THAT THE TREASURE OF WISDOM LIETH ESPECIALLY IN BOOKS

HE desirable treasure of wisdom and knowledge, which all men covet by an instinct of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the world. In respect to this precious stones are cheap; in comparison with this silver is clay and purified gold but paltry sand. In its splendour both sun and moon darken to the sight; in its admirable sweetness honey and manna grow bitter to the taste.

O excellency of wisdom that wasteth not with time! ever-flourishing virtue that purgeth all venom from its possessor! O heavenly gift of the Divine bounty descending from the Father of Lights, to bear up the rational spirit, even unto heaven! Thou art the heavenly food of the mind, and they who eat thee shall hunger again, and they who drink thee shall thirst again. Thou art a melody bringing joy to the soul of him that is weary, and he who hears thee shall in no wise be confounded. Thou art the mistress of morals, and the rule which he that observeth shall do no sin. By thee kings reign and princes decree justice. By thee, laying aside the rudeness of nature, polishing their thought and speech, and plucking out by the roots the thorns of vice, they attain the heights of honour, becoming fathers of their country and companions of princes, who, but for thee, had beaten their spears into pruning-hooks and ploughshares, or, haply, with the prodigal son had now been feeding swine.

Where is thy hiding place, O choicest treasure, and where shall thirsting souls discover thee? In books assuredly hast thou set up thy tabernacle, for there the Most High, the Light of Lights, the Book of Life, hath established thee. There every one that asketh for thee receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to those that knock with importunity it is quickly opened. In these the cherubim spread forth their wings, that the mind of the student may mount aloft and view everything from pole to pole, from the rising to the setting sun, from the north and from the sea. In these the Most High incomprehensible God Himself is apprehensibly contained and worshipped. In these appears the nature of things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal. In these are to be seen the laws by which every state is governed; the ranks of the heavenly hierarchy are set in their order, and dominions of demons are described, such as neither the ideas of Plato transcend nor the chair of Crato ever explained.

In books I behold the dead alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books the affairs of war are displayed; from books proceed the rightful laws of peace. All things decay and waste away in time, and those whom Saturn begets he ceaseth not to devour. Oblivion would overwhelm all the glory of the world, had not God provided for mortals the remedies of books. Alexander, the subduer of the earth; Julius, the invader of Rome and of the world, who, first in art and first in arms, took on himself the empire in his single person; the faithful Fabricius and the severe Cato would to-day be out of memory, had they lacked the support of books. Towers are razed to the earth, states are overthrown, triumphal arches have mouldered into dust, and neither Pope nor King will find aught by which the warrant of eternity is conferred more easily than by books. A book once made renders its author this return, that, so long as it shall endure, the author remaining athanatos, or immortal, cannot perish, as witness Ptolemy in the Prologue of his Almagest. That man, he saith, is not dead who hath given life to knowledge.

Who then will limit by aught of lesser value the price of the infinite treasure of books, from which the wise scribe brings forth things both new and old? Truth, surpassing all things, excelling the king and wine and women, and the honouring of which above friends ranks as a kind of holiness (for it is the way without a winding and the life without an ending, and to it the holy Boethius assigned a triple nature, to wit, in thought, in writing, and in speech), seems to dwell more usefully and to bear fruit to richer advantage in books. For the virtue of the voice dies with the sound, and truth lying in the mind is hidden wisdom and unseen treasure. But the truth that shines in books seeks to manifest itself to every impressible sense; to the sight when it is read, to the hearing when it is heard, and moreover commendeth itself in some sort to the touch, while suffering itself to be transcribed, collated, corrected, and preserved.

Though the undisclosed truth of the mind may be the possession of a noble soul, yet, because it lacks a companion, it cannot be called delightful, for neither sight nor hearing judge of it. And the truth of speech is manifested unto the hearing alone, avoiding the sight which showeth us more of the various differences of things, and, being attached to a most subtle motion, hath its beginning and its ending as in an instant. But the written truth of a book, not fleeting but lasting, discloses itself plainly to the sight, and, passing through the open portals of the eyes, the antechamber of perception and the halls of the imagination, enters the chamber of the understanding and reclines upon the couch of memory, where it engenders the eternal truth of the mind.

Finally, consider what delightful teaching there is in books. How easily, how secretly, how safely in books do we make bare without shame the poverty of human ignorance! These are the masters that instruct us without rod and ferrule, without words of anger, without payment of money or clothing. Should ye approach them, they are not asleep; if ye seek to question them, they do not hide themselves; should ye err, they do not chide; and should ye show ignorance, they know not how to laugh. O Books! ye alone are free and liberal. Ye give to all that seek, and set free all that serve you zealously. By what thousands of things are ye figuratively recommended to learned men in the Scripture given us by Divine inspiration! Ye are the mines of deepest wisdom unto which the wise man, in the Second of Proverbs, sends his son thence to dig treasure. Ye are the wells of living water which father Abraham digged at first, Isaac cleared, and which the Philistines strove to fill again (the Twenty-sixth of Genesis). Ye are, in truth, most delightful ears filled with corn, to be rubbed by apostolic hands alone, that the sweetest food may drop forth for hungering souls (the Twelfth of Matthew). Ye are the golden pots in which is stored the manna; rocks that flow with honey, yea, also honeycombs; udders streaming with the milk of life; storehouses ever full. Ye are the tree of life and the fourfold stream of Paradise, by which the human mind is fed and the arid intellect is moistened and watered. Ye are the ark of Noah and the ladder of Jacob, and the troughs in which the young of those that look therein are changed in colour. Ye are the stones of testimony, the pitchers that hold the lamps of Gideon, and the scrip of David, from which the smooth stones are taken for slaying Goliath. Ye are the golden vessels of the temple, and the arms of the soldiery of the Church, by which the darts of the most Wicked One are quenched. Ye are fruitful olives, vineyards of Engadi, fig-trees that know not barrenness, burning lamps ever to be held forth in the hand; yea, all the best of Scripture could we adapt to books did it please us to speak in figures.