And that she dusted all the shelves,
    And kept the records straight;
  So when the year came to an end,
    She would not be too late
  In handing in a full report
    Of just what had been done. 
  (And “full” comprises everything
    That’s underneath the sun).

  Oh yes, you’ll find them everywhere,
    Deluded as can be
  In thinking libr’ry work’s a “cinch,”
    And looking longingly
  At someone’s “easy libr’ry job”
    “With not a thing to do!”
  But tell me, do you libr’yites
    Believe in fairies too?

  —­H.I.B. in the Use of Print.

A certain woman who came in to take out a card, upon being told she must give the name of a friend as reference said, “Why, I have no friends.  I was a librarian.”

See also Books and reading.

LIBRARIES

The Power-House

Every day I go past the Library on Ludlow Street

I look in the open windows and see the great dynamos.

They have power enough to jazz the earth and throw the planets out of step, but they make no sound.

I saw a girl with shell goggles dusting some of them,

Unterrified by her proximity to such dangerous engines.

Look out, child, look out, don’t get too near the Bernard Shaw rheostat or the Walt Whitman fly-wheel.—­Christopher Morley.

“May I take this book home please, or isn’t it a running book?  Oh, I’m so glad, I thought it might be ‘for reference only.’”

MAN—­“I’d like a book on dramatic expression.”

LIBRARIAN—­“Oral, of course?”

MAN—­“Yes, I don’t like poetry.”

LIES

Sin has many tools but a lie is the handle that fits them all.—­O.W. 
Holmes.

LIFE

As viewed by the

OPTIMIST PESSIMIST

Love Lies
Independence Ingratitude
Fun Foolishness
Endeavor Exertion

In traveling along a road in a motor car, there will be several cars ahead of you going your way, and there will be several cars coming toward you.  Also ahead of you, going your way, there may be a hay wagon or a farmer in a buggy.  As you speed along, you look ahead and declare to yourself that there is no logical way in which you can get through the spaces thus created.  Yet the vehicles always form themselves into the right combination, and you pass through easily.  This is the way with life.  There are always obstacles that you do not see how you can pass without a smash-up.  But you always get by.

“Stop, look, listen!”

The reflective man stopped to read the railroad warning.

“Those three words illustrate the whole scheme of life,” said he.