Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/59

 all we want in a book is the actual word. From my point of view, to treat a book in that way and to say that any paper, or type, or cover is good enough for it, is a form of sacrilege. It is a betrayal of the best friend a man has, it is scurvy treatment of a man's greatest comforter and best friend. For what after all is a good book? It represents the most precious heritage of the ages, it contains the highest thoughts of God, of Nature, and of human things. It represents what mankind, by a curious but very sure instinct, looks upon as a permanent and imperishable treasure, and yet some would say that it is good enough for this precious heritage to be huddled anyhow into a tawdry or rubbishy cover or shoddy binding, with careless and blurred type, on cheap and nasty paper. Can we not in Wales give a nobler place, take a righter view of the value of a book, as a friend, as a comforter, as a strength to us? So far, what we have done with our books, as a rule, is to leave them in the British Museum or let them be kept, too many of them, in manuscripts at the