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IN THE TRACK OF THE BOOK-WORM
by Irving Browne: thoughts,
fancies and gentle gibes on Collecting and
Collectors by one of them.
DONE INTO A BOOK AT THE ROYCROFT
PRINTING SHOP AT EAST AURORA,
NEW YORK, U. S. A.
MDCCCXCVII
Copyrighted by
The Roycroft Printing Shop
1897
Of this edition but five hundred and ninety copies were printed and types
then distributed. Each copy is signed and numbered and this book is number
173
Irving Browne
CHAPTERS.
1. Objects of Collection 9
2. Who Have Collected 11
3. Diverse Tastes 18
4. The Size of Books 21
5. Binding 25
6. Paper 32
7. Women as Collectors 36
8. The Illustrator 47
9. Book-Plates 66
10. The Book-Auctioneer 73
11. The Book-Seller 77
12. The Public Librarian 84
13. Does Book Collecting Pay 88
14. The Book-Worm's Faults 93
15. Poverty as a Means of Enjoyment 103
16. The Arrangement of Books 105
17. Enemies of Books 108
18. Library Companions 121
19. The Friendship of Books 133
BALLADS.
1. How a Bibliomaniac Binds his Books 26
2. The Bibliomaniac's Assignment of Binders 28
3. The Failing Books 33
4. Suiting Paper to Subject 34
5. The Sentimental Chambermaid 37
6. A Woman's Idea of a Library 42
7. The Shy Portraits 54
8. The Snatchers 71
9. The Stolid Auctioneer 75
10. The Prophetic Book 80
11. The Book-Seller 82
12. The Public Librarian 85
13. The Book-Worm does not care for Nature 97
14. How I go A-Fishing 99
15. The Book-Thief 111
16. The Smoke Traveler 112
17. The Fire in the Library 116
18. Cleaning the Library 117
19. Ode to Omar 119
20. My Dog 121
21. My Clocks 123
22. A Portrait 125
23. My Schoolmate 126
24. My Shingle 129
25. Solitaire 130
26. My Friends the Books 133
To book-worms all, of high or low degree,
Whate'er of madness be their stages,
And just as well unknown as known to me,
I dedicate these trifling pages,
In hope that when they turn them o'er
They will not find the Track a bore.
The Track of the Book-Worm.
I.
OBJECTS OF COLLECTION.
Philosophers have made various and ingenious but incomplete attempts to
form a succinct definition of the animal, Man. At first thought it might
seem that a perfect definition would be, an animal who makes collections.
But one must remember that the magpie does this. Yet this definition is as
good as any, and comes nearer exactness than most. What has not the
animal Man collected? Clocks, watches, snuff-boxes, canes, fans, laces,
precious stones, china, coins, paper money, spoons, prints, paintings,
tulips, orchids, hens, horses, match-boxes, postal stamps, miniatures,
violins, show-bills, play-bills, swords, buttons, shoes, china slippers,
spools, birds, butterflies, beetles, saddles, skulls, wigs, lanterns,
book-plates, knockers, crystal balls, shells, penny toys, death-masks,
tea-pots, autographs, rugs, armour, pipes, arrow heads, locks of hair and
key locks, and hats (Jules Verne's "Tale of a Hat"), these are some of the
most prominent subjects in search of which the animal Man runs up and down
the earth, and spends time and money without scruple or stint. But all
these curious objects of search fall into insignificance when compared
with the ancient, noble and useful passion for collecting books. One of
the wisest of the human race said, the only earthly immortality is in
writing a book; and the desire to accumulate these evidences of earthly
immortality needs no defense among cultivated men.
II.
WHO HAVE COLLECTED BOOKS.
The mania for book-collecting is by no means a modern disease, but has
existed ever since there were books to gather, and has infected many of
the wisest and most potent names in history. Euripides is ridiculed by
Aristophanes in "The Frogs" for collecting books. Of the Roman emperor,
Gordian, who flourished (or rather did not flourish, because he was slain
after a reign of thirty-six days) in the third century, Gibbon says,
"twenty-two acknowledged concubines and a library of sixty thousand
volumes attested the variety of his inclinations." This combination of
uxorious and literary tastes seems to have existed in another monarch of a
later period--Henry VIII.--the seeming disproportion of whose expenditure
of 10,800 pounds for jewels in three years, during which he spent but 100
pounds for books and binding, is explained by the fact that he was
indebted for the contents of his libraries to the plunder of monasteries.
