hearers to understand, and what I wanted, and still would fain have,
them to do, there may afterwards be found some better service in the
passionately written text.

The first lecture says, or tries to say, that, life being very
short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them
in reading valueless books; and that valuable books should, in a
civilized country, be within the reach of every one, printed in
excellent form, for a just price; but not in any vile, vulgar, or,
by reason of smallness of type, physically injurious form, at a vile
price. For we none of us need many books, and those which we need
ought to be clearly printed, on the best paper, and strongly bound.
And though we are, indeed, now, a wretched and poverty-struck
nation, and hardly able to keep soul and body together, still, as no
person in decent circumstances would put on his table confessedly
bad wine, or bad meat, without being ashamed, so he need not have on
his shelves ill-printed or loosely and wretchedly-stitched books;
for though few can be rich, yet every man who honestly exerts
himself may, I think, still provide, for himself and his family,
good shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his cart or carriage
horses, and stout leather binding for his books. And I would urge
upon every young man, as the beginning of his due and wise provision
for his household, to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest
economy, a restricted, serviceable, and steadily--however slowly--
increasing, series of books for use through life; making his little
library, of all the furniture in his room, the most studied and
decorative piece; every volume having its assigned place, like a
little statue in its niche, and one of the earliest and strictest
lessons to the children of the house being how to turn the pages of
their own literary possessions lightly and deliberately, with no