pet. If he does not wish their company they are silent, and then
when he turns to them again there is no difference in the welcome,
for they maintain an equal mind and are ever in good humour. As he
comes in tired and possibly upset by smaller people they receive him
in a kindly fashion, and in the firelight their familiar faces make
his heart glad. Once I stood in Emerson's room, and I saw the last
words that he wrote, the pad on which he wrote them, and the pen with
which they were written, and the words are these: "The Book is a
sure friend, always ready at your first leisure, opens to the very
page you desire, and shuts at your first fatigue."

As the bookman grows old and many of his pleasures cease, he thanks
God for one which grows the richer for the years and never fades. He
pities those who have not this retreat from the weariness of life,
nor this quiet place in which to sit when the sun is setting. By the
mellow wisdom of his books and the immortal hope of the greater
writers, he is kept from peevishness and discontent, from bigotry and
despair. Certain books grow dearer to him with the years, so that
their pages are worn brown and thin, and he hopes with a Birmingham
book-lover, Dr. Showell Rogers, whose dream has been fulfilled, that
Heaven, having a place for each true man, may be "a bookman's
paradise, where early black-lettered tomes, rare and stately, first
folios of Shakespeare, tall copies of the right editions of the
Elzevirs, and vellumed volumes galore, uncropped, uncut, and unfoxed
in all their verdant pureness, fresh as when they left the presses of
the Aldi, are to be had for the asking." Between this man at least
and his books there will be no separation this side the grave, but
his gratitude to them and his devotion will ever grow and their
ministries to him be ever dearer, especially that Book of books which
has been the surest guide of the human soul. "While I live," says