Henry printed a few copies of his book against Luther on vellum. Cicero,
who possessed a superb library, especially rich in Greek, at his villa in
Tusculum, thus describes his favorite acquisitions: "Books to quicken the
intelligence of youth, delight age, decorate prosperity, shelter and
solace us in adversity, bring enjoyment at home, befriend us out-of-doors,
pass the night with us, travel with us, go into the country with us."
Petrarch, who collected books not simply for his own gratification, but
aspired to become the founder of a permanent library at Venice, gave his
books to the Church of St. Mark; but the greater part of them perished
through neglect, and only a small part remains. Boccaccio, anticipating an
early death, offered his library to Petrarch, his dear friend, on his own
terms, to insure its preservation, and the poet promised to care for the
collection in case he survived Boccaccio; but the latter, outliving
Petrarch, bequeathed his books to the Augustinians of Florence, and some
of them are still shown to visitors in the Laurentinian Library. From
Boccaccio's own account of his collection, one must believe his books
quite inappropriate for a monastic library, and the good monks probably
instituted an auto da fe for most of them, like that which befell the
knightly romances in "Don Quixote." Perhaps the naughty story-teller
intended the donation as a covert satire. The walls of the room which
formerly contained Montaigne's books, and is at this day exhibited to
pilgrims, are covered with inscriptions burnt in with branding-irons on
the beams and rafters by the eccentric and delightful essayist. The
author of "Ivanhoe" adorned his magnificent library with suits of superb
armor, and luxuriated in demonology and witchcraft. The caustic Swift was
in the habit of annotating his books, and writing on the fly-leaves a
summary opinion of the author's merits; whatever else he had, he owned no
Shakespeare, nor can any reference to him be found in the nineteen volumes
of Swift's works. Military men seem always to have had a passion for
books. To say nothing of the literary and rhetorical tastes of Caesar, "the
foremost man of all time," Frederick the Great had libraries at Sans
Souci, Potsdam, and Berlin, in which he arranged the volumes by classes
without regard to size. Thick volumes he rebound in sections for more
convenient use, and his favorite French authors he sometimes caused to be
reprinted in compact editions to his taste. The great Conde inherited a
valuable library from his father, and enlarged and loved it. Marlborough
had twenty-five books on vellum, all earlier than 1496. The hard-fighting
Junot had a vellum library which sold in London for 1,400 pounds, while
his great master was not too busy in conquering Europe not only to solace
himself in his permanent libraries, and in books which he carried with him
in his expeditions, but to project and actually commence the printing of a
camp library of duodecimo volumes, without margins, and in thin covers, to
embrace some three thousand volumes, and which he had designed to complete
in six years by employing one hundred and twenty compositors and
twenty-five editors, at an outlay of about 163,000 pounds. St. Helena
destroyed this scheme. It is curious to note that Napoleon despised
Voltaire as heartily as Frederick admired him, but gave Fielding and Le
Sage places among his traveling companions; while the Bibliomaniac appears
in his direction to his librarian: "I will have fine editions and handsome
bindings. I am rich enough for that." The main thing that shakes one's
confidence in the correctness of his literary taste is that he was fond of
"Ossian." Julius Caesar also formed a traveling library of forty-four
little volumes, contained in an oak case measuring 16 by 11 by 3 inches,
covered with leather. The books are bound in white vellum, and consist of
history, philosophy, theology, and poetry, in Greek and Latin. The
collector was Sir Julius Caesar, of England, and this exquisite and unique
collection is in the British Museum. The books were all printed between
1591 and 1616.
Southey brought together fourteen thousand volumes, the most valuable
collection which had up to that time been acquired by any man whose means
and estate lay, as he once said of himself, in his inkstand. Time fails me
to speak of Erasmus, De Thou, Grotius, Goethe, Bodley; Hans Sloane, whose
private library of fifty thousand volumes was the beginning of that of the
British Museum; the Cardinal Borromeo, who founded the Ambrosian Library
at Milan with his own forty thousand volumes, and the other great names
entitled to the description of Bibliomaniac. We must not forget Sir
Richard Whittington, of feline fame, who gave 400 pounds to found the
library of Christ's Hospital, London.
