The Bulk of Literature [pp. 277-281]

THE BULK OF LITERATURE.
his eyes wonderingly. "It is all right
now," said Llorente cheerfully.
Roberta stole softly out of the room.
Fay was lying with closed eyes. The
fixed look of horror had not left her face.
She shivered when she heard Roberta's
step, but did not open her eyes when she
bent over her.
"Do not be afraid to look at me,
dear," Roberta whispered; "I bring
good news. He is not hurt-that is, not
very badly-a bruise, the merest cut on
the back of the head. He was conscious
when I left him."
As she ceased speaking Fay broke in
to a fit of weeping, so violent, so uncon trolled, that Roberta did not try to stop
her. Rather, she wept, too, but the tears
scorched her eyes and cheeks as they
fell. For a long time neither spoke a
word, until Fay, gathering herself out
of Roberta's arms, said:
"If Louis had been dead I should
never have wept again, never."
For all answer Roberta leaned over
and kissed the tear-stained face. As
she did so a scarlet rose fell from her
hair, scattering its petals all over the
white of Fay's dress.
( Conclusion next Sonpl. )
THE BULK OF LITERATURE.
-HE written thoughts of our ances tors are a rich legacy, to which
we are heirs by right of our humanity.
But how many are those thoughts! Let
us dismiss, for the time, the beauties of
books, and turn our attention to a sin gle aspect of literature-namely, its un wieldy bulk.
The Library of the British Museum
contains upward of half a million volumes. The Imperial Library of Paris
contains more than a million volumes.
When we hear of a million, or any
other large number, we are apt to suppose that we can conceive of the amount.
We hear so much of millions of dollars
nowadays, that many of us fancy ourselves quite able to think of the amount,
and even to have it. But the learned
tell us that this is not the case-that is
to say, that we can not conceive of the
magnitude. Read what an eminent writer says, endeavoring to convey some
idea of a million:
" Permit me to add a word upon the magnitude of
a million, it being a number so enormous as to be
difficult to conceive. It is well to have a standard
by which to realize it. AMine is as follows: One sum
mer day I passed the afternoon in Bushey Park to
see the magnificent spectacle of its avenue of horse chestnut-trees, a mile long, in full flower. As the
time passed, it occurred to me to try to count the
number of spikes of flowers facing the drive on one
side of the long avenue. I mean all the spikes visi ble in full sunshine on one side of the road. Accord ingly I fixed upon a tree of average bulk and flower,
and drew imaginary lines-first halving and then
quartering the tree, and so on, until I arrived at a
subdivision that was not too large to admit of my
counting the spikes of flowers it included. I did this
with three different trees, and arrived at pretty much
the same results. As well as I can recollect the three
estimates were as nine, ten, eleven. Then I counted
the trees in the avenue, and multiplied all together.
I found the spikes to be just ioo,ooo ill number.
"Ever since then, whenever a millioni is mentioned
I recall the long perspective of the avenue of Bushey
Park, with its stately chestnuts clothed fromn top to
bottom with spikes of flowers, bright in the sunshine,
and I imagine a similarly continuous floral band of
tel miles ill length."
Let the reader, by the help of this or
of any other standard, endeavor to realize the magnitude of a million, and then
reflect that the immense mass of books
is always on the increase. Most of our
books do not date beyond the fourteenth
century. Some fragments of the learning of the ancients have been preserved
to us, but nothling like what was lost nor
like what we have gained since. And
1875-)
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