音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.44]Passage 35. Owning Books

[00:04.82]We enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed.

[00:10.39]A borrowed book is like a guest in the house;

[00:14.33]it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality.

[00:19.91]You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof.

[00:26.59]But your own books belong to you;

[00:29.97]you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality.

[00:35.45]Books are for use, not for show;

[00:39.05]you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up,

[00:42.99]or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down.

[00:47.48]A good reason for marking favorite passages in books

[00:52.08]is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings,

[00:58.42]to refer to them quickly, and then in later years,

[01:02.47]it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail.

[01:06.85]Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth;

[01:10.79]the instinct of private property can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils.

[01:18.23]The best of mural decorations is books;

[01:22.05]they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper,

[01:27.30]they are more attractive in design,

[01:29.93]and they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities,

[01:34.86]so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight,

[01:38.58]you are surrounded with intimate friends.

[01:41.53]The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing.

[01:47.77]Books are of the people, by the people, for the people.

[01:52.80]Literature is the immortal part of history;

[01:56.85]it is the best and most enduring part of personality.

[02:00.90]Book-friends have this advantage over living friends;

[02:05.60]you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it.

[02:12.39]The great dead are beyond our physical reach,

[02:16.10]and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible.

[02:20.04]But in a private library,

[02:22.23]you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens.

[02:30.44]And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best.

[02:36.45]They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you,

[02:42.47]to make a favorable impression.

[02:44.77]You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor;

[02:49.36]only instead of seeing them masked,

[02:52.31]you look into their innermost heart of heart.