Barrow on the lower shelves, in folio.
Tillotson on the upper, in a little dark platoon of octo-decimos.
Some family silver; a string of wedding and funeral rings; the arms
of the family curiously blazoned; the same in worsted, by a maiden
aunt.
If the man of family has an old place to keep these things in,
furnished with claw-footed chairs and black mahogany tables, and
tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright cabinets, his outfit
is complete.
No, my friends, I go (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. I tell you
he is at home wherever he smells the invigorating fragrance of
Russia leather. No self-made man feels so. One may, it is true,
have all the antecedents I have spoken of, and yet be a boor or a
shabby fellow. One may have none of them, and yet be fit for
councils and courts.
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