a "Goodbye Letter" from the great
Arthur Mee. 1923©
GOODBYE TO THE BOOK OF MY HEART
Travellers through the world are we all, and you and I have been companions once again in this journey through the realms of knowledge.
Into the homes of millions of people this Book of my Heart has gone since it begin with a little child so long ago, and from a great multitude all over the Earth has come to me the love that is more precious than gold.. And now we come to the last page of all. It is the time to say Good-bye to this old friend, and to turn to something new.
Yet with a book, as with a friend, it is surely not the sadness of farewell, for the spirit of a book lives on forever. And for us this book actually does live on, in My Magazine each month and in the Children's Newspaper each week, for both have grown out of it.
Out of the first Children's Encyclopaedia grew the first Children's Newspaper, which goes to the ends of the Earth. I can never forget that citizen of a foreign land who on putting down his Children's Newspaper, said,
"You can't help loving that country after reading that paper."
So it is that this book goes on. It has been made out of the hearts of men and women and it grows into the hearts and lives of a great multitude. It carries through the world those things that do not die, those things without which life would not be worth while.
It will go on in your own life, as long as you see with these eyes and feel with these hands; and when these eyes no longer see, and these hands no longer feel, all that this book has meant to you will go on working in the lives of those who remember you. And after them, for ages after them, whatever is good in this book will live.
Shall we let its last word breathe the spirit that I like to feel is in it everywhere, the spirit of goodwill to all mankind,, and the faith that, whatever may betide us, nothing ill can happen to those who put their trust in God? He is our Refuge and our Strength, and underneath us are His Everlasting Arms.
And so, little travellers, Good-bye, and God be with us till our journey's end.
Into the homes of millions of people this Book of my Heart has gone since it begin with a little child so long ago, and from a great multitude all over the Earth has come to me the love that is more precious than gold.. And now we come to the last page of all. It is the time to say Good-bye to this old friend, and to turn to something new.
Yet with a book, as with a friend, it is surely not the sadness of farewell, for the spirit of a book lives on forever. And for us this book actually does live on, in My Magazine each month and in the Children's Newspaper each week, for both have grown out of it.
Out of the first Children's Encyclopaedia grew the first Children's Newspaper, which goes to the ends of the Earth. I can never forget that citizen of a foreign land who on putting down his Children's Newspaper, said,
"You can't help loving that country after reading that paper."
So it is that this book goes on. It has been made out of the hearts of men and women and it grows into the hearts and lives of a great multitude. It carries through the world those things that do not die, those things without which life would not be worth while.
It will go on in your own life, as long as you see with these eyes and feel with these hands; and when these eyes no longer see, and these hands no longer feel, all that this book has meant to you will go on working in the lives of those who remember you. And after them, for ages after them, whatever is good in this book will live.
Shall we let its last word breathe the spirit that I like to feel is in it everywhere, the spirit of goodwill to all mankind,, and the faith that, whatever may betide us, nothing ill can happen to those who put their trust in God? He is our Refuge and our Strength, and underneath us are His Everlasting Arms.
And so, little travellers, Good-bye, and God be with us till our journey's end.
Arthur Mee.
Born in 1875, Arthur Mee died suddenly in May 1943, following an operation.
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