This book has got me thinking about family; the Putnams, the Cowles, the Emersons, and my own. Clearly my ancestors had great taste. Whether they were avid readers of philosophy is hard to say. The condition of this centurion book suggests that it wasn’t handled too roughly or even often. It would seem based on the artistic tastes of the time and the rising materialism and consumerism of the middle class, that book was a bit of a status symbol. In my family’s defense, this may have been a gift or perhaps an extremely treasured belonging. If they were avid readers, they certainly weren’t going to carry this beautiful book on their way back and forth to work on the T (that’s New English for subway). Although my Great Aunt let it go easily, she may not have done so in the past. This book was older than her, and belonged to her parents, who passed away over forty years ago. Pat probably hadn’t moved it from the spot where her mother or father placed when they moved into the house in Milton in the 1930’s. Perhaps it was merely a pretty book that had been forgotten about, left on the shelf for a century. I like to think, however, that this book was treasured and that it perhaps meant something for my Aunt Pat to pass it down to me. We could chalk up her lumping it in with the ‘crap’ in her house to New England stoicism. All that matters it’s definitely treasured now. Maybe I’ll keep this beautiful book on my shelf for another century.