The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [27]
7. ‘Then we hear the voice of thought, and come face to face with ourselves, with the brevity of life, with the lack of all we once had and have lost;
8. ‘And yet, also, once we have been patient awhile and continued to listen, we come face to face with hope.
9. ‘For we learn then, if we are brave, the power of mind, which is the greatest thing in man; of how, though man is small before nature, his mind can encompass all nature,
10. ‘In thinking of it, and singing about it, searching it in science, and celebrating it in poetry.
11. ‘So I think all the sages found both courage and modesty through the mind’s contact with nature, and these two things are the begetters of hope.
12. ‘Is there proof that they were right to hope? Well, only consider: it is many centuries since the first sages paced their groves, and their words and thoughts are with us today, and we speak of them;
13. ‘Though nature conquered their bodies and their bodies are dispersed into the elements once more, the fruit of their minds is with us still.
14. ‘I like to think of the philosophers walking in their groves. What a mistake it is to stop the child fidgeting (so they call it) over his book, for the body must be active as the mind learns.
15. ‘It would be best to teach children while walking in a meadow. You see the scholars swaying as they recite their texts; mind is part of the dance; let the body be active when the mind is active too.
16. ‘Though it is good to be in the kingdom of one’s library, walking with the greatest of the past in thought, it is good to take the thoughts thus acquired into the air,
17. ‘For though it is true that literature is the criticism of life, so is it also true that life is the criticism of learning.
18. ‘Another of the sayings written on our city walls is this: let the door to the library of the world open from the library of one’s books, and vice versa.’
Chapter 14
1. Charicles listened with great interest to these words, for as a scholar himself he enjoyed nothing more than talk of such things. He said,
2. ‘You speak as if you know the text which says that books teach us without rods or stripes, unlike the lessons taught by impatient schoolmasters;
3. ‘Without taunts or anger, without gifts or money. Books are not asleep when we approach them,
4. ‘Nor do they deny us when we question them, or chide us when we err, or laugh at our ignorance.
5. ‘No one is ever ashamed of turning to a book. We might blush to admit ignorance to a fellow human, but never to a dictionary.
6. ‘Books are the golden pots of manna, which feed our hunger.
7. ‘There is the story of a starving man who called out for food at the city gate, and a kind man gave him a scroll of words, which he ate: and it tasted of honey.
8. ‘For this reason the wise man might say, “Eat the book, and be refreshed.”
9. ‘And he might further say, “Do not make your bookcase of acacia wood, covered with gold leaf, and doors of bevelled glass with mullions and a lock of brass;
10. ‘“But of plain wood, open to everyone who wishes to take down a volume and read.”’
11. The stranger replied, ‘These thoughts remind me of a story. There was a married couple in our city, who because they married young were poor to begin with, while both studied before finding their first jobs.
12. ‘They would go together to the bookstalls in the market every weekend, and look through the old torn books being sold cheaply,
13. ‘And sometimes were able to afford one, but more often might not be able to resist one, even if it meant no supper that night;
14. ‘But they did not feel hungry, because they had the book and could pore over it together, reading to each other by turns.
15. ‘As their careers progressed and they became richer, it was easier to buy books; they bought them new, several at a time;
16. ‘And many of the new books they bought lay unread, and were put on high shelves out of reach.
17. ‘And then they could afford rare and beautiful old books,