A Literary Half-Hour. 



By W. Alleyne Ireland. 



Come, and take a choice of all my library ; 

 And so beguile thy sorrow. 



Titus Andronicus. 



|T the present time when life possesses so much 

 that is irksome and irritating and when, day 

 by day, the struggle for existence becomes 

 sharper and more fierce, it is of the highest importance that 

 we should knowhow to relieve our minds from the unhealthy 

 tension of over application to busines?,andtoforget,if only 

 for a short time, the worries and cares of our daily lot. 

 There is no more certain way of achieving this than by 

 cultivating a taste for reading To spend an hour or two 

 each day in the congenial companionship of books — those 

 gentle friends that do not argue or contradiCl — is as 

 potent a charm to drive away sorrow as a draught of 

 magic nepenthe. 



Here is a fragment from BRYAN WALLER PROCTER 

 that expresses in the most delicate way the joys of the 

 book-lover : — 



All round the room my silent servants wait — 



My friends in every season, bright and dim 



Angels and seraphim 



Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low, 



And spirits of the skies all come and go 



Early and late ; 



From the old world's divine and distant date, 



From the sublimer few, 



Down to the poet who but yester eve 



Sang sweet and made us grieve. 



There is a fine suggestiveness in the last line. The grief 

 that the poet inspires us with is the grief that drives out 



