BOORS AS COMFORTERS OF THE SOUL.
[To TOE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATO2:9] SIR,—May I add my pin-thrust to the Battle of the Books, provoked by Mrs. Fuller Maitland's admirable eight lines ? Were she required to go through all the works recommended by your correspondents, the author would possibly regret the expression of her wish about tVengthening and hope-reviving books. Of those named as suitable, not one of them would do. For is it not notorious that there exists no subject on which friends so widely differ as that of books ? It is by no means so rare to agree to dislike. People read with such different glasses ! The same words which mean comfort to one soul are a dead letter to another. As a case in point : the intention of "A Reply" appears to some to be that books are powerless to give the strength they may teach, or to bid the dead hope live. And the comfort touched upon in the last four lines is surely one the author well knows to be impossible from outside. It means the sweetness of the steadfast, selfess soul itself ; of the soul that bides, unmoved— four-square to every storm.—I am, Sir, &c., E. -V. B.
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