Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the lottery! What is
that to the opening a box of books! The joy upon lifting up the cover
must be something like what we shall feel when Peter the Porter opens
the door upstairs, and says, Please to walk in, sir. That I shall never
be paid for my labour according to the current value of time and labour,
is tolerably certain; but if any one should offer me £10,000 to forgo
that labour, I should bid him and his money go to the devil, for twice
the sum could not purchase me half the enjoyment. It will be a great
delight to me in the next world, to take a fly and visit these old
worthies, who are my only society here, and to tell them what excellent
company I found them here at the lakes of Cumberland, two centuries
after they had been dead and turned to dust. In plain truth, I exist
more among the dead than the living, and think more about them, and,
perhaps, feel more about them.--R. SOUTHEY (Letter to S. T. Coleridge).