What is a Book?

Sesame and Lilies 

by John Ruskin

“All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hours, and the books of all Time.” 

― John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies

       

What is a book?

"A book is essentially not a talking thing, but a written thing; and written, not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands o people at once; if he could, he would---the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; ---this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything is worth your memory." That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."" (pp 32-33)


Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin, Deborah Epstein Nord, ed., Yale University Press, 2002 (1864).

A Delightful Dusting

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”  -  John Ruskin


I awoke early this morning and looked out the window to the spectacle of what I lightheartedly describe as a delightful dusting of snow.  The flakes looked large, but they were lightweight indeed as the temperature was struggling to stay in the low double digits.  A bit later when confronting the front steps and sidewalk I found perhaps two inches of the stuff strewn across the walk and parkway that separates our six-flat apartment building from the thoroughfare - it is more than a mere street.  After brushing the flakes from our front steps, I took up my shovel and proceeded to quickly dispatch the fluff that was close to two inches thick.  The snow glistened in the glare of the streetlights and looked like the sort of stuff you might request to complete a perfect winter morning.  Delightful as this dusting was I still hoped that the snow would abate after dawn so that there would be no more shoveling for me this Sunday.