Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs / Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there / At this or that box, pulling through the gap, / In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, / The first book first.

... books are men of higher stature ...

We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book, And calculating profits--so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth-- 'Tis then we get the right good from a book.