November — My Books. 9 



them disappeared in the general ruin. All that remained 

 to me of my material implements of culture were a few 

 old books ; but these, as it fortunately happened, were 

 my dearest friends and favorites. Better editions may 

 have been printed by the enterprise of contemporary 

 publishers, but to my feeling no copy of a beloved 

 author, however fair, however faultless, can ever be 

 worth the copy that has long been my companion. 

 Books increase in value for their possessor as they 

 diminish in salableness at an auction of his effects. 

 The remnant of what had been the best private library 

 in the neighborhood I lived in had for me a precious- 

 ness far beyond that of the finest editions that were 

 once its glory in the eyes of others. Especially had I 

 loved the true immortal poets. From them, and from 

 them only, can we win that wondrous lore which en- 

 chants for us the whole material world, and admits us 

 into a fairy-land which is not illusory. 



A year of absolute retirement would seem like an 

 interminable desert to any one without an occupation, 

 but I knew from the experience of other years that 

 when once we are absorbed in pursuits that are at 

 the same time very interesting and very laborious, the 

 months melt away like a treasure in the hands of a 

 spendthrift. It was only, indeed, by the most method- 

 ical arrangement of our time that we could possibly 

 accomplish the tasks we had voluntarily undertaken. 

 Besides our reading, which, for Alexis, was the most im- 

 portant of my plans, I proposed to collect an herbarium, 

 to include the entire flora of my woodland property,- and 



