COMFORTABLE BOOKS 217 



fuge from business and the newspapers in his 

 pipe and &quot;The Virginians.&quot; I have no pipe, 

 but I sit under the curling rings of Jonathan s, 

 and I, too, have my comfortable books, my 

 literary rye-fields. Last summer it was Mal 

 ory s &quot;Morte d Arthur,&quot; whose book I found 

 indeed a comfortable one most comfortable. 

 I read much besides, many short stories of 

 surpassing cleverness and some of real excel 

 lence, but as I look back upon my summer s 

 literary experience, all else gives place to the 

 long pageant of Malory s story, gorgeous or 

 tender or gay, seen like a fair vision against 

 the dim background of an old New England 

 apple orchard. Surely, though the literature 

 of our library tables may sometimes weary 

 me, it shall never enslave me. 



But they must be read, these &quot;comfortable&quot; 

 books, in the proper fashion, not hastily, 

 nor cursorily, nor with any desire to &quot;get 

 on&quot; in them. They must lie at our hand to be 

 taken up in moments of leisure, the slowly 

 shifting bookmark there should always be 

 a bookmark recording our half -reluctant 

 progress. (I remember with what dismay I 

 found myself arrived at the fourth and last 



