une, I found I was a small boy again reading my small
wonder-book, and the old stone divided the honors of a tender interest
with the red granite shaft set above the grave of the woman of finest
genius England has to her name, George Eliot, which is a few minutes'
walk away.

There were a few books in our small cottage of three rooms, but these
were among the best in the English tongue, the Bible and Bunyan and
Goldsmith, with a few more I do not now remember, but these I read as
you drink at clear, cool springs. Then a man came along from over the
moors and brought Burns with him, and another brought Shakespeare. My
father borrowed these for me to read, and the world grew great and wide
and wonderful to me as I read them, while to this day I notice that I
care more for the history of England in Shakespeare's grand dramas than
I do for Hume and Froude and Macaulay, so great was the spell cast again
over my life. Then an old farmer came along with a couple of volumes,
and said, "Here, lad, I notice thou is fond o' good reading, and I think
thou will like to read these books." It was Irving's Sketch-Book and it
was Christmas day, and I was away from home then and lonesome, wanting
to be with my folks and to sit by the old fireside, but the magic wand
of Irving touched me and stole away all my tears. Still, as you may see,
this was only hand-to-mouth reading. I had never seen a public library,
but had heard of them and longed to find one somewhere, sometime, as, I
fear, I never had longed to find my way into heaven. Well, I heard of
one that had been started only three miles away, and so I went with my
heart in my mouth to see what I could find to read in the wonderful new
library. I can see the books now standing on the shelves in the small
upper room, and recall the old delight of my youth. I go into the Astor
Library now and then when I have time, rich in the lore of all the ages,
and have wandered through some of the finest in the world beside, but
that small room in Addingham is still the story of one's first love.
There were some 200 volumes, but here I was with all this wealth of
books at my command at about the cost of three days' work in a year. I
cannot tell you the story of that first grand passion and the delight of
it. I had found a library. I like that honest Dutchman, a fine old
scholar says, who told me that one page of Plato did him more good than
ten bumpers of wine, and that was the way I felt about those