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Feb. 9th, 2007
This was written by an official censor
Feb. 9th, 2007 11:06 pmFor books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.
...unlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a man kill a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but he who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life.
(Milton 1644: 4)
...unlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a man kill a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but he who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life.
(Milton 1644: 4)