Books are like lovers to me. You can’t lend them out, nor borrow them. When your beloved is near, doesn’t your heart overflow with contentment? You don’t necessarily have to touch them. Books are the same way.
A kiss brings such tremors of delight, and yet kisses can be had so easily. But don’t a lover’s lips, even at a distance where no kiss is possible, stir just as much rapture? There are certain books that exist, and just the joy of knowing they’re “close by” is worth a fortune!
How much does a person really get in one lifetime? How much of our accumulation truly follows the parallel lines of economic theory? To have been able to buy a book, yet not to have bought it out of whim or laziness—such regret equals several deaths. Even if seeing your beloved for just one moment requires traveling great distances and costs both time and money, it’s never meaningless. A good book, surely, is equally worth going to see, worth going to touch. Everyone notices only the wasteful expense of buying books; no one keeps track of the heart’s needs.
Perhaps it will never even be read, but in whatever time I have left to live, why should I live with the anguish of not being able to buy it? In the time I have for living, let me at least truly live! Let a good book sit before my eyes. Sometimes I’ll touch it, flip through its pages and read a page or two on impulse, become intoxicated by the scent of its pages—such feelings are priceless! The peace bought with money adds overtime to living, extending life considerably. I often think: money is the cheapest bargain! Why shouldn’t I buy the happiness that money can purchase, especially when I have the means? Living so fully for so little cost! Imagine that! And yet I won’t live?
The words above are merely soliloquy. I am more of a buyer than a reader. Books are bought often, read rarely. Books accumulate on shelves, not in the mind. Helplessly, I gaze at my library and think: Oh God, since you’ve given me life, grant me also a lifespan for reading books. You kept me dead in this world for the necessity of birth—at least for the necessity of death, let me live a little.