Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1875 — Systematic Book-Buying. [ARTICLE]

Systematic Book-Buying.

“ One cigar a day at ten cents is thirtysix dollars a year; thirty-silt dollars a year is”—we are all familiar with the calculation, and have each been astounded in turn to find how closely we missed being millionaires. If Methuselah didn’tsmoke he must have been a Commodore Vanderbilt before he was half-grown up. Some of these arithmetico-economic curiosities become rather a bore, but the fact remains that to spend, or to save, or to buy, little by little, and as little as you please, but. regularly, counts up to a wonderful total in the end. The churches discovered, not long ago, that “systematic beneficence,” at ten certs a head, was a cure for many chronic financial ills, and everybody knows how “ Peter’s pence” builds grand cathedrals and mounts up to almost millions of dollars. Perhaps most readers don’t stop to think how easily they can get together a library in smaH expenditufes that scarcely count. The average American of culture ways for a library of his own, but he sighs after it too often as a costly luxury that must be a great ways off, unless he gets rich in as much of a hurry as he would like to. But of all things, a library is a matter of small beginnings. The foundations of some of the finest have been laid with a few dollars. If a boy in college, for instance, saves enough pocket-money to invest in one good book a fortnight, or even a month, he comes out with a nice little nucleus of a hundred or half a hundred books, which are pretty sure to grow into something worth having—and he has that much more all hjs life, without feeling the cost. There is much more to be said in favor of systematic book-buying. The sense of ownership is itself a delight. A library is your best piece of furniture. But beyond this, the authorities agree that you can’t get the best out of a book until you own it. Some great men, so the autobiographies say, got their start in education from stolen fruit, taken in sips at a bookstore; and they tell of how Daniel Webster was glued to liis post for a whole day over a book he devoured in front es a bookstall. But we warrant they bought the books for themselves as soon as they could. You may go to the circulating library for your novels, but a book that you mean to have enter into your life—own it. One eminentw’riter lays down the rule: “ Never read abook that you don’t own. Put the book on your shelf and you have your knowledge doubly.” Now, if the reader will stop to think, he will find that this luxury is by no means denied him, though his income be less than the Duke of Bedford’s. There are few who cannot buy the standard books they do or should road. An evening at the theater, a dozen cigars—we don’t presume to suggest economy to the ladies! — costs as much as a book that lasts a lifetime. Anyone of ordinary earnings can place his dollar here once in a while, and it is surprising how soon he will have a library of his own, that is always a delight, and is, moreover, “ introconvertible” into currency if he finds need. And if he will buy regularly he has the start of a library in a single year. Books are the best paying luxury in dull times aud capital investment all the year round. — Literary Newt. —