Page:Le Morte d'Arthur - Volume 2.djvu/417

 EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

By ERNEST RHYS

"A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit."

MILTON

VICTOR HUGO said a Library was "an act of faith/' and another writer spoke of one so beautiful, so perfect, so harmonious in all its parts, that he who made it was smitten with a passion. In that faith Everyman's Library was planned out originally on a large scale ; and the idea was to make it conform as far as possible to a perfect scheme. However, perfection is a thing to be aimed at and not to be achieved in this difficult world ; and since the first volumes appeared some years ago, there have been many interruptions, chief among them the Great War of 1914-18, during which even the City of Books felt a world commotion. But the series is now getting back into its old stride and looking forward to complete its scheme of a Thousand Volumes.

One of the practical expedients in the original plan was to divide the volumes into separate sections, as Biography, Fiction, History, Belles-lettres, Poetry, Philosophy, Romance, and so forth; with a shelf for Young People. Last, and not least, there was one of Reference Books, in which, beside the dictionaries and encyclopaedias to be expected, there was a special set of literary and historical atlases, which have been revised from time to time, so as to chart the New Europe

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