As I have had little to do with profane literature, I know nothing of the habits of such books as Professor Huxley has prescribed an antidote against.  Of such books as I have gathered about me and made my constant companions I can say truthfully that a more delectable-flavored lot it were impossible to find.  As I walk amongst them, touching first this one and then that, and regarding all with glances of affectionate approval, I fancy that I am walking in a splendid garden, full of charming vistas, wherein parterre after parterre of beautiful flowers is unfolded to my enraptured vision; and surely there never were other odors so delightful as the odors which my books exhale!

  My garden aboundeth in pleasant nooks
      And fragrance is over it all;
  For sweet is the smell of my old, old books
      In their places against the wall.

  Here is a folio that’s grim with age
      And yellow and green with mould;
  There’s the breath of the sea on every page
      And the hint of a stanch ship’s hold.

  And here is a treasure from France la belle
      Exhaleth a faint perfume
  Of wedded lily and asphodel
      In a garden of song abloom.

  And this wee little book of Puritan mien
      And rude, conspicuous print
  Hath the Yankee flavor of wintergreen,
      Or, may be, of peppermint.

  In Walton the brooks a-babbling tell
      Where the cheery daisy grows,
  And where in meadow or woodland dwell
      The buttercup and the rose.

  But best beloved of books, I ween,
      Are those which one perceives
  Are hallowed by ashes dropped between
      The yellow, well-thumbed leaves.

  For it’s here a laugh and it’s there a tear,
      Till the treasured book is read;
  And the ashes betwixt the pages here
      Tell us of one long dead.

  But the gracious presence reappears
      As we read the book again,
  And the fragrance of precious, distant years
      Filleth the hearts of men

  Come, pluck with me in my garden nooks
      The posies that bloom for all;
  Oh, sweet is the smell of my old, old books
      In their places against the wall!

Better than flowers are they, these books of mine!  For what are the seasons to them?  Neither can the drought of summer nor the asperity of winter wither or change them.  At all times and under all circumstances they are the same—­radiant, fragrant, hopeful, helpful!  There is no charm which they do not possess, no beauty that is not theirs.

What wonder is it that from time immemorial humanity has craved the boon of carrying to the grave some book particularly beloved in life?  Even Numa Pompilius provided that his books should share his tomb with him.  Twenty-four of these precious volumes were consigned with him to the grave.  When Gabriel Rossetti’s wife died, the poet cast into her open grave the unfinished volume of his poems, that being the last and most precious tribute he could pay to her cherished memory.