I know men who say they had as lief read any book in a library copy as
in one from their own shelf. To me that is unintelligible. For one
thing, I know every book of mine by its _scent_, and I have but to put
my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things. My
Gibbon, for example, my well-bound eight-volume Milman edition, which I
have read and read and read again for more than thirty years--never do I
open it but the scent of the noble pages restores to me all the exultant
happiness of that moment when I received it as a prize. Or my
Shakespeare, the great Cambridge Shakespeare--it has an odour which
carries me yet further back in life; for these volumes belonged to my
father, and before I was old enough to read them with understanding, it
was often permitted me, as a treat, to take down one of them from the
bookcase, and reverently to turn the leaves. The volumes smell exactly
as they did in that old time, and what a strange tenderness comes upon
me when I hold one of them in hand. For that reason I do not often read
Shakespeare in this edition.--G. GISSING. _The Private Papers of Henry
Ryecroft._
Of his gentleness,
Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me,
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.