A day of almost continuous rain, yet for me a day of delight. I had
breakfasted, and was poring over the map of Devon (how I love a good
map!) to trace an expedition that I have in view, when a knock came at my
door, and Mrs. M. bore in a great brown-paper parcel, which I saw at a
glance must contain books. The order was sent to London a few days ago;
I had not expected to have my books so soon. With throbbing heart I set
the parcel on a clear table; eyed it whilst I mended the fire; then took
my pen-knife, and gravely, deliberately, though with hand that trembled,
began to unpack.
It is a joy to go through booksellers' catalogues, ticking here and there
a possible purchase. Formerly, when I could seldom spare money, I kept
catalogues as much as possible out of sight; now I savour them page by
page, and make a pleasant virtue of the discretion I must needs impose
upon myself. But greater still is the happiness of unpacking volumes
which one has bought without seeing them. I am no hunter of rarities; I
care nothing for first editions and for tall copies; what I buy is
literature, food for the soul of man. The first glimpse of bindings when
the inmost protective wrapper has been folded back! The first scent of
_books_! The first gleam of a gilded title! Here is a work the name of
which has been known to me for half a lifetime, but which I never yet
saw; I take it reverently in my hand, gently I open it; my eyes are dim
with excitement as I glance over chapter-headings, and anticipate the
treat which awaits me. Who, more than I, has taken to heart that
sentence of the _Imitatio_--"In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam
inveni nisi in angulo cum libro"?
I had in me the making of a scholar. With leisure and tranquillity of
mind, I should have amassed learning. Within the walls of a college, I
should have lived so happily, so harmlessly, my imagination ever busy
with the old world. In the introduction to his History of France,
Michelet says: "J'ai passe a cote du monde, et j'ai pris l'histoire pour
la vie." That, as I can see now, was my true ideal; through all my
battlings and miseries I have always lived more in the past than in the
present. At the time when I was literally starving in London, when it
seemed impossible that I should ever gain a living by my pen, how many
days have I spent at the British Museum, reading as disinterestedly as if
I had been without a care! It astounds me to remember that, having
breakfasted on dry bread, and carrying in my pocket another piece of
bread to serve for dinner, I settled myself at a desk in the great
Reading-Room with books before me which by no possibility could be a
source of immediate profit. At such a time, I worked through German
tomes on Ancient Philosophy. At such a time, I read Appuleius and
Lucian, Petronius and the Greek Anthology, Diogenes Laertius and--heaven
knows what! My hunger was forgotten; the garret to which I must return
to pass the night never perturbed my thoughts. On the whole, it seems to
me something to be rather proud of; I smile approvingly at that thin,
white-faced youth. Me? My very self? No, no! He has been dead these
thirty years.
Scholarship in the high sense was denied me, and now it is too late. Yet
here am I gloating over Pausanias, and promising myself to read every
word of him. Who that has any tincture of old letters would not like to
read Pausanias, instead of mere quotations from him and references to
him? Here are the volumes of Dahn's _Die Konige der Germanen_: who would
not like to know all he can about the Teutonic conquerors of Rome? And
so on, and so on. To the end I shall be reading--and forgetting. Ah,
that's the worst of it! Had I at command all the knowledge I have at any
time possessed, I might call myself a learned man. Nothing surely is so
bad for the memory as long-enduring worry, agitation, fear. I cannot
preserve more than a few fragments of what I read, yet read I shall,
persistently, rejoicingly. Would I gather erudition for a future life?
Indeed, it no longer troubles me that I forget. I have the happiness of
the passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?