Books  are  so  many  faithful  and  serviceable  friends^^,
gently  teaching  us  everything  through  their  persuasive  and
wise  experience  ;  the  solid  conversation  of  many  authors  who  have
disappeared  is  wholly  made  up  of  amenity,  wit,  humour,  belief,
and  without  the  vivacity,  bitterness,  and  cowardice  which  some-
times make  the  conversation  of  the  living  so  odious  ;  they  are
complaisant  guides  whom  we  abandon  at  our  leisure,  and  take
up  again  when  tired.     If  we  wish  to  revive  antiquity,  see  again

with  the  eyes  of  our  imagination  lîome,  Carthage,  Ninive,  Byzan-

59


THE     MIRROR    OF     THE    WORLD.
tium,  Memphis,  or  Babylon,  and  sum  up  all  the  art  treasures  of
those  annihilated  nations,  books,  without  our  paying  too  much  for
them,  will  lead  us  from  our  fireside  into  the  midst  of  the  oldest
civilisations.  If  we  are  thinking  of  our  salvation,  the  Fathers
of  the  Church  will  present  themselves  to  us,  without  pomp  or
pride,  to  purify  our  soul.
If  we  wish  to  learn  astronomy  and  the  mysteries  of  the
Heavens,  count  the  planets  and  give  a  name  to  those  thousands
of  luminous  spots  constellating  the  firmament,  know  everj'thiug
that  is  to  be  known  about  the  celestial  bodies,  their  movements,
distribution  in  space,  physical  shape,  and,  in  short,  understand
the  complicated  mechanism  of  astrostatics,  a  hundred  astro-
nomers, Galileo,  Kepler,  Laplace,  Newton,  Halley,  Lacaillc,
Lalande,  Herschel,  Delambre,  Ai'ago,  and  others,  will
initiate  us  freely  into  the  cosmogony,  latitude,  longitude,
uranology,  and  prodigious  variety  of  the  planisphere. —
Laplace  will  teach  us  that  of  all  natural  sciences  astro-
nomy presents  to  us  the  longest  chain  of  discoveries,
and  that  the  first  view  of  the  Heavens  is  not  at  all
like  the  general  view  through  which  we  embrace
to-day  the  past  and  the  future  of
the  system  of  the  world.
