ngement, to be good, must be troublesome. Subjects are
traversed by promiscuous assemblages of 'works;' both by sizes; and
all by languages. On the whole I conclude as follows. The mechanical
perfection of a library requires an alphabetical catalogue of the whole.
But under the shadow of this catalogue let there be as many living
integers as possible, for every well-chosen subdivision is a living
integer and makes the library more and more an organism. Among others I
plead for individual men as centres of subdivision: not only for Homer,
Dante, Shakespeare, but for Johnson, Scott, and Burns, and whatever
represents a large and manifold humanity.

The question of economy, for those who from necessity or choice
consider it at all, is a very serious one. It has been a fashion to make
bookcases highly ornamental. Now books want for and in themselves no
ornament at all. They are themselves the ornament. Just as shops need no
ornament, and no one will think of or care for any structural ornament,
if the goods are tastefully disposed in the shop-window. The man who
looks for society in his books will readily perceive that, in proportion
as the face of his bookcase is occupied by ornament, he loses that
society; and conversely, the more that face approximates to a sheet of
bookbacks, the more of that society he will enjoy. And so it is that
three great advantages come hand in hand, and, as will be seen, reach
their maximum together: the sociability of books, minimum of cost in
providing for them, and ease of access to them.

In order to attain these advantages, two conditions are fundamental.
First, the shelves must, as a rule, be fixed; secondly, the cases, or a
large part of them, should have their side against the wall, and thus,
projecting into the room for a convenient distance, they should be of
twice the depth needed for a single line of books, and should hold two
lines, one facing each way. Twelve inches is a fair and liberal depth
for two rows of octavos. The books are thus thrown into stalls, but
stalls after the manner of a stable, or of an old-fashioned coffee-room;
not after the manner of a bookstall, which, as times go, is no stall
at all, but simply a flat space made by putting some scraps of boarding
together, and covering them with books.

This method of dividing the longitudinal space by projections at right
angles to it, if not very frequently used, has long been known. A great
example of it is to be found