draws them
down, as if they were little children; how tenderly he handles them! He
peers at the title-page, at the text, or the notes, with the nicety of a
bird examining a flower. He studies the binding: the leather,--russia,
English calf, morocco; the lettering, the gilding, the edging, the hinge
of the cover! He opens it and shuts it, he holds it off and brings it
nigh. It suffuses his whole body with book magnetism. He walks up and
down in a maze at the mysterious allotments of Providence, that gives so
much money to men who spend it upon their appetites, and so little to
men who would spend it in benevolence or upon their refined tastes! It
is astonishing, too, how one's necessities multiply in the presence of
the supply. One never knows how many things it is impossible to do
without till he goes to Windle's or Smith's house-furnishing stores.
One is surprised to perceive, at some bazaar or fancy and variety store,
how many _conveniences_ he needs. He is satisfied that his life must
have been utterly inconvenient aforetime. And thus too one is inwardly
convicted, at Appletons', of having lived for years without books which
he is now satisfied that one cannot live without!

Then, too, the subtle process by which the man convinces himself that he
can afford to buy. No subtle manager or broker ever saw through a maze
of financial embarrassments half so quick as a poor book-buyer sees his
way clear to pay for what he _must_ have. He promises himself marvels of
retrenchment; he will eat less, or less costly viands, that he may buy
more food for the mind. He will take an extra patch, and go on with his
raiment another year, and buy books instead of coats. Yea, he will write
books, that he may buy books! The appetite is insatiable. Feeding does
not satisfy it. It rages by the fuel which is put upon it. As a hungry
man eats first and pays afterward, so the book-buyer purchases and then
works at the debt afterward. This paying is rather medicinal. It cures
for a time. But a relapse takes place. The same longing, the same
promises of self-denial. He promises himself to put spurs on both heels
of his industry; and then, besides all this, he will _somehow_ get along
when the time for payment comes! Ah! this SOMEHOW! That word is as big
as a whole world, and is stuffed with all the vagaries and fantasies
that Fancy ever bred upon Hope. And yet, is there not some comfort in
buying books, _to be_ paid for? We have heard of a sot