Some Authors Have Been Compelled to Eat Their Printed Volumes--Tartars
Tried to Acquire Knowledge That Way.
With the exception of minerals it is difficult for one to find on the
earth's surface substances that do not tempt the appetite of some sort of
animal. The list of queer articles of diet includes the earth, which is
munched with satisfaction by the clay-eater, and the walrus hide, which
the Eskimo relishes as much as does John Bull his joint of beef.
It is not generally known, however, that men, as well as mice and
book-worms, have eaten dinners that have consisted only of books. This
tendency has been described as "bibliophagia," though the word has not yet
gained scholarly approval. An interesting account of some of these
extraordinary meals appeared in a recent issue of the _Scientific
American_, and is as follows:
In 1370 Barnabo Visconti compelled two Papal delegates to eat the bull of
excommunication which they had brought him, together with its silken cords
and leaden seal. As the bull was written on parchment, not paper, it was
all the more difficult to digest.
A similar anecdote was related by Oelrich, in his "Dissertatio de
Bibliothecarum et Librorum Fatis" (1756), of an Austrian general, who had
signed a note for two thousand florins, and when it fell due compelled his
creditors to eat it. The Tartars, when books fall into their possession,
eat them, that they may acquire the knowledge contained in them.
A Scandinavian writer, the author of a political book, was compelled to
choose between being beheaded or eating his manuscript boiled in broth.
Isaac Volmar, who wrote some spicy satires against Bernard, Duke of
Saxony, was not allowed the courtesy of the kitchen, but was forced to
swallow them uncooked.
Still worse was the fate of Philip Oldenburger, a jurist of great renown,
who was condemned not only to eat a pamphlet of his writing, but also to
be flogged during his repast, with orders that the flogging should not
cease until he had swallowed the last crumb.
How They Got On In The World.
Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Through
the Crucible of Small Beginnings and Won Out.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.