It has been a fashion to
make bookcases highly ornamental. Now
books want for and in themselves no
ornament at all. They are themselves the
ornament. Just as shops need no ornament,
and no one will think of or care for any
structural ornament, if the goods are
tastefully disposed in the shop-window. The man
who looks for society in his books will
readily perceive that, in proportion as the face of
his bookcase is occupied by ornament, he
loses that society; and conversely, the more
that face approximates to a sheet of
bookbacks, the more of that society he will enjoy.
And so it is that three great advantages come
hand in hand, and, as will be seen, reach
their maximum together: the sociability of
books, minimum of cost in providing for
them, and ease of access to them.
In order to attain these advantages, two
conditions are fundamental. First, the shelves
must, as a rule, be fixed; secondly, the cases,
or a large part of them, should have their
side against the wall, and thus, projecting
into the room for a convenient distance, they
should be of twice the depth needed for a
single line of books, and should hold two
lines, one facing each way. Twelve inches
is a fair and liberal depth for two rows of
octavos. The books are thus thrown into
stalls, but stalls after the manner of a stable,
or of an old-fashioned coffee-room; not after
the manner of a bookstall, which, as times
go, is no stall at all, but simply a flat space
made by putting some scraps of boarding
together, and covering them with books.
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