Under our present enormous accumulation of books, I do affirm, that a
miserable distraction of choice (which is the germ of such a madness)
must be very generally incident to the times; that the symptoms of it
are, in fact, very prevalent; and that one of the chief symptoms is an
enormous 'gluttonism' for books, and for adding language to language;
and in this way it is that literature becomes much more a source of
torment than of pleasure. Nay, I will go further, and will say that of
many, who escape this disease, some owe their privilege simply to the
narrowness of their minds and the contracted range of their sympathies
with literature--which enlarged, they would soon lose it! others, again,
owe it to their situation; as, for instance, in a country town, where,
books being few, a man can use up all his materials, his appetite is
unpalled--and he is grateful for the loan of a MS., &c.: but bring him
up to London--show him the wagon-loads of unused stores--which he is at
liberty to work up--tell him that these even are but a trifle, perhaps,
to what he may find in the libraries of Paris, Dresden, Milan, &c.--of
religious houses--of English noblemen, &c.; and this same man, who came
up to London blithe and happy, will leave it pale and sad. You have
ruined his peace of mind: a subject which he fancied himself capable of
exhausting, he finds to be a labour for centuries: he has no longer the
healthy pleasure of feeling himself master of his materials; he is
degraded into their slave.--T. DE QUINCEY. _Letters to a Young Man._