I may be a Duffer, but I hope I am neither an idiot nor a cad. I have
never collected postage-stamps, nor outraged common humanity by asking
people to send me their autographs. With these exceptions I have
failed as a collector of almost everything. To succeed you need luck,
and a dash of unscrupulousness, and careful attention to details,
and a sceptical habit of mind. Even as a small boy I used to waste my
shillings at a funny little curiosity-shop, kept by a nice old lady
who knew no more about her wares than I did. Here I acquired quite
a series of old coppers, which Mrs. SOMERVILLE said were ancient
Bactrian. We asked where Bactria was, and she replied that it was a
"country beyond Cyrus." We answered that Cyrus was not a territorial
but a personal name, "A fellow, don't you know, not a place," but
the old lady's information stopped there. I wonder where my Bactrian
Collection is now. Certainly I never sold it; indeed, I never sold
anything; not only because nobody would buy, but because, after
all, one is a Collector, not a tradesman. Birds' eggs I would have
collected if I could, but you had first to find the bird's nest
(almost an impossible quest for a born Duffer), and to blow the eggs,
which, let me tell you, needs nicety of handling. I did once find
a thrush's nest, and tried blowing an egg, but it was not wholly a
success, and the egg (the contents of which I accidentally absorbed)
was not wholly fresh. Then it is awkward when you are at the top of
a tall tree, with an egg in your mouth, for safety, if the other boys
make you laugh, as you try to come down. It is the egg which,--but
enough! Everyone who has been in that position will understand what is
meant. It is not difficult to collect shells on the seashore, but it
is extremely difficult to find out what shells they are, after you
have collected them.
[Illustration: "And, in shooting at the cats with a crossbow, I had
the misfortune to break several windows."]
Conchology is no child's play. As to collecting marine animals for an
aquarium, the trouble begins when you forget your acquisitions, and
carry them about for some time in the pockets of your jacket. That
jacket is apt to be dusted by the bigger boys, who also interfere
with your affections for toads, lizards, snakes and other live stock
dear to youth. The common ambition of boyhood is to be a great
rabbit-grower, but, somehow, my rabbits did not thrive. The cats
got at them, and, in shooting at the cats with a crossbow, I had the
misfortune to break several windows, and riddle a conservatory.
The chief objects of my later ambition have been rare old books, gems,
engravings, china, and so forth. All these things, if they are to be
collected, demand that you shall have your wits about you; and the
peculiarity of the Duffer is that his wits are always wool-gathering.
A nice collection of wool they must have stored up somewhere. As to
books, one invariably begins by collecting the wrong things. In novels
and essays you read of "priceless Elzevirs," and "Aldines worth their
weight in gold." Fired with hope, you hang about all the stalls, where
you find myriads of Elzevirs, dumpy, dirty little tomes, in small
illegible type, and legions of Aldines, books quite as dirty, if not
so dumpy, and equally illegible, for they are printed in italics. You
think you are in luck, invest largely, and begin to give yourself the
airs of an amateur and a discoverer. Then comes somebody who knows
about the matter in hand, and who tells you, with all the savage joy
of a collector, that nobody wants any Elzevirs and Aldines, except a
very few, and they must be in beautiful old bindings, uncut down,
or scarcely cut down by the binder. These you may long for, but you
certainly will never find them in the fourpenny box. The Duffer is
always making the mistake of buying small bargains, as he thinks them,
and so he will spend, in some time, perhaps, a hundred pounds. With
a hundred pounds, and with luck, and prudence, and cunning, he might
perhaps buy one small volume which a collector who knew his business
would not wholly disdain. But, as it is, he has squandered his money,
and has nothing to show for it but a heap of trash, of the wrong date,
without the necessary misprints in the right places, ragged, short,
and, above all, _imperfect_. I suppose I have the richest collection
of imperfect books in the world. One hugs oneself on one's _Lucasta_
(very rare), or one's Elzevir _Cæsar_ of the right date, or one's
first edition of MOLIÈRE, and then comes, with fiendish glee, the
regular collector, and shows you that _Lucasta_ has not the portrait
of LOVELACE, that _Cæsar_ has not his pagination all wrong (as he
ought to have), that the Molières are Lyons piracies, that half of
GILBERT's _Gentleman's Diversion_ is not bound up with the rest,
that, generally speaking, there are pages missing here and there all
through your books, which you have never "collated," that "a ticket
of PADELOUP, the binder, has been taken off some broken board of a
book, and stuck on to a modern imitation, and so forth, all through
the collection. You cannot sell it; nobody will take as a present
this Library of a Gentleman who has given up collecting; even Free
Libraries do not want this kind of treasure, and so it remains,
littering your shelves, a monument of folly. Happy are the Duffers
whose eyes are impenetrably sealed, and who can go on believing,
in spite of a modern water-mark, in their sham BURNS MSS. and their
volumes with autographs of all the celebrated characters in history.
But my eyes are purged, and I do not think you shall find me
collecting old books any more. Certainly I shall not venture into
auction-rooms, compete with the Trade, and get left with a book
artfully run up, thanks to my enthusiasm, to four or five times its
market value.
As to china, what the Duffer buys is invariably cracked, and the
"marks" on which he places confidence are flagrant imitations.
He usually begins by supposing that Crown Derby is a priceless
possession, also he has a touching faith in chipped blue and white
cups and saucers, marked with a crescent. Worcester they may be, but
not the right sort of Worcester. And Crown Derby is the very Aldine or
Elzevir of this market. You might as well collect shares in the Great
Montezuma Gold Mine, and expect to derive benefit from the investment.
Gems are among the things that the Duffer may most wisely collect,
for the excellent reason that, in this country, he very seldom
indeed finds any for sale. He cannot come to much sorrow, for lack of
opportunities. In Italy it is different. How many beautiful works of
Art I have acquired in Florence, at considerable ransoms, all of them
signed in neat, but illegible Greek capitals. I puzzled over them with
microscopes. The names seemed to end in [Greek: ICHLÊS]. I thought
myself a rival of BLACAS, or Lord KILSYTH, or the British Museum. Then
my friend, WILKINS, came in. "Pretty enough pastes of the last century
I see," he remarks. "Pastes!--last century!" I indignantly exclaim;
"why they're of the best period: Sards, all of them signed, but I
can't make out the artist's name." "It is PICHLER," says WILKINS, "he
usually signed, for fear his things should be sold as antiques." I had
to give in about PICHLER (which certainly does not sound very Greek);
"but here," I said, "you can't call _this_ paste, you can't scratch
the back of it." "I know I can't," says WILKINS, examining the
ring, "for a very good reason, because a thin layer of sard has been
inserted behind. But it's paste, for all that."
"Well," I say, "here's a genuine ancient ring, old gold, and a lovely
head of Prosperine in cornelian."
"Well, this _is_ odd," says WILKINS, "I know the setting is genuine,
I have seen it before. But then it had a rubbishy late bit of work in
it, and I was in the _atelier_ when a gem-cutter shaved away the top
of the stone, and copied your head of Prosperine on it from a Sicilian
coin. I can show you a coin of the same stamp in my collection."
[Illustration: "HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS."