It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best
books. They impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote, and
the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of
Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,--with a
pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of
all _time_ from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of
our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three
hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which
I also had wellnigh thought and said.--R. W. EMERSON. _The American
Scholar._