To A Book Collector, You See, The

Each Morning The Day Lies Like A Fresh Shirt On Our Bed; This Incomparably Fine, Incomparably Tightly Woven Tissue Of Pure Prediction Fits Us Perfectly. The Happiness Of The Next Twenty-four Hours Depends On Our Ability, On Waking, To Pick It Up.

He Who Asks Fortune-tellers The Future Unwittingly Forfeits An Inner Intimation Of Coming Events That Is A Thousand Times More Exact Than Anything They May Say. He Is Impelled By Inertia, Rather Than Curiosity, And Nothing Is More Unlike The Submissive Apathy With Which He Hears His Fate Revealed Than The Alert Dexterity With Which The Man Of Courage Lays Hands On The Future.

The Good Tidings Which The Historian Of The Past Brings With Throbbing Heart May Be Lost In A Void The Very Moment He Opens His Mouth.

As Hegel Put It, Only When It Is Dark Does The Owl Of Minerva Begin Its Flight. Only In Extinction Is The Collector Comprehend.

Like Ultraviolet Rays Memory Shows To Each Man In The Book Of Life A Script That Invisibly And Prophetically Glosses The Text.