Show BUILDING A LIBRARY no hoyal boad to one will be ot iteal service As there is no royal road to learning so there is no royal road to that outward and visible sign of it which consists in shelves well filled with books says a writer in kate fields washington the man who wants a library can not get it ready made he may it is true buy a collection of books fairly well fitted to the average mind but it will be about as satisfactory as the ready made coat fitted to the average body it will fail to meet his individual eccentricities tri cities nor can the ideal library be gathered in a hurry nothing is more helpful to the tone and quality of a library than I 1 such degree of poverty as will limit purchases at first to the abao 1 essential in the buying of books as in the buying of pictures real discrimination comes only through actual experience and it is very unfortunate to have too many bought at a low grade of development but on the other hand no man should wait to begin his library until his taste is fully formed or it will lack many books e would gladly have there but which would not run tho gauntlet of his mature judgment A acry common error in buying books isto start with cheap editions under the erroneous suppression Sun that later on they may be replaced by good ones unfortunately una tely the mind of the book lover will not assent to this plan however strong his will the book he takes up to read is invariably the old and shabby one and the other becomes only a splendid bit of decoration to please the eye of the visitor your pet literature always tastes boest from the page on which you originally read it so when you buy a book of which you are likely to become fond it should bein a good enough form to keep at least paper arid print should beso be so respectable that a pew binding will be all the change necessary with the habitual student the sense of location is very highly developed ve in his own library he finds things by their position on the page and can turn at once to any given passage in a familiar author but put him in a room full of strange editions and i this laboriously acquired sixth sense becomes utterly useless the taste for fine bindings is a liking apart from the love of books for what they contain but it is by no means an ignoble tendency and adds vastly to the aesthetic ass effect of a well chosen library the housing and care of books too is a subject not beneath the notice of even the profoundest student |