{"product_id":"2940012978455","title":"THROUGH THE MAGIC DOOR","description":"I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room\u003cbr\u003ewhich it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off\u003cbr\u003ewith it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the\u003cbr\u003esoothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the\u003cbr\u003emagic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can\u003cbr\u003efollow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is\u003cbr\u003esordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting\u003cbr\u003ein their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man.\u003cbr\u003eAnd then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go\u003cbr\u003etogether into dreamland. Surely there would be something eerie about\u003cbr\u003ea line of books were it not that familiarity has deadened our sense\u003cbr\u003eof it. Each is a mummified soul embalmed in cere-cloth and natron\u003cbr\u003eof leather and printer's ink. Each cover of a true book enfolds the\u003cbr\u003econcentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have\u003cbr\u003efaded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable\u003cbr\u003edust, yet here are their very spirits at your command.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is our familiarity also which has lessened our perception of the\u003cbr\u003emiraculous good fortune which we enjoy. Let us suppose that we were\u003cbr\u003esuddenly to learn that Shakespeare had returned to earth, and that\u003cbr\u003ehe would favour any of us with an hour of his wit and his fancy. How\u003cbr\u003eeagerly we would seek him out! And yet we have him--the very best of\u003cbr\u003ehim--at our elbows from week to week, and hardly trouble ourselves\u003cbr\u003eto put out our hands to beckon him down. No matter what mood a man\u003cbr\u003emay be in, when once he has passed through the magic door he can\u003cbr\u003esummon the world's greatest to sympathize with him in it. If he be\u003cbr\u003ethoughtful, here are the kings of thought. If he be dreamy, here\u003cbr\u003eare the masters of fancy. Or is it amusement that he lacks? He can\u003cbr\u003esignal to any one of the world's great story-tellers, and out comes\u003cbr\u003ethe dead man and holds him enthralled by the hour. The dead are such\u003cbr\u003egood company that one may come to think too little of the living.\u003cbr\u003eIt is a real and a pressing danger with many of us, that we should\u003cbr\u003enever find our own thoughts and our own souls, but be ever obsessed\u003cbr\u003eby the dead. Yet second-hand romance and second-hand emotion are\u003cbr\u003esurely better than the dull, soul-killing monotony which life brings\u003cbr\u003eto most of the human race. But best of all when the dead man's\u003cbr\u003ewisdom and strength in the living of our own strenuous days.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47147445092592,"sku":"2940012978455","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012978455_p0.jpg?v=1763575076","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012978455","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}