The fair sex, good and bad, have been lovers of books or founders of
libraries; witness the distinguished names of Lady Jane Gray, Catherine De
Medicis, and Diane de Poictiers.
It only remains to speak of the great opium-eater, who was a sort of
literary ghoul, famed for borrowing books and never returning them, and
whose library was thus made up of the enforced contributions of
friends--for who would have dared refuse the loan of a book to Thomas de
Quincey? The name of the unhappy man would have descended to us with that
of the incendiary of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. But the great Thomas
was recklessly careless and slovenly in his use of books; and Burton, in
the "Book-hunter," tells us that "he once gave in copy written on the
edges of a tall octavo 'Somnium Scipionis,' and as he did not obliterate
the original matter, the printer was rather puzzled, and made a funny
jumble between the letter-press Latin and the manuscript English." I
seriously fear that with him must be ranked the gentle Elia, who said: "A
book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us
that we know the topography of its blots and dog's ears, and can trace the
dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe,
which I think is the maximum." And yet a great degree of slovenliness may
be excused in Charles because, according to Leigh Hunt, he once gave a
kiss to an old folio Chapman's "Homer," and when asked how he knew his
books one from the other, for hardly any were lettered, he answered: "How
does a shepherd know his sheep?"
The love of books displayed by the sensual Henry and the pugnacious Junot
is not more remarkable than that of the epicurean and sumptuous Lucullus,
to whom Pompey, when sick, having been directed by his physician to eat a
thrush for dinner, and learning from his servants that in summer-time
thrushes were not to be found anywhere but in Lucullus' fattening coops,
refused to be indebted for his meal, observing: "So if Lucullus had not
been an epicure, Pompey had not lived." Of him the veracious Plutarch
says: "His furnishing a library, however, deserved praise and record, for
he collected very many and choice manuscripts; and the use they were put
to was even more magnificent than the purchase, the library being always
open, and the walks and reading rooms about it free to all Greeks, whose
delight it was to leave their other occupations and hasten thither as to
the habitation of the Muses."
It is not recorded that Socrates collected books--his wife probably
objected--but we have his word for it that he loved them. He did not love
the country, and the only thing that could tempt him thither was a book.
Acknowledging this to Phaedrus he says:
"Very true, my good friend; and I hope that you will excuse me when you
hear the reason, which is, that I am a lover of knowledge, and the men who
dwell in the city are my teachers, and not the trees or the country.
Though I do indeed believe that you have found a spell with which to draw
me out of the city into the country, like a hungry cow before whom a bough
or a bunch of fruit is waved. For only hold up before me in like manner a
book, and you may lead me all round Attica, and over the wide world. And
now having arrived, I intend to lie down, and do you choose any posture in
which you can read best."
III.
DIVERSE TASTES.
It is fortunate for the harmony of book-collectors that they do not all
desire the same thing, just as it was fortunate for their young State that
all the Romans did not want the same Sabine woman. Otherwise the Helenic
battle of the books would be fiercer than it is. Thus there are
bibliomaniacs who reprint rare books from their own libraries in limited
numbers; authors, like Walpole, who print their own works, and whose fame
as printers is better deserved than their reputation as writers; like
Thackeray, who design the illustrations for their own romances, or, like
Astor, who procure a single copy of their novel to be illustrated at
lavish expense by artists; amateurs who bind their own books; lunatics who
yearn for books wholly engraved, or printed only on one side of the leaf,
or Greek books wholly in capitals, or others in the italic letter; or
black-letter fanciers; or tall copy men; or rubricists, missal men, or
first edition men, or incunabulists.
One seeks only ancient books; another limited editions; another those
privately printed; a fourth wants nothing but presentation copies; yet
another only those that have belonged to famous men, and still another
illustrated or illuminated books. There is a perfectly rabid and incurable
class, of whom the most harmless are devoted to pamphlets; another,
rather more dangerous, to incorrect or suppressed editions; and a third,
stark mad, to play-bills and portraits. One patronizes the drama, one
poetry, one the fine arts, another books about books and their collectors;
and a very recherche class devote themselves to works on playing-cards,
angling, magic, or chess, emblems, dances of death, or the jest books and
facetiae. Finally, there are those unhappy beings who run up and down for
duplicates, searching for every edition of their favorite authors. In very
recent days there has arisen a large class who demand the first editions
of popular novelists like Dickens, Thackeray and Hawthorne, and will pay
large prices for these issues which have no value except that of rarity. I
can quite understand the enthusiasm of the collector over the beautiful
first editions of the Greek and Latin classics, or for the first "Paradise
Lost," or even for the ugly first folio "Shakespeare," and why he should
prefer the comparatively rude first Walton's Angler to Pickering's
edition, the handsomest of this century, with its monumental title page.
