did not choose
to stop me, for they thought the charms of foreign travel might win me
from my waywardness. To be sure, when they found, on my return, that I
had never left England, they were convinced, if never before, that I was
hopelessly insane; for what American, they very sanely said, "would stay
in that dull, dingy island, among those stupid, cowardly bullies, when
he might live in that lovely Paris, the most interesting and amusing
city in the world, unless he were incomprehensibly mad." And, in truth,
I begin to think I must be mad, when I find myself, like the man shut up
with eleven obstinate jurymen, alone in thinking England a gay,
beautiful, happy country, teeming with every gratification of art or
nature, and inhabited by a manly, generous, and intelligent race; and
that life in Paris, as Americans live it, is a senseless rush after
excitement, where comfort is abandoned for unreal luxury, and society
for vicious boon-companionship. Still I am very willing to admit that my
special mania can be very capitally gratified in Paris, and I am
meditating a little trip there for the purpose.

On my return from England, I was observed to be in great distress about
a certain box that I missed at Liverpool, looked for at Halifax, and all
but lost at East Boston; and when it was found and opened, it only
contained two suits of clothes, when, as Henry said, "I might have
brought forty, the only thing they did have decent in England," and all
the rest--mad, mad! I beg the readers of the Atlantic to listen to my
humble confession of madness, as it culminated in this box.

It is this. The most valuable property a man can possibly have is books;
if he has a hundred or a thousand dollars to spare, he had better at
once put it into books than into any "paying investments," or any
horses, clothes, pictures, or opera-tickets. A life passed among books,
thinking, talking, living only for books, is the most amusing and
improving life; and to make this possible, the acquisition of a library
should be the first object of any one who makes any claim to the
possession of luxuries. (My madness only allows me to make one
exception,--I do acknowledge the solemn duty of laying in a stock of old
Madeira.) But so far I have many fellow-maniacs. The special reason why
I ought always to stop the Lowell cars at Somerville is, that I consider
the reading of books only half the battle. I must have them in choice
bindings, in rare imprints, in