se saying:
"A dog chasing game does not mind the fleas which he _barks_ at while he
lies in his kennel." "The labour we delight in physics pain."

Again, in all great works of fiction the purpose is, while not
o'erstepping the modesty of nature, to show virtue her own feature, and
scorn her own image. Who can count the admirers of Scott and Dickens
that have learned from their portraitures moral lessons so well as never
to forget them;--to loathe the mean and aspire to the noble;--to shun
evil and cleave to good--in spite of temptations to one and from the
other?

But, after all, our book-treasury will only now and then bestow its best
gifts on those who resort to it merely for pleasure. To most visitors of
this class it must remain no more than a telescope to a child, something
to play with rather than to look through. Accordingly, they no more
exhaust the capacities of books than the Irish made full proof of
potatoes while they cooked only the balls and left the tubers to rot in
the ground.

But the Free Library will be resorted to for _instruction_. Few will
always hold the amusing button so close to their eyes that it will hide
the instructive sun. From the start it will be superior to every private
collection in the city, and its superiority will increase. Accordingly,
professional men will come thither to inform themselves either each in
his own specialty, or sallying on excursions from their home fields.
Besides the time-honoured and traditional three professions, editors and
teachers will be there, learning how to answer the hard questions of
pupils and subscribers. Each of these professionals will more or less
make known what he learns. The bibliothecal odor will be as plain upon
them as a certain other odor is upon those who emerge from the
smoking-car or saloon. "Dispensing native perfumes they whisper whence
they stole those balmy spoils." But the bibliothecal leaven will leaven
the community more _directly_.

God has set geniuses as great lights in the firmament to give light and
delight as well on the earth. The circuit of such suns is unto the ends
of the heaven, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. More and
more pervasive is their influence, like the spring-time, which leaves no
corner of the land untouched. In a library every man will recognize some
supreme author transfiguring whatever he touches,--crystallizing into
diamonds by wit, turning to gold with poetry, and glorifying as with
t