All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the
books of all time. Mark this distinction--it is not one of quality only.
It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that
does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books for the hour,
and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all
time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther.
The good book of the hour, then,--I do not speak of the bad ones--is
simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot
otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you
what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's
present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured
and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in
the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in
the events of passing history;--all these books of the hour, multiplying
among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar
characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be
entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make
no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use, if we allow
them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are
not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print.... A
book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it
merely, but to preserve it. The author has something to say which he
perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he
knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say
it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly,
at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or
group of things, manifest to him;--this the piece of true knowledge, or
sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize.
He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could;
saying, 'This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and
slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is
not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your
memory.' That is his 'writing'; it is, in his small human way, and with
whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or
scripture. That is a 'Book'....
Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest
men:--by great leaders, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These are
all at your choice; and life is short. You have heard as much before;
yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and its
possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read
that--that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go
and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk
with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy
consciousness of your own claims to respect that you jostle with the
common crowd for _entrée_ here, and audience there, when all the while
this eternal court is open to you, with its society wide as the world,
multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every place
and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take
fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into
it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy
of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly
tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the
society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that
are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the
Dead.--J. RUSKIN. _Sesame and Lilies._