If books are only dead things, if they do not speak to one, or answer
one when one speaks to them, if they have nothing to do with the common
things that we are busy with--with the sky over our head, and the ground
under our feet--I think that they had better stay on the shelves....
What I regret is that many of us spend much of our time in reading
books, and in talking of books--that we like nothing worse than the
reputation of being indifferent to them, and nothing better than the
reputation of knowing a great deal about them; and yet that, after all,
we do not know them in the same way as we know our fellow-creatures, not
even in the way we know any dumb animal that we walk with or play with.
This is a great misfortune, in my opinion, and one which I am afraid is
increasing as what we call 'the taste for literature' increases. It is
very pleasant to think in what distant parts of the earth it [the
English language] is spoken, and that in all those parts these books
which are friends of ours are acknowledged as friends. And there is a
living and productive power in them. They have produced an American
literature, which is coming back to instruct us. They will produce by
and by an Australian literature, which will be worth all the gold that
is sent to us from the diggings.--F. D. MAURICE. _The Friendship of
Books._