Let Neither Tear Nor Reproach Besmirch This

Let Neither Tear Nor Reproach Besmirch This Declaration Of The Mastery Of God Who, With Magnificent Irony, Granted Me Both The Gift Of Books And The Night.

Thus My Life Is A Flight And I Lose Everything And Everything Belongs To Oblivion, Or To Him.

If I Were Asked To Name The Chief Event In My Life, I Should Say My Father's Library.

What I'm Really Concerned About Is Reaching One Person. And That Person May Be Myself For All I Know.

I Know Of A Wild Region Whose Librarians Repudiate The Vain Superstitious Custom Of Seeking Any Sense In Books And Compare It To Looking For Meaning In Dreams Or In The Chaotic Lines Of One's Hands . . . They Admit That The Inventors Of Writing Imitated The Twenty-five Natural Symbols, But They Maintain That This Application Is Accidental And That Books In Themselves Mean Nothing. This Opinion - We Shall See - Is Not Altogether False.