiful to live neighbour to Ralph Waldo Emerson and call to him over the back fence or help yourself in his Garden of Allah. A book is the garden of the mind. There is no use wallowing in it, but it is sweet to contemplate. And the curious thing is, the more posies you pick from one of these gardens of the mind the more there are left. Be on good terms with the great ; touch finger-tips with Robert Louis ; greet Ta m mas, the Techy Titan, with a smile, even if he only returns it with a grunt ; laugh with Rousseau ; learn with Hugo, the master of the short sentence ; sigh with old Omar, and out of them all, biassed by your own, divinity, your own insight, your own appreciation, you will be able to sit at the speaker's table in Valhalla with Plato, Pericles, Aristotle, Copernicus, while Dante the solemn ' passes the brown bread. [ A book is the record of a life. It is what the grain of the tree is to j the wood ; it is a history of a struggle for existence. j In a book you get the best that a man has ever thought or done or said. , The dross, the lees — the commonplace, the transient—all are omitted. Any book that lives for twenty-five years has seen a generation die and has been appreciated by two decades. Live with the best, have only a few books; know these well. Never mind about that five-foot shelf. If you are on chummy terms with five- great authors you have a source of mental revenue that is immnne from confis- • cation. You pass.it along, but you keep it just the same. It is your priceless heritage, and only death can wrench it from 5 our grasp — and I am not sure that even death can — Elbert Hubbard, in the "London Bridget."