The gentle reader enters the library modestly; although he may read the new books that perish, he does not neglect the new books that live, as any one who makes a study of editions will discover; he buys the good works of his own day. The publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare remarked that purchase “best commends a book,” on the strength of which idea he collected the stray plays of the Bard of the Avon. The preface which he wrote for his edition stands forth as the modest advertisement of history; but absurdly condescending as it is, it shows that he foresaw a good, immediate sale; also that he foresaw no farther. The bibliophile enters the library abstractedly, there to muse upon volumes true and tried; and through the ages his reverent, disinterested spirit has builded better than it knew. Indeed, it alone tided books across the Dark Ages; for even when they could not read, some there were who had wit enough to appreciate letters in the abstract. Contrast their attitude with that of the executive Caliph Omar, who burned a great library at Alexandria in 635, declaring that if the books were orthodox (Mohammedan orthodoxy, of course) they were unnecessary; if heterodox, pernicious. That is what it means to have mere practical people around among books. I can conceive of no human relic more touching than a Bible copied with conscientious care during this unsympathetic era. Hence the Book of Kells,[5] which is destitute of one touch of the native artist, however immature, is often spoken of as the most beautiful book in the world. It is supposed to have been executed about the eighth century, since its illuminators had advanced from the mere red capitals adorned with twisted dragons to pictures relating to the text. The symbols of the apostles, especially the bird-like lion of Saint Mark, appear repeatedly on the margins; also, there is a representation of Saint Matthew with hands growing from his shoulders, holding up to the world two copies of “The Book.” Among its illustrations are the Arrest of Jesus, the Agony of the Garden, and, most interesting of all, four angels and a Virgin and Child appear on the old pages, for, crude as these figures are, they may be reckoned among the direct ancestors of those beautiful Holy Families born on Italian and Flemish canvases eight or nine hundred years later, whose sweet faces still sway the world. [Illustration: _A Tribute to the Scribes of the Dark Ages, from One of Their Intellectual Descendants, a Painter of the Moyen Age_]