Wednesday, July 27, 2011






Smile for Today:

"Dust, according to some authorities, is not in itself so damaging to books as the act of dusting them by unskillful or irreverent performers. Both Blades* and Birrell stiffly maintain that you should never dust books; let the dust lie until the rare hour arrives when you want to read a particular volume; then warily, Birrell advises, approach it with a snow-white napkin, take it down from its shelf, and with-drawing to some back apartment, proceed to cleanse the tome."

~ A Passion for Books,Harold Rabinowitz & Rob Kaplan, Three Rivers Press, Random House, Inc. ,1999. Article by Holbrook Jackson, 286.


*Wm. Blades (1824 - 1890) British printer, author, collector of old books.

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