“ All men are afraid of books, who have not handled them from infancy. ”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). copy citation
Author | Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. |
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Source | The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
Topic | books |
Date | 1858 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | |
Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/751/751-h/751-h.htm |
Context
“(always, other things being equal) for the man who inherits family traditions and the cumulative humanities of at least four or five generations. Above all things, as a child, he should have tumbled about in a library. All men are afraid of books, who have not handled them from infancy. Do you suppose our dear didascalos over there ever read Poli Synopsis, or consulted Castelli Lexicon, while he was growing up to their stature? Not he; but virtue passed through the hem of their parchment and leather garments whenever he touched them, as the precious drugs sweated through the bat’s handle in the Arabian story.”
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