But why a first edition of a popular novel should be more desirable than a
late one, which is usually the more elegant, I confess I cannot
understand. It is one of those things which, like the mystery of religion,
we must take on trust. So when a bookseller tells me that a copy of the
first issue of "The Scarlet Letter" has sold for seventy-five dollars,
and that a copy of the second, with the same date, but put out six months
later, is worth only seventy-five cents, I open my eyes but not my purse,
especially when I consider that the second is greatly superior to the
first on account of its famous preface of apology, and when I read of some
one's bidding $1875 for a copy of Poe's worthless "Tamerlane," I am
flattered by the reflection that there is one man in the world whom I
believe to be eighteen hundred and seventy-five times as great a fool as I
am!
IV.
THE SIZE OF BOOKS.
Were I a despotic ruler of the universe I would make it a serious offense
to publish a book larger than royal octavo. Books should be made to read,
or at all events to look at, and in this view comfort and ease should be
consulted. Any one who has ever undertaken to read a huge quarto or folio
will sympathize with this view. The older and lazier the Book-Worm grows
the more he longs for little books, which he can hold in one hand without
getting a cramp, or at least support with arms in an elbow chair without
fatigue. Darwin remorselessly split big books in two. Mr. Slater says in
"Book Collecting:" "When the library at Sion College took fire the
attendants, at the risk of their lives, rescued a pile of books from the
flames, and it is said that the librarian wept when he found that the
porters had taken it for granted that the value of a book was in exact
proportion to its size." Few of us, I suspect, ever read our family Bible,
and all of us probably groan when we lift out the unabridged dictionary.
The "Century Dictionary" is a luxury because it is published in small and
convenient parts. I cannot conceive any good in a big book except that the
ladies may use it to press flowers or mosses in, or the nurses may put it
in a chair to sit the baby on at table. I have heard of a gentleman who
inherited a mass of folio volumes and arranged them as shelves for his
smaller treasures, and of another who arranged his 12-mos on a stand made
up of the seventeen volumes of Pinkerton's "Voyages" and Denon's "Egypt"
for shelves. What reader would not prefer a dainty little Elzevir to the
huge folio, Caesar's "Commentaries," even with the big bull in it, and the
wicker idol full of burning human victims? What can be more pleasing than
the modern Quantin edition of the classics? Or, to speak of a popular
book, take the "Pastels in Prose," the most exquisite book for the price
ever known in the history of printing. The small book ought however to
be easily legible. The health and comfort of the human eye should be
consulted in the size of the type. Nothing can be worse in this regard
than the Pickering diamond classics, if meant to be read; and it seems
that there are too many of them to be intended as mere curiosities of
printing. Let us approve the exit of the folio and the quarto, and applaud
the modern tendency toward little and handy volumes. Large paper however
is a worthy distinction when the subject is worth the distinction and the
edition is not too large. Nothing raises the gorge of the true Book-Worm
more than to see an issue on large paper of a row of histories, for
example; and the very worst instance conceivable was a large paper
Webster's "Unabridged Dictionary" issued some years ago. The book thus
distinguished ought to be a classic, or peculiar for elegance, never a
series, or stereotyped, the first struck off, and the issue ought not to
be more than from fifty to one hundred copies; any larger issue is not
worth the extra margin bestowed, and no experienced buyer will tolerate
it. But if all these conditions are observed, the large paper copies
bear the same relation to the small that a proof before letters of a print
holds to the other impressions. Large margins are very pleasant in a
library as well as in Wall Street, and much more apt to be permanent.
There are some favorite books of which the possessor longs in vain for a
large copy, as for instance, the Pickering "Walton and Cotton."
A great deal of fun is made of the Book-Worm because of his desire for
large paper and of his insistence on uncut edges, but his reasons are
sound and his taste is unimpeachable. The tricks of the book-trade to
catch the inexperienced with the bait of large paper are very amusing.
