Sitting, last winter, among my books, and walled round with all the
comfort and protection which they and my fireside could afford me; to
wit, a table of high-piled books at my back, my writing-desk on one side
of me, some shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm fire at my
feet; I began to consider how I loved the authors of those books: how I
loved them, too, not only for the imaginative pleasures they afforded
me, but for their making me love the very books themselves, and delight
to be in contact with them. I looked sideways at my Spenser, my
Theocritus, and my _Arabian Nights_; then above them at my Italian
poets; then behind me at my Dryden and Pope, my romances, and my
Boccaccio; then on my left side at my Chaucer, who lay on a
writing-desk; and thought how natural it was in C[harles] L[amb] to give
a kiss to an old folio, as I once saw him do to Chapman's _Homer_.... I
entrench myself in my books equally against sorrow and the weather. If
the wind comes through a passage I look about to see how I can fence it
off by a better disposition of my movables; if a melancholy thought is
importunate, I give another glance at my Spenser. When I speak of being
in contact with my books, I mean it literally. I like to lean my head
against them.--J. H. LEIGH HUNT. _My Books._