Let us not forget the genial miraculous force we have known to proceed
from a book. We go musing into the vault of day and night; no
constellation shines, no muse descends, the stars are white points, the
roses brick-coloured dust, the frogs pipe, mice peep, and wagons creak
along the road. We return to the house and take up Plutarch or
Augustine, and read a few sentences or pages, and lo! the air swims with
life; the front of heaven is full of fiery shapes; secrets of
magnanimity and grandeur invite us on every hand; life is made up of
them. Such is our debt to a book.--R. W. EMERSON. _Thoughts on Modern
Literature._