For my older brother, Eugene Field, the determination to create a story or series of essays about the joys, adventures, and misfortunes of bookworms was not a whim.For many years, most of his nearly quarter century in the media, he has celebrated in prose and poetry (and always in his happiest, happiest mood) the joy of searching for books.He was himself an indefatigable collector of books, owner of a library worth its taste—a library whose volumes had been bought at great personal sacrifice.He has the deepest sympathy for that disease known as "book nerdism."He also knew (as few of the poorer people have experienced) that this incurable mental illness was half poignant and half funny.

The column of that newspaper, for which he had been writing nearly every day for twelve years, was full of biting sarcasm and mild jeers at his unfortunate bookshelves and auction rooms, and thus became notorious.No one has ever pursued a musty reward, no matter how expensive or difficult, more diligently than this mild-mannered cynic. "I save others, but I can't save myself," he shouted humorously. In his published work there is much evidence of my brother's gratitude for the "relief of the pedophile's misery," which had manifested itself to some degree in him.The hobby of searching for books has never been expressed more happily than "Bookworm's Prayer".In the poem, the distraught prayer passionately declares:

oh god if you will Just to let me be entangled in temptation, I humbly beg for your grace I would like to get the most special entanglement; Let my temptation be a book, I'll buy it and hold it to my chest, When others look at it, They will lament its low price. Again, nothing expresses the soul of an incurable patient better than "The Bookish Bride": Prose is prose when I want prose, When psalms are wanted, psalms are It is always for body, mind and soul Brings sweet-smelling rest and sleep. Oh, I'll use rich and beautiful bindings to bind the covers of these precious prizes,

The place she keeps must not Let other people's eyes see the beauty. In "Dear Old London," the poet laments that "a fine volume of Horace is not worth a few pennies" and laughs at his poverty; Among them, look forward to the bookworm in the future kingdom, where there will be no place for female relatives: she "wanted food, and if we bought scrolls instead, she screamed"; In Lasker and Bislan, he claims that an irrepressible possessiveness is the most basic quality of a bookworm.But (and regardless of these self-blaming words), bibliophile is a better word than bibliophile to express his serious intentions.If he buys rare and rare books, it is to own them in their entirety, inside and out.The obsession with books made him continue to pour money into buying them; the accompanying love for books made these books a part of himself and a part of his life.

When it was almost August this year, my brother wrote the first chapter.By then, his body was too exhausted to engage in any laborious and time-consuming literary endeavor.But the tantalizing prospect of a long-cherished wish, the exhilaration of starting a story long hopefully planned, seemed to give him new strength to throw himself feverishly at work.Woohoo, such frenzy is enough to give the wrong impression to those who have been paying close attention to his declining physical vitality.For many years, no literary work seemed to have given him such pleasure.As he discussed the progress of his writing from day to day, his eyes would sparkle, his old vigor would return, and everything would reveal his keen interest in the characters of his imagination in whom he relived The joy of chasing books.This work is his ardent hope (for its realization he has been preparing for a long time), and it will also be (as he once expressed it in jest) a tribute to the kind of people he has so frivolously denigrated. A sign of apologetic compensation.Those who knew him well would also recognize in the bookworm's shortcomings his humble confession of his own weaknesses.

It is not difficult to know from the essential nature of this enterprise: it is almost endless.A bibliophile with so many years of experience can naturally go on and on about his "love affair" without ever being in any danger of repeating it.True, my brother's plans were not clearly formed at first.When people questioned or made fun of these relationships, he would say that he was like Sam Weller [Sam Weller, the funny character in Dickens. ] as easy and laid-back as creating his famous Valentine's Day gifts, and can be "pulled away" at any time.One week he would insist that a book-hunter has at least one advantage, that it is suitable for all seasons of the year; the next week he would argue with equal force that it was time to send the old man to winter camp. .However, although the arrival of cold weather aggravated his physical discomfort, his interest in staying in his special workshop did not diminish at all.Yet his weakness warned him, and he should say to his book (as his beloved Horace wrote):

I want to escape my obsession with you, I won't give you any excuses anymore. [Quoted from the concluding passages of Book I of Horace's Letters.In the poem, Horace personifies the book as a young slave.Originally in Latin. 】 Unfortunately, he didn't do it.His heart will become gentle and kind, and he will continue to write.Is it any wonder that he is unwilling to give up so lightly a work that has been given such love and solace in its preparation?