So of these you may well affirm Non libri sed liberi; children now,
adopted into the circle, they shall be trafficked in never again.

There is one exception which has sadly to be made -- one class of men,
of whom I would fain, if possible, have avoided mention, who are
strangers to any such scruples. These be Executors -- a word to be
strongly accented on the penultimate; for, indeed, they are the common
headsmen of collections, and most of all do whet their bloody edge for
harmless books. Hoary, famous old collections, budding young
collections, fair virgin collections of a single author -- all go down
before the executor's remorseless axe. He careth not and he spareth
not. ``The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy,'' and it
is chiefly by the hand of the executor that she doth love to scatter
it. May oblivion be his portion for ever!

Of a truth, the foes of the book-lover are not few. One of the most
insidious, because he cometh at first in friendly, helpful guise, is
the bookbinder. Not in that he bindeth books -- for the fair binding
is the final crown and flower of painful achievement -- but because he
bindeth not: because the weary weeks lapse by and turn to months, and
the months to years, and still the binder bindeth not: and the heart
grows sick with hope deferred. Each morn the maiden binds her hair,
each spring the honeysuckle binds the cottage-porch, each autumn the
harvester binds his sheaves, each winter the iron frost binds lake and
stream, and still the bookbinder he bindeth not. Then a secret voice
whispereth: ``Arise, be a man, and slay him! Take him grossly, full of
bread, with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May; At gaming,
swearing, or about some act That hath no relish of salvation in it!''
But when the deed is done, and the floor strewn with fragments of
binder -- still the books remain unbound. You have made all that