How lovely literacy is and how beautiful the blessing to be able to read. Much like Lewis, many of us bibliophiles can relate to the feelings of delight and wonder at the experience of books. Not only in our reading, but also in the acquiring of the fresh volume text, novel, encyclopedia, or what-have-you - the joys of the stories awaiting inside are all too sensational to withstand, sometimes, but of the books themselves, there is a beauty beyond words, not only which they hold, but which they are. The paper, the ink, the glue, and the binding, a marvel to behold, and to be held, one barely noticed by those, too barbarous to believe in the loveliness of such simple things.

Such savages cannot acknowledge the glory of common objects like books, neither can they appreciate their rareness in history, nor grasp of their power to deify or to destroy and from their ignorance comes a lack of respect for reading, for readers, and for the ability to read itself. Even if they themselves are literate, even a little, they will not love learning, and will be unable to understand its importance or its potential. Such as these disrespects the bodies of books, tossing them about, or leaving them on the floor, dog-earring their pages and splaying their spines, placing them open-face down, breaking them and hastening, their ruin.

We, however, are not so barbarian in our understanding, so that we should be unable to recognize the glories of the writing and art department, and all of the art of book binding itself. Rather, loving the bodies of books, along with their inner contents, we honor them with care and compassion, and in so doing honor also their authors, printers, editors, and publishers.

For lovers of literature, the protection of texts is our solemn obligation, with the condition of our copies, illustrating the inner content we share for their physical welfare. As such, we utilize the bookmark at all times, and exercise caution in our handling of every book we come across, treating it, whether our own or another’s, as if it were the very last one on earth.

Furthermore, our duty, as literati, is to further this understanding and outlook on life, so that we may insure future generations will not be deprived of literature, but should in all hope have greater knowledge and opportunity to learn than we ever possessed in our present culture or prior to our time. We owe society and our successive descendants, a debt, demanding strict diligence in reading and steady discipline, in teaching, that which we have learned in our books.

Ours is the responsibility to guard the books against abuse, but principally by spreading their information, sowing the seeds of knowledge that they may grow to a harvest of bountiful wisdom. We must be readers, but we must also become writers ourselves and printers, editors, publishers, And bookbinders. For in teaching others to love learning, as we do, we will best protect against the possibility of an age of ignorance, where books are burned, schools are banned, and opportunity is a thing of the past.

Question Everything

templecrier.com/library