,
And stir the blood of indolence to bubble in the veins:
Inheritors of mighty things, who own a lineage high,
We feel within us budding wings that long to reach the sky:
To rise above the commonplace, and through the cloud to soar,
And join the loftier company of grander souls of yore.
THE SPECTATOR.

CHAPTER 25.

HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY.[3]

SOME THOUGHTS ON CLASSIFICATION.

_By Librarian F. M. Crunden._

Classification is vexation,
Shelf-numbering is as bad;
The rule of D
Doth puzzle me;
Mnemonics drives me mad.

_Air--The Lord Chancellor's Song._

When first I became a librarian,
Says I to myself, says I,
I'll learn all their systems as fast as I can,
Says I to myself, says I;
The Cutter, the Dewey, the Schwartz, and the Poole,
The alphabet, numeral, mnemonic rule,
The old, and the new, and the eclectic school,
Says I to myself, says I.

Class-numbers, shelf-numbers, book-numbers, too,
Says I to myself, says I,
I'll study them all, and I'll learn them clear thro',
Says I to myself, says I;
I'll find what is good, and what's better and best,
And I'll put two or three to a practical test;
And then--if I've time--I'll take a short rest,
Says I to myself, says I.

But art it is long and time it doth fly,
Says I to myself, says I,
And three or four years have already passed by,
Says I to myself, says I;
And yet on those systems I'm not at all clear,
While new combinations forever appear,
To master them all is a life-work, I fear,
Says I to myself, says I.

* * * * *

Classification in a Library in Western New York: Gail Hamilton's
"Woolgathering," under Agriculture.

* * * * *

Book asked for. "An attack philosopher in Paris."

A changed title. A young woman went into a library the other day and
asked for the novel entitled "She combeth not her head," but she finally
concluded to take "He cometh not, she said."

* * * * *

Labor-saving devices. The economical catalogue-maker who thus set down
two titles--

"Mill on the Floss,
do. Political economy."

has a sister who keeps a universal scrap-book into which everything goes,
but which is carefully ind