http://www.chfi.com

Clarence Day told us, “The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else he builds lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out and after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.”

James Russell Lowell, said, “For books are more than books; they are the very heart and core of ages past; the reason why men lived, and worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”

That may be true of most books, but there are some that have been lost to us forever. Some of those lives have been completely wiped out, even before we’ve had a chance to see what was written. I’m referring to the scrolls in the great library of Alexandria that were purposely and systematically destroyed.

The city of Alexandria, Egypt, at one time, was a gathering place for scholars, scientists, mathematicians, and writers. The authorities of the time boarded every ship that docked in search of written knowledge. They weren’t confiscated but borrowed for a time, copied by the scribes in the library, and returned by the owners. The great library of Alexandria was to be a storehouse of what was known and believed about the world.

Carl Sagan in his PBS series Cosmos, and also in the companion volume published by Random House, told us about what happened to them, but he, too, wondered about the mysteries they might have solved. Were there answers to some of the greatest problems that still plague humankind today? Scientific knowledge that was completely erased, would have to wait thousands of years before being re-discovered. Not all the accounts of what the library held were destroyed, but what remained were mere fragments of a greater body of knowledge. I’ve often wondered if somewhere among those shelves of papyrus scrolls there was a Book of Love.

My own library at home contains many volumes of work associated with this greatest of all human emotions. I’ve searched the aisles of antiquarian book shops in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and other historical cities I’ve visited, looking for one definitive volume of work, but my search has been to no avail. Every book seems to add one more piece to a puzzle that never seems to finally reveal the whole picture. In ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone unlocked the mysteries of hieroglyphics on the tombs of the Pharaohs. My ‘Rosetta Stone’ would be one book that would unlock the door to the most powerful emotion known to humankind.

In the series sequel to the original Star Trek, called Star Trek: The Next Generation, the captain of the starship has a treasured volume housed under glass in his ready-room just off the main bridge. In Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future, books would have all but disappeared in favour of computers. All the great works of Shakespeare and others were not lost to all time. What was written was transcribed into the files stored in databases. We know the problems with computer viruses and how easy it is to have all your data erased by one infected line of code. We make backups, but there is something frightening about the thought that the entire knowledge of the human race could one day be erased due to one virulent bug.

Besides that nightmare scenario, there is a tactile pleasure from holding a first edition in one’s hands. The novelist E. Annie Proulx in a speech, quoted in the May 1996 issue of the Reader’s Digest said, “Books give aesthetic and tactile pleasure, from the dust-jacket art to the binding, paper, typography and text design, from the moment of purchase until the last page is turned.” I have volumes in my collection featuring centuries-old poetry and prose that have had the pages scented. It is a unique sensory experience to read the words on those. I have books published as far back as the 1800s. The binding is in bad shape, but they are treasures.

Let us imagine another scenario….A Ray Bradbury story called The Smile, is set in a post-apocalyptic world, a world that has very little respect for the artistic accomplishments of past civilizations that have survived the holocaust. The story has a magnificent work of art, a painting by a master from centuries past, attacked by an unruly mob. A young boy gets involved for another purpose than to destroy. He does not approve of the desire to erase the past….He comes away with a special treasure, and quickly leaves the scene. He travels back to the barn where he and his family live. Later that night, when the other members of his family are asleep, he brings out the little bit of canvas that he was able to save from the mob, and looks at the Mona Lisa in the moonlight.

What would our world be like today if The Bible had never survived the millennia?

In the worldwide bestseller, The DaVinci Code, author Dan Brown speaks of a secret that was closely guarded  for thousands of years. If only the great library of Alexandria had knights to protect its treasure-trove of ancient secrets.

Plutarch tells us that Cleopatra had her sentiments engraved on tablets of crystal and onyx and sent to Antony. We know they existed, but they, too, have been lost to all time. Maybe an archaeologist will unearth them at a dig some time in the future. In the meantime, we can only guess at what she had written in these ancient love letters to the man she loved.

From time to time I will include a list of books that I have stumbled upon in my search for that one elusive book of love. These are volumes that would make handsome additions to any personal library. And I will continue looking for that one book that will answer all the questions you have about love.

In the meantime, another piece to the puzzle airs tonight between 9 and 11 with Lovers and Other Strangers…..

Don Jackson

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.