第61章

How the mood for a book sometimes rushes upon one, either one knows not why, or in consequence, perhaps, of some most trifling suggestion.Yesterday I was walking at dusk.I came to an old farmhouse; at the garden gate a vehicle stood waiting, and I saw it was our doctor's gig.Having passed, I turned to look back.There was a faint afterglow in the sky beyond the chimneys; a light twinkled at one of the upper windows.I said to myself, "Tristram Shandy," and hurried home to plunge into a book which I have not opened for I dare say twenty years.

Not long ago, I awoke one morning and suddenly thought of the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller; and so impatient did Ibecome to open the book that I got up an hour earlier than usual.Abook worth rising for; much better worth than old Burton, who pulled Johnson out of bed.A book which helps one to forget the idle or venomous chatter going on everywhere about us, and bids us cherish hope for a world "which has such people in't."These volumes I had at hand; I could reach them down from my shelves at the moment when I hungered for them.But it often happens that the book which comes into my mind could only be procured with trouble and delay; I breathe regretfully and put aside the thought.

Ah! the books that one will never read again.They gave delight, perchance something more; they left a perfume in the memory; but life has passed them by for ever.I have but to muse, and one after another they rise before me.Books gentle and quieting; books noble and inspiring; books that well merit to be pored over, not once but many a time.Yet never again shall I hold them in my hand; the years fly too quickly, and are too few.Perhaps when I lie waiting for the end, some of those lost books will come into my wandering thoughts, and I shall remember them as friends to whom I owed a kindness--friends passed upon the way.What regret in that last farewell!