"Strictly limited" to so many copies for England and so many for America,
say a thousand in all, or else the number is not stated, and always
described as an edition de luxe, and its looks are always very repulsive.
But the bait is eagerly bitten at by a shoal of beings anxious to get one
of these rarities--a class to one of whom I once found it necessary to
explain that "uncut edges" does not mean leaves not cut open, and that he
would not injure the value of his book by being able to read it, and was
not bound to peep in surreptitiously like a maid-servant at a door "on
the jar." I once knew a satirical Book-Worm who issued a pamphlet, "one
hundred copies on large paper, none on small." There is no just
distinction in an ugly large-paper issue, and sometimes it is not nearly
so beautiful as the small, especially when the latter has uncut edges. The
independence of the collector who prefers the small in such circumstances
is to be commended and imitated.
Too great inequality in uncut edges is also to be shunned as an ugliness.
It seems that some French books are printed on paper of two different
sizes, the effect of which is very grotesque, and the device is a catering
to a very crude and extravagant taste.
V.
BINDING.
The binding of books for several centuries has held the dignity of a fine
art, quite independent of printing. This has been demonstrated by
exhibitions in this country and abroad. But every collector ought to
observe fitness in the binding which he procures to be executed. True
fitness prevails in most old and fine bindings; seldom was a costly garb
bestowed on a book unworthy of it. But in many a luxurious library we see
a modern binding fit for a unique or rare book given to one that is
comparatively worthless or common. Not to speak of bindings that are real
works of art, many collectors go astray in dressing lumber in purple and
fine linen--putting full levant morocco on blockhead histories and such
stuff that perishes in the not using. It is a sad spectacle to behold a
unique binding wasted on a book of no more value than a backgammon board.
There are of course not a great many of us who can afford unique bindings,
but those who cannot should at least observe propriety and fitness in this
regard, and draw the line severely between full dress and demi-toilette,
and keep a sharp eye to appropriateness of color. I have known several men
who bound their books all alike. Nothing could be worse except one who
should bind particular subjects in special styles, pace Mr. Ellwanger,
who, in "The Story of My House," advises the Book-Worm to "bind the poets
in yellow or orange, books on nature in olive, the philosophers in blue,
the French classics in red," etc. I am curious to know what color this
pleasant writer would adopt for the binding of his books by military men,
such for example as "Major Walpole's Anecdotes." (p. 262).
Ambrose Fermin Didot recommended binding the "Iliad" in red and the
"Odyssey" in blue, for the Greek rhapsodists wore a scarlet cloak when
they recited the former and a blue one when they recited the latter. The
churchmen he would clothe in violet, cardinals in scarlet, philosophers in
black.
I have imagined
HOW A BIBLIOMANIAC BINDS HIS BOOKS.
I'd like my favorite books to bind
So that their outward dress
To every bibliomaniac's mind
Their contents should express.
Napoleon's life should glare in red,
John Calvin's gloom in blue;
Thus they would typify bloodshed
And sour religion's hue.
The prize-ring record of the past
Must be in blue and black;
While any color that is fast
Would do for Derby track.
The Popes in scarlet well may go;
In jealous green, Othello;
In gray, Old Age of Cicero,
And London Cries in yellow.
My Walton should his gentle art
In Salmon best express,
And Penn and Fox the friendly heart
In quiet drab confess.
Statistics of the lumber trade
Should be embraced in boards,
While muslin for the inspired Maid
A fitting garb affords.
Intestine wars I'd clothe in vellum,
While pig-skin Bacon grasps,
And flat romances, such as "Pelham,"
Should stand in calf with clasps.
Blind-tooled should be blank verse and rhyme
Of Homer and of Milton;
But Newgate Calendar of Crime
I'd lavishly dab gilt on.
The edges of a sculptor's life
May fitly marbled be,
But sprinkle not, for fear of strife,
A Baptist history.
Crimea's warlike facts and dates
Of fragrant Russia smell;
The subjugated Barbary States
In crushed Morocco dwell.
But oh! that one I hold so dear
Should be arrayed so cheap
Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear
My Lamb must be half-sheep.
No doubt a Book-Worm so far gone as this could invent stricter analogies
and make even the binder fit the book.
So we should have
THE BIBLIOMANIAC'S ASSIGNMENT OF BINDERS.
