"Then what do you do?"
"I sit at home, and--"
"Mend your stockings?"
"No, I don't do that, because it's disagreeable; but I do work a good deal. Sometimes I have amused myself by reading."
"Ah; they never do that here. I have heard that there is a library, but the clue to it has been lost, and nobody now knows the way. I don't believe in libraries. Nobody ever goes into a library to read, any more than you would into a larder to eat. But there is this difference;--the food you consume does come out of the larders, but the books you read never come out of the libraries."
"Except Mudies," said Alice.
"Ah, yes; he is the great librarian. . . ."
--Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?
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What a wonderful quote, and how true these days!
ReplyDeleteTrollope so often strikes a chord, doesn't he. I loved his autobiography, despite a general distrust of life writing as a genre.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to let you know that I've tagged you for the "One Lovely Blog" award. You can grab the award image from my post at myshelfrunnethover.blogspot.com
Happy reading!
Oooohh--
ReplyDeleteI must get this. I "read" my first Trollope last year--listened to "The Way We Live Now" on tape--and ate it up with a spoon. Thanks for this reminder about him!
I really have to get around to reading Trollope.
ReplyDeleteLove the new banner by the way :)