who is exactly in the right mean, we call him the book-lover. His
happiness consists not in reading, which is an active virtue, but in
the contemplation of bindings, and illustrations, and title-pages.
Thus his felicity partakes of the nature of the bliss we attribute
to the gods, for that also is contemplative, and we call the book-
lover 'happy,' and even 'blessed,' but within the limits of mortal
happiness. But, just as in the matter of absence of fear there is a
mean which we call courage, and a defect which we call cowardice,
and an excess which is known as foolhardiness; so it is in the case
of the love of books. As to the mean, we have seen that it is the
virtue of the true book-lover, while the defect constitutes the sin
of the Robustious Philistine. But the extreme is found in
covetousness, and the covetous man who is in the extreme state of
book-loving, is the biblioklept, or book-stealer. Now his vice
shows itself, not in contemplation (for of contemplation there can
be no excess), but in action. For books are procured, as we say, by
purchase, or by barter, and these are voluntary exchanges, both the
seller and the buyer being willing to deal. But books are, again,
procured in another way, by involuntary contract--that is, when the
owner of the book is unwilling to part with it, but he whose own the
book is not is determined to take it. The book-stealer is such a
man as this, and he possesses himself of books with which the owner
does not intend to part, by virtue of a series of involuntary
contracts. Again, the question may be raised, whether is the
Robustious Philistine who despises books, or the biblioklept who
adores them out of measure and excessively, the worse citizen? Now,
if we are to look to the consequences of actions only (as the
followers of Bentham advise), clearly the Robustious Philistine is
the worse citizen, for he mangles, and dirties, and destroys books
which it is the interest of the State to preserve. But the