"No dearness of price ought to hinder a man from buying books [...] how shall the bargain be shown to be dear when an infinite good is being bought?"
-Richard de Bury, 14th c. Bishop of Durham
I found this quotation in Happy Alchemy, a collection of essays about music and the theater by the great Robertson Davies. It was one of those occasional treasures: a book whose existence you never suspected, written by a favorite author, carelessly left on a $1 cart or a bargain table. It's those moments of great discovery that make the hours of browsing worthwhile, along with the lesser (but still keen) pleasures of discovering books you'd read as a child but lost track of, or books you've long wanted to read but had not yet found.
"There is a joy known only to collectors in possessing the physical form of a book, quite apart from its contents," wrote Davies. Also, "My collection is a mirror of my mind, or a large part of it, and sometimes I think what a sorry, frivolous mess it is."
Here's to collectors everywhere and our sorry, frivolous minds. See you tomorrow.
