Alas! Where is human nature so weak as in a book-store! Speak of the appetite for drink; or of a bon-vivant’s relish for dinner! What are these mere animal throes and ragings compared with those fantasies of taste, of those yearning of the imagination, of those insatiable appetites of intellect, which bewilder a student in a great bookseller’s temptation-hall?

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator

Essay (1855), “Book-Stores, Books,” Star Papers, “Experiences of Nature,” ch. 21
    (Source)

Originally published in his "STAR" column in the New York Independent," and is dated May 25 without a year given. This essay, separate from the original book, is usually titled "Subtleties of Book Buyers."