time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound
up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an
account of the inns, and roads, and weather, last year at such a
place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real
circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for
occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a
"book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read." A book is
essentially not a talking thing, but a written thing; and written,
not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book
of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands
of people at once; if he could, he would--the volume is mere
MULTIPLICATION of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in
India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere
CONVEYANCE of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the
voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The
author has something to say which he perceives to be true and
useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet
said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to
say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events.
In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of
things, manifest to him;--this, the piece of true knowledge, or
sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to
seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if
he could; saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and
drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the
vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of
mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" it is, in his
small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in
him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."