"
"I don't see any of it," she remarked with wholesome literalness.
"Well, here at the bottom are lexicons--think of them as roots and
soil. Above them lie maps and atlases: consider them the surface.
Then all books are history of course. But here is a great central
trunk rising out of the surface which is called History in
especial. On each side of that, running to the right and to the
left, are main branches. Here for instance is the large limb of
Philosophy--a very weighty limb indeed. Here is the branch of
Criticism. Here is a bough consisting principally of leaves on
which live unnamed venomous little insects that poison them and die
on them: their appointed place in creation."
"And so there is no positive fruit anywhere," she insisted with her
practical taste for the substantial.
"It is all food, Anna, edible and nourishing to different mouths
and stomachs. Some very great men have lived on the roots of
knowledge, the simplest roots. And here is poetry for dates and
wild honey; and novels for cocoanuts and mushrooms. And here is
Religion: that is for manna."
"What is at the very top?"
His eyes rested upon the highest row of books.
"These are some of the loftiest growths, new buds of the mind
opening toward the unknown. Each in its way shows the best that
man, the earth-animal, has been able to accomplish. Here is a
little volume for instance which tells what he ought to be--and
never is. This small volume deals with the noblest ideals of the
greatest civilizations.
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