As a youth, you read a line like:

 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

 

And you imagine romantic images of libraries and leather bound books and late night studies of ancient things in ancient tomes, by firelight, for strange purposes.  Would you ever grow up to engage in such interesting study?  Then you tuck the image away and maybe read a comic book, or Social Studies homework (well…you probably skim or skip the Social Studies).

 

Then one day, you find yourself minding your own business (sans Social Studies), and you come to and realize you spent the evening digging through a dictionary of angelic names, Voodoo lore, a text of ancient notions of the Hebrew underworld, the Byronic hero in literature, the importance of the Trickster archetype in world mythology (and how that archetype created civilization), a quick stop at Dante, and then the Malleus Maleficarum (the guidebook Inquisitors used in their hunts) – and you realize that you did grow up (somewhat) to study such things.

 

…and you even have a rubber raven staring down at you from the TV stand.

 

Then you watch The Ninth Gate, with Johnny Depp, because it always makes you want to hold a leather bound book.