Among the fascinating pursuits of life we must make a large place for
the collection of old books, old paintings, old missals and curios.
Certain cities, like Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Madrid, have
been for a thousand years like unto the Sargasso Sea in which beautiful
things have drifted.
Fifty years ago, men of leisure began to collect these treasures. Some
made their way into Egypt and Palestine, and there uncovered temples
long buried in sands and ruins and all covered with debris. From time to
time old missals were found in deserted monasteries, marbles were digged
up in buried palaces. Men came back from their journeys with some lovely
terra cotta, some ivory or bronze, some painting by an old master, whose
beauty had been hidden for centuries under smoke and grime. The
enthusiasm of the collectors exceeds the zest of men searching for gold
and diamonds amid the sands of South Africa.
Fifty years ago a young scholar of Louvain won high praise because of
his skill in dating and naming old pictures and manuscripts. When ten
years had passed by, this scholar's name and fame were spread all over
Europe. Many museums in different countries competed for his services.
The time came when the heads of galleries in London and Paris and Rome
sent for this expert to pass upon some art object. During the fifty
years this scholar came to know every beautiful treasure in Europe.
In the old castles of Austria, in a monastery of Bohemia, in the house
of an ancient Italian family, in certain second-hand bookstores, in
out-of-the-way towns he found treasures as precious as pearls and
diamonds raked out of the muck-heap.
When death took away his only son and left his little grandchildren
dependent upon himself the old book-lover looked forward serenely into
the future. He knew that every year his treasures were growing more and
more valuable. Living in his home in Louvain he received from time to
time visits from experts, who came in from all the cities of the world
to see his treasures, and if possible, to buy some rare book.
Then, in August, 1914, came the great catastrophe, as came the explosion
of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii under hot ashes and flaming fire.
One morning the old scholar was startled by the noise and confusion in
the street. Looking down from his window he saw German soldiers, German
horsemen, German cannon. He beheld women and children lined up on the
sidewalk. He saw German soldiers assault old men. He saw them carrying
the furniture, rugs and carpets out of the houses. He saw the flames
coming out of the roofs of houses a block away.
A moment later an old university professor pounded upon his door and
called out that they must flee for their lives. There was only time to
pick out one satchel and fill it with his precious manuscripts and
costly missals. Then the two old scholars fled into the street with the
grandchildren. Fortunately a Belgian driving a two-wheeled coal cart was
passing by. Into the cart climbed the little grandchildren. Carefully
the satchel filled with its treasures was also lifted into place.
At that moment a German shell exploded beside the cart. When the old
book-lover recovered consciousness the cart was gone, the grandchildren
were dead and of all his art treasures there was left only one little
book upon which some scholar of the twelfth century had toiled with
loving hands.
Carried forward among the refugees several hours later, Belgian soldiers
lifted the old man into a train that was carrying the wounded down to
Havre. In his hand the collector held the precious book. Excitement and
sorrow had broken his heart. His mind also wandered. He was no longer
able to understand the cosmic terror and blackness. A noble officer,
himself wounded, put his coat under the old man's head and made a
pillow and bade him forget the German beast, the bomb shells, the
blazing city. But all these foul deeds and all dangers now were as
naught to the old man.
"See my little book," he said. "How beautiful the lettering! Why, upon
this book, as upon a ship, civilization sailed across the dark waters of
the Middle Ages. Look at this book of beauty. The ugliness of the tenth
century is dead. The cruelty and the slavery of bloody tyrants is dead
also. The old cannon are quite rusted away. But look at this! Behold,
its beauty is immortal! Everything else dies. Soon all the smoke and
blood will go, but beauty and love and liberty will remain."
And then lifting the little book the old collector of Louvain pressed
his lips to the vellum page, bright with the blue and crimson and gold
of seven hundred years, and in a moment passed to the soul's summer
land, where no shriek of German shells rends the air, where wicked
Germans have ceased from troubling and where the French and Belgians,
worn by the cruelty of the Huns, are now at rest and peace.