Books are the best type of the influence of the past.... The theory of
books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world
around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind,
and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him,
truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him,
immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry.
It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go.
It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion
to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long
does it sing.--R. W. EMERSON. _The American Scholar._