How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!


Illustrations of Sterne, Bibliomania, line 137, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).


How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!

How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!

How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!

How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!