"In books lies the soul of the whole past time the articulate and audible voice of the past when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream".
Thomas Carlyle, 1840
I visited the State Library of NSW yesterday with a dear friend, and we both stopped and read this quote, incised into sandstone in the Mitchell vestibule, and sighed. So true we said.
With these words Thomas Carlyle seems to be reminding us that once we have died, have vanished like a dream; it is books that remain and it is books that shall hold memory.
That books shall hold both the soul of the past matters as much to me, as that they hold the stories and facts of the past,. That they retain the intention, the purpose, the desires of the past as well as acting as reminders of what happened and who said what and where and when is a special combination.
The notion of books offering both an audible and articulate voice to the past is comforting. That the past can still be heard and understood in elegant ways, because of books.
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