playing a part; he is not the real thing. Does the young lover ask how and
how often he shall go to see his sweetheart? Try to see whether you can
keep him away! The book-lover reopens his favorite volume whenever he
feels like it. Among the works on his shelves are books for every mood,
every shade of varying temper and humor. He chooses for the moment the
friend that best corresponds to it, or it may be, the one that may best
woo him away from it. It may be that he will select none of them, but
occupy himself with a pile of newcomers, some of whom may be candidates
for admission to the inner group. The whole thing--the composition of his
library, his attitude toward it, the books that he re-reads oftenest, the
favorite passages that he loves, that he scans fondly with his eye while
yet he can repeat them by heart, his standards of admission to his inner
circle--all is peculiarly and personally his own. There is no other
precisely like it, just as there is no other human being precisely like
its owner. There is as much difference between this kind of a library and
some that we have seen as there is between a live, breathing creature with
a mind and emotions and aspirations, and a wax figure in the Eden Musee.

Thus every book lover re-reads his favorites in a way of his own, just as
every individual human being loves or hates or mourns or rejoices in a way
of his own.

One can no more describe these idiosyncrasies than he can write a history
of all the individuals in the world, but perhaps, in the manner of the
ethnological or zoological classifier, it may interest us to glance at the
types of a few genera or species.

And first, please note that re-reading is the exact repetition of a dual
mental experience, so far at least as one of the minds is concerned. It is
a replica of mind-contact, under conditions obtainable nowhere else in