340 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



that was the great day, not of intellect only, but of freedom also. 

 Then was struck the heaviest blow against lawgiving for the mind. 

 The Strombolean Cave was opened; the long-pent winds of opinion 

 set free; and no edict-framing ^Eolus could crib and confine them to 

 their prison house again. 



Yes ! well might Faust incur the charge of demonocracy ! For almost 

 to the letter has his wondrous craft realized in our day the fables of 

 eastern romance. Draw a chair before your library and you have 

 obtained the magical carpet of the Arabian tale; you are transported 

 at a wish farther than to Africa's deserts or India's groves not to 

 other climes only, but to other times also. The speaking page intro- 

 duces you not to 3 r our cotemporaries alone, but to your ancestors 

 through centuries past. The best and the wisest of former generations 

 are summoned to your presence. In books exists the bygone world. 

 By books we come into contact with the mankind of former ages. By 

 books we travel among ancient nations, visit tribes long since extinct, 

 and are made familiar with manners that have yielded centuries ago 

 to the innovating influences of time. Contracted indeed is his mental 

 horizon, limited his sphere of comparison, whose fancy has never lived 

 among the sages and heroes of the olden time, to listen to their teach- 

 ings, and to learn from their achievements. 



As far as the farthest, then, will 1 go in his estimate of the bless- 

 ings which the art of printing has conferred upon man. But such 

 reasoning bears not on the proposal embraced in the Senate bill. It 

 substantiates not at all the propriety of spending half a million, or two, 

 or three half millions of dollars, to rival the bibliomaniacs of Paris 

 and of Munich. 



A Library of Congress we already have; a library of forty or fifty 

 thousand volumes; a library increasing at the rate of one or two 

 thousand volumes a year. The Smithsonian bill before you per- 

 mits, in addition, an expenditure not exceeding $10,000 a year for this 

 object. Say that but half that sum is annually expended by the 

 managers; and still, in some twelve or fifteen years, the two libra- 

 ries will probably number from eighty to a hundred thousand vol- 

 umes. Are there a 100,000 in the world worth reading? I doubt it 

 much. Are there 4,000 volumes published yearly worth buying? 

 I do not believe there are. A small garner suffices to store the 

 wheat; it is the chaff that is bulky and fills up the storehouse. Books 

 are like wealth. An income we must have to live; a certain amount 

 of income to live in comfort. Beyond a certain income the power 

 of wealth to purchase comfort, or even wholesome luxury, ceases 

 altogether. How much more of true comfort is there in a fortune 

 of a million of dollars than in one of fifty or, say, a hundred thou- 

 sand? If more there be, the excess is hardly appreciable; the burden 

 and cares of a millionaire outweigh it tenfold. And so also of these 



