Once early in the morning, at two or three in the morning,
when the master was asleep, the books in the library began to quarrel with each
other as to which was the king of the library. The dictionary contended quite
angrily that he was the master of the library because without words there would
be no communication at all. The book of science argued stridently that he was
the master of the library for without science there would have been no printing
press or any of the other wonders of the world. The book of poetry claimed that
he was the king, the master of the library, because he gave surcease and calm
to his master when he was troubled. The books of philosophy, the economic
books, all put in their claims, and the clamor was great and the noise at its
height when a small low voice was heard from an old brown book lying in the
center of the table and the voice said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want.” And all of the noise and the clamor in the library ceased, and there was
a hush in the library, for all of the books knew who the real master of the
library was.
~ Louis Nizer ['Ministers
of Justice', Address Delivered to the Eighty-Second Annual Convention of the
Tennessee Bar Association at Gatlinburg (June 5th, 1963). In Tennessee Law
Review (Fall 1963), 31, No. 1, 19.]
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