If I could bring the dead to day,
I would your soul with wonder fill
By pointing out a novel way
For bibliopegistic skill.
My Walton, Trautz should take in hand,
Or else I'd give him o'er to Hering;
Matthews should make the Gospels stand
A solemn warning to the erring.
The history of the Inquisition,
With all its diabolic train
Of cruelty and superstition,
Should fitly be arrayed by Payne.
A book of dreams by Bedford clad,
A Papal history by De Rome,
Should make the sense of fitness glad
In every bibliomaniac's home.
As our first mother's folly cost
Her sex so dear, and makes men grieve,
So Milton's plaint of Eden lost
Would be appropriate to Eve.
Hayday would make "One Summer" be
Doubly attractive to the view;
While General Wolfe's biography
Should be the work of Pasdeloup.
For lives of dwarfs, like Thomas Thumb,
Petit's the man by nature made,
And when Munchasen strikes us dumb
It is by means of Gascon aid.
Thus would I the great binders blend
In harmony with work before 'em,
And so Riviere I would commend
To Turner's "Liber Fluviorum."
After all, whether one can afford a three-hundred or a three-dollar
binding, the gentle Elia has said the last word about fitness of bindings
when he observed: "To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum
of a volume; magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is
not to be lavished on all kinds of books indiscriminately.
"Where we know that a book is at once both good and rare--where the
individual is almost the species,
'We know not where is that Prometian torch
That can its light relumine;'
"Such a book for instance as the 'Life of the Duke of Newcastle' by his
Duchess--no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to
honor and keep safe such a jewel.
"To view a well arranged assortment of block-headed encyclopoedias
(Anglicana or Metropolitanas), set out in an array of Russia and Morocco,
when a tithe of that good leather would comfortably reclothe my shivering
folios, would renovate Parcelsus himself, and enable old Raymond Lully to
look like himself again in the world. I never see these impostors but I
long to strip them and warm my ragged veterans in their spoils."
There spoke the true Book-Worm. What a pity he could not have sold a part
of his good sense and fine taste to some of the affluent collectors of
this period!
Doubtless an experienced binder could give some amusing examples of
mistakes in indorsing books with their names. One remains in my memory. A
French binder, entrusted with a French translation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
in two volumes, put "L'Oncle" on both, and numbered them "Tome 1," "Tome
2." Charles Cowden-Clarke tells of his having ordered Leigh Hunt's poems
entitled "Foliage" to be bound in green, and how the book came home in
blue. That would answer for the "blue grass" region of Kentucky. I have
no patience with those disgusting realists who bind books in human or
snake skin. In his charming book on the Law Reporters, Mr. Wallace says of
Desaussures' South Carolina Reports: "When these volumes are found in
their original binding most persons, I think, are struck with its
peculiarity. The cause of it is, I believe, that it was done by negroes."
What the "peculiarity" is he does not disclose. But book-binding seems to
be an unwonted occupation for negro slaves. It was not often that they
beat skins, although their own skins were frequently beaten.
VI.
PAPER.
It is a serious question whether the art of printing has been improved
except in facility. Is not the first printed book still the finest ever
printed? But in one point I am certain that the moderns have fallen away,
at least in the production of cheap books, and that is in the quality and
finish of the paper. Not to speak of injurious devices to make the book
heavy, the custom of calendering the paper, or making it smooth and shiny,
practised by some important publishers, is bad for the eyes, and the
result is not pleasant to look at. It is like the glare of the glass over
the framed print. It is said to be necessary to the production of the
modern "process" pictures. Even here however there is a just mean, for
some of the modern paper is absurdly rough, and very difficult for a good
impression of the types. Modern paper however has one advantage: Mr.
Blades, in his pleasant "Enemies of Books," tells us "that the worm will
not touch it," it is so adulterated. One hint I would give the
publishers--allow us a few more fly leaves, so that we may paste in
newspaper cuttings, and make memoranda and suggestions.
It is predicted by some that our nineteenth century books--at least those
of the last third--will not last; that the paper and ink are far inferior
to those of preceding centuries, and that the destroying tooth of time
will work havoc with them. No doubt the modern paper and the modern ink
are inferior to those of the earlier ages of printing, when making a book
was a fine art and a work of conscience, but whether the modern
productions of the press will ultimately fade and crumble is a question to
be determined only by a considerable lapse of time, which probably no one
living will be qualified to pronounce upon. Take for what they are worth
my sentiments respecting
THE FAILING BOOKS.
