Saving man's time and strength, books also increase his manhood and multiply his brain forces. With them, a man of fourscore years ends his career wiser than, without them, he could have been, though he had lived and wrought through ten thousand summers and winters. This is what Emerson means when he says, "Give me a book, health and a June day, and I will make the pomp of kings ridiculous." When the Athenian youth, beloved of the gods, went forth upon his journey, one friend brought him a wondrous armor, proof against arrows; another brought a horse of marvelous swiftness; another brought a bow of great size and strength. Thus armed, the youth conquered his enemies. But when books have armed man against his foes, they go on to change his enemies into friends; they shield him against ignorance; they free him from superstition; they clothe him with gratitude. Thank God for books, cheering our solitude, soothing our sickness, refining our passions, out of defeat leading us to victory! That youth can scarcely fail of character, happiness and success who, day by day, goes to school to sages and seers; who by night hears Dante and Milton discourse upon Paradise; who has for his mentors in office and counting-room some Franklin or Solomon. Experience, supplemented by books, teaches youth more in one year than experience alone will teach him in twenty. Books also preserve for us the spirit of earth's great ones, just as the cellar of the king holds wines growing more precious with the lapse of years. From time to time God sends to earth some man with a supreme gift called genius. Passing through our life and world, he sees wondrous sights not beholden of our eyes, hears melodies too fine for our dulled hearing. What other men behold as bits of coal, his genius transmutes into diamonds. In the darkness he sleeps to see some "Midsummer Night's Dream;" in the day he wakens to behold the tragedy or comedy in his friend's career. While he muses, the fires of inspiration burn within him. When the time comes, the inner forces burst out in book or song or poem, just as the tulip bulb when April comes publishes its heart of fire and gold. The book he writes is the choicest wine in life, "the gold made fine in the fires of his genius." Seldom come these elect ones, just as the bush burned only once during Moses' many years in the desert. Many foot hills must be united to produce one vast mountain. Only one range of Rockies is needed to support many states. One Mississippi also can drain a continent.