efore, who draws out things new and old from
an infinite treasury of books, will limit their price by any other
thing whatsoever of another kind? Truth, overcoming all things, which
ranks above kings, wine, and women, to honor which above friends
obtains the benefit of sanctity, which is the way that deviates not,
and the life without end, to which the holy Boethius attributes a
threefold existence in the mind, in the voice, and in writing, appears
to abide most usefully and fructify most productively of advantage in
books. For the truth of the voice perishes with the sound. Truth,
latent in the mind, is hidden wisdom and invisible treasure; but the
truth which illuminates books, desires to manifest itself to every
disciplinable sense, to the sight when read, to the hearing when
heard; it, moreover, in a manner commends itself to the touch, when
submitting to be transcribed, collated, corrected, and preserved.
Truth confined to the mind, tho it may be the possession of a noble
soul, while it wants a companion and is not judged of, either by the
sight or the hearing, appears to be inconsistent with pleasure. But
the truth of the voice is open to the hearing only, and latent to the
sight (which shows as many differences of things fixt upon by a most
subtle motion), beginning and ending as it were simultaneously. But
the truth written in a book being not fluctuating, but permanent,
shows itself openly to the sight passing through the spiritual ways of
the eyes, as the porches and halls of common sense and imagination; it
enters the chamber of intellect, reposes itself upon the couch of
memory, and there congenerates the eternal truth of the mind.

Lastly, let us consider how great a commodity of doctrine exists in
books, how easily, how secretly, how safely they expose the nakedness
of human ignorance without putting it to shame. These are the masters
that instruct us without rods and ferulas, without hard words and
anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not
asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing;
if you mistake them, they never grumble, if you are ignorant, they can
not laugh at you.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: From the "Philobiblon," a treatise on books, translated
from the original Latin into English in 1852 by John Englis. The Latin
text and a new translation by Andrew J. West were printed by the
Grolier Club of New York in 1887.]

[Footnote 2: The reference is t