The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 28, July 13, 2003, Article 13

MORE ROBERTSON DAVIES QUOTES

  Gar Travis sends this link to a web site about Robertson
  Davies, in response to the quote Ron Guth submitted the
  last E-Sylum.  The site has several more of his quotes, and
  one relating to bibliomania follows.
  See http://www.amk.ca/davies/

  "She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in
  the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by
  the frequent and  plentiful acquisition of books. This passion
  is more common, and more powerful, than most people
  suppose. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to
  be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so.
  But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get
  books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in
  pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read
  immediately, or at all; they  want them to possess, to range
  on their shelves, to have at command.  They want books as
  a Turk is thought to want concubines -- not to be  hastily
  deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed
  more often in thought than in reality. "

  A second quote reminds me a bit of The E-Sylum - a dustbin
  of worthless but fascinating curiosities.  And dirt.

  "Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of
  Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat
  machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with
  no extra bits or useless parts.  I like the mind to be a dustbin
  of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but
  fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a
  reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it
  goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself
  beautifully to its new position."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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