They say our books will disappear,
That ink will fade and paper rot--
I sha'n't be here,
So I don't care a jot.
The best of them I know by heart,
As for the rest they make me tired;
The viler part
May well be fired.
Oh, what a hypocritic show
Will be the bibliomaniac's hoard!
Cheat as hollow
As a backgammon board.
Just think of Lamb without his stuffing,
And the iconoclastic Howells,
Who spite of puffing
Is destitute of bowels.
'Twould make me laugh to see the stare
Of mousing bibliomaniac fond
At pages bare
As Overreach's bond.
Those empty titles will displease
The earnest student seeking knowledge,--
Barren degrees,
Like these of Western College.
That common stuff, "Excelsior,"
In poetry so lacking,
I care not for--
'Tis only fit for packing.
It has occurred to me that publishers might appeal to bibliomaniacal
tastes by paying a little more attention to their paper, and I have thrown
a few suggestions on this point into rhyme, so that they may be readily
committed to memory:
SUITING PAPER TO SUBJECT.
Printers the paper should adapt
Unto the subject of the book,
Thus making buyers wonder-rapt
Before they at the contents look.
Thus Beerbohm's learned book on Eggs
On a laid paper he should print,
But Motley's "Dutch Republic" begs
Rice paper should its matter hint.
That curious problem of what Man
Inhabited the Iron Mask
Than Whatman paper never can
A more suggestive medium ask.
The "Book of Dates," by Mr. Haydon,
Should be on paper calendered;
That Swift on Servants be arrayed on
A hand-made paper is inferred.
Though angling-books have never been
Accustomed widely to appear
On fly-paper, 'twould be no sin
To have them wormed from front to rear.
The good that authors thus may reap
I'll not pursue to tedium,
But hint, for books on raising sheep
Buckram is just the medium.
VII.
WOMEN AS COLLECTORS.
Women collect all sorts of things except books. To them the book-sense
seems to be denied, and it is difficult for them to appreciate its
existence in men. To be sure, there have been a few celebrated
book-collectors among the fair sex, but they have usually been rather
reprehensible ladies, like Diane de Poictiers and Madame Pompadour.
Probably Aspasia was a collector of MSS. Lady Jane Grey seems to have been
a virtuous exception, and she was cruelly "cropped." I am told that there
are a few women now-a-days who collect books, and only a few weeks ago a
lady read, before a woman's club in Chicago, a paper on the Collection and
Adornment of Books, for which occasion a fair member of the club solicited
me to write her something appropriate to read, which of course I was glad
to do. But this was in Chicago, where the women go in for culture. In
thirty years' haunting of the book-shops and print-shops of New York, I
have never seen a woman catching a cold in her head by turning over the
large prints, nor soiling her dainty gloves by handling the dirty old
books. Women have been depicted in literature in many different
occupations, situations and pleasures, but in all the literature that I
have read I can recall only one instance in which she is imagined a
book-buyer. This is in "The Sentimental Journey," and in celebrating the
unique instance let me rise to a nobler strain and sing a song of
THE SENTIMENTAL CHAMBERMAID.
When you're in Paris, do not fail
To seek the Quai de Conti,
Where in the roguish Parson's tale,
Upon the river front he
Bespoke the pretty chambermaid
Too innocent to be afraid.
On this book-seller's mouldy stall,
Crammed full of volumes musty,
I made a bibliophilic call
And saw, in garments rusty,
The ancient vender, queer to view,
In breeches, buckles, and a queue.
And while to find that famous book,
"Les Egaremens du Coeur,"
I dilligently undertook,
I suddenly met her;
She held a small green satin purse,
And spite of Time looked none the worse.
I told her she was known to Fame
Through ministerial Mentor,
And though I had not heard her name,
That this should not prevent her
From listening to the homage due
To one to Sentiment so true.
She blushed; I bowed in courtly fashion;
In pockets of my trousers
Then sought a crown to vouch my passion,
Without intent to rouse hers;
But I had left my purse 'twould seem--
And then I woke--'twas but a dream!
