Book excerpt: Excerpt from Bookman's Holiday: The Private Satisfactions of an Incurable Collector IN china, once upon a time, and this happened a long time ago, a young man who had been asleep in the guest chamber of a country dwelling awoke suddenly in the middle of the night to find a beautiful woman in the room with him. Robed only in moonlight, she sat before a dressing table combing her long black hair. The young man was very much surprised. But he was not displeased, and for a time he lay quietly in his corner, watching his visitor with fascinated eyes. She was obviously some other guest who had strayed into the wrong bedroom, he reflected, and he began to wonder how he might Open a conversation without startling her. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.