介绍:
A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or suffering. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting us in age.
There is an old proverb, “Love me, love my dog.” But there is more wisdom in this, “Love me, love my book.” The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them.
A good book is often the best treasure of life, treasuring the best that life could think out, for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words and golden thoughts, which become our constant companions and comforters.
Books are the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page.
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see as if they were really alive. We sympathize with them, enjoy ourselves with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
