The feeling that books are real friends is constantly present to all who love reading. "I have friends," said Petrarch, "whose society is extremely agreeable to me, they are of all ages, and of every country. They have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them, for they are always at my service, and I admit them to my company, and dismiss them from it, whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to deport myself, and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short, the various avenues of all the arts and sciences and upon their information I may safely rely in all emergencies. In return for all their services, they only ask me to accommodate them with a convenient chamber in some corner of my humble habitation where they may repose in peace; for these friends are more delighted by the tranquility of retirement than with the tumults of society." --_Petrarch._ 134 BOOKS. Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we are participators in their thoughts; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe. 135 BOOK-LENDING. Those who have collected books, and whose good nature has prompted them to accommodate their friends with them, will feel the sting of the answer made by a man of wit to one who lamented the difficulty which he found in persuading his friends to return the volumes that he had lent them: "Sir," said he, "your acquaintances find, I suppose, that it is much more easy to retain the books themselves, than what is contained in them." 136 The following gives a pathetic description of a studious boy lingering at a bookstall: I saw a boy with eager eye Open a book upon a stall, And read, as he'd devour it all; Which, when the stall-man did espy, Soon to the boy I heard him call, "You, sir, you never buy a book, Therefore in one you shall not look." The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh He wished he never had been taught to read, Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. --_Mary Lamb._ 137