up with presumption, judging of everything as if they were
certain, though they are altogether inexperienced.

You may happen to see some headstrong youth lazily lounging over
his studies, and when the winter's frost is sharp, his nose
running from the nipping cold drips down, nor does he think of
wiping it with his pocket-handkerchief until he has bedewed the
book before him with the ugly moisture. Would that he had before
him no book, but a cobbler's apron! His nails are stuffed with
fetid filth as black as jet, with which he marks any passage that
pleases him. He distributes a multitude of straws, which he
inserts to stick out in different places, so that the halm may
remind him of what his memory cannot retain. These straws,
because the book has no stomach to digest them, and no one takes
them out, first distend the book from its wonted closing, and at
length, being carelessly abandoned to oblivion, go to decay. He
does not fear to eat fruit or cheese over an open book, or
carelessly to carry a cup to and from his mouth; and because he
has no wallet at hand he drops into books the fragments that are
left. Continually chattering, he is never weary of disputing
with his companions, and while he alleges a crowd of senseless
arguments, he wets the book lying half open in his lap with
sputtering showers. Aye, and then hastily folding his arms he
leans forward on the book, and by a brief spell of study invites
a prolonged nap; and then, by way of mending the wrinkles, he
folds back the margin of the leaves, to the no small injury of
the book. Now the rain is over and gone, and the flowers have
appeared in our land. Then the scholar we are speaking of, a
neglecter rather than an inspecter of books, will stuff his
volume with violets, and primroses, with roses and quatrefoil.