ay come when I shall no longer be able to
enjoy the uses of these dear old friends with the old-time enthusiasm,
I should still regard them with that tender reverence which in his age
the poet Longfellow expressed when looking round upon his beloved books:

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight
Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield--
The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white;
So I behold these books upon their shelf
My ornaments and arms of other days;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways
In which I walked, now clouded and confused.

If my friend O'Rell's theory be true, how barren would be Age! Lord
Bacon tells us in his "Apothegms" that Alonzo of Aragon was wont to
say, in commendation of Age, that Age appeared to be best in four
things: Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to
trust; and old authors to read. Sir John Davys recalls that "a French
writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of companions: Men,
women and books," and my revered and beloved poet-friend, Richard Henry
Stoddard, has wrought out this sentiment in a poem of exceeding beauty,
of which the concluding stanza runs in this wise:

Better than men and women, friend,
That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain,
Are the books their cunning hands have penned,
For they depart, but the books remain;
Through these they speak to us what was best
In the loving heart and the noble mind;
All their royal souls possessed
Belongs forever to all mankind!
When others fail him, the wise man looks
To the sure companionship of books.

If ever, O honest friends of mine, I should forget you or weary of your
companionship, whither would depart the memories and the associations
with which each of you is hallowed! Would ever the modest flowers of
spring-time, budding in pathways where I no longer wander, recall to my
failing sight the vernal beauty of the Puritan maid, Captivity? In
what reverie of summer-time should I feel again the graciousness of thy
presence, Yseult?

And Fanchonette--sweet, timid little Fanchonette! would ever