And Even Now by Sir Max Beerbohm
page 63 of 194 (32%)
page 63 of 194 (32%)
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that the Tivoli's frontage wouldn't, because it couldn't, be so bad as
that which we had just, for the first time, seen. For me there was another, a yet stronger, balm. And I went as though I trod on air, my heart singing within me. For I had not, after all, to resume my task of writing that letter to The Times. BOOKS WITHIN BOOKS 1914. They must, I suppose, be classed among biblia abiblia [Greek]. Ignored in the catalogue of any library, not one of them lurking in any uttermost cavern under the reading-room of the British Museum, none of them ever printed even for private circulation, these books written by this and that character in fiction are books only by courtesy and good will. But how few, after all, the books that are books! Charles Lamb let his kind heart master him when he made that too brief list of books that aren't. Book is an honourable title, not to be conferred lightly. A volume is not necessarily, as Lamb would have had us think, a book because it can be read without difficulty. The test is, whether it was worth reading. Had the author something to set forth? And had he the specific gift for setting it forth in written words? And did he use this rather rare gift conscientiously and to the full? And were his words well and appropriately printed and bound? If you can say Yes to these questions, then only, I submit, is the title of `book' deserved. If Lamb were alive now, he certainly would draw the line closer than |
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