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DUST AND NEGLECT.
DUST upon Books to any extent points to neglect, and neglect means more or less slow Decay.
A well-gilt top to a book is a great preventive against damage by dust, while to leave books with rough tops and unprotected is sure to produce stains and dirty margins.
In olden times, when few persons had private collections of books, the collegiate and corporate libraries were of great use to students.
The librarians' duties were then no sinecure, and there was little opportunity for dust to find a resting-place.

The Nineteenth Century and the Steam Press ushered in a new era.

By degrees the libraries which were unendowed fell behind the age, and were consequently neglected.
No new works found their way in, and the obsolete old books were left uncared for and unvisited.

I have seen many old libraries, the doors of which remained unopened from week's end to week's end; where you inhaled the dust of paper-decay with every breath, and could not take up a book without sneezing; where old boxes, full of older literature, served as preserves for the bookworm, without even an autumn "battue" to thin the breed.