The heart will wander, never doubt,
Though waking faith it keep;
That is exceptionally stout
Which strays but in its sleep;
And hearts must always turn to her
Who loved, "Les Egaremens du Coeur."
M. Uzanne, in "The Book-Hunter in Paris," avers that "the woman of fashion
never goes book-hunting," and he puts the aphorism in italics. He also
says that the occasional woman at the book-stalls, "if by chance she wants
a book, tries to bargain for it as if it were a lobster or a fowl." Also
that the book-stall keepers are always watchful of the woman with an
ulster, a water-proof, or a muff. These garments are not always impervious
to books, it seems.
The imitative efforts of women at "extra-illustrating" are usually limited
to buying a set of photographs at Rome and sticking them into the cracks
of "The Marble Faun," and giving it away to a friend as a marked favor.
Poor Hawthorne! he would wriggle in his grave if he could see his fair
admirers doing this. Mr. Blades certainly ought to have included women
among the enemies of books. They generally regard the husband's or
father's expenditure on books as so much spoil of their gowns and jewels.
We book-men are up to all the tricks of getting the books into the house
without their knowing it. What joy and glee when we successfully smuggle
in a parcel from the express, right under our wife's nose, while she is
busy talking scandal to another woman in the drawing-room! The good
creatures make us positively dishonest and endanger our eternal welfare.
How we "hustle around" in their absence, when the embargo is temporarily
raised; and when the new purchases are detected, how we pretend that they
are old, and wonder that they have not seen them before, and rattle away
in a fevered, embarrassed manner about the scarcity and value of the
surreptitious purchases, and how meanly conscious we are all the time that
the pretense is unavailing and the fair despots see right through us.
God has given them an instinct that is more than a match for our
acknowledged superior intellect. And the good wife smiles quietly but
satirically, and says, in the form in that case made and provided, "My
dear, you'll certainly ruin yourself buying books!" with a sigh that
agitates a very costly diamond necklace reposing on her shapely bosom; or
she archly shakes at us a warning finger all aglow with ruby and sapphire,
which she has bought on installments out of the house allowance. Fortunate
for us if the library is not condemned to be cleaned twice a year. These
beloved objects ought to deny themselves a ring, or a horse, or a gown, or
a ball now and then, to atone for their mankind's debauchery in books; but
do they? They ought to encourage the Bibliomania, for it keeps their
husbands out of mischief, away from "that horrid club," and safe at home
of evenings. The Book-Worm is always a blameless being. He never has to
hie to Canada as a refuge. He is "absolutely pure," like all the baking
powders.
The gentle Addison, in "The Spectator," thus described a woman's library:
"The very sound of a lady's library gave me a great curiosity to see it;
and as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunity
of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a
very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely bound
and gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another in a very
noble piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from the octavos
by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The
octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, which
were so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continued
pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with the
greatest variety of dyes. That part of the library which was designed for
the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was inclosed
in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works
that I ever saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, mandarins, monkeys,
trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the
midst of the room was a little Japan table with a quire of gilt paper upon
it, and on the paper a silver snuff-box made in shape of a little book. I
found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves,
which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, like
fagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a
mixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the
scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in a
grotto or in a library".
If so great a favorite with the fair sex could say such satirical things
of them, I may be permitted to have my own idea of
A WOMAN'S IDEA OF A LIBRARY.
I do not care so much for books,
But Libraries are all the style,
With fine "editions de luxe"
One's formal callers to beguile;
With neat dwarf cases round the walls,
And china teapots on the top,
The empty shelves concealed by falls
Of India silk that graceful drop.
A few rare etchings greet the view,
Like "Harmony" and "Harvest Moon;"
An artist's proof on satin too
By what's-his-name is quite a boon.
My print called "Jupiter and Jo"
Is very rarely seen, but then
Another copy I can show
Inscribed with "Jupiter and 10."
A fisher boy in marble stoops
On pedestal in window placed,
And one of Rogers' lovely groups
Is through the long lace curtains traced.
And then I make a painting lean
Upon a white and gilded easel,
Illustrating that famous scene
Of Joseph Andrews and Lady Teazle.
Of course my shelves the works reveal
Of Plutarch, Rollin, and of Tupper,
While Bowdler's Shakespeare and "Lucille"
Quite soothe one's spirits after supper.
And when I visited dear Rome
I bought a lot of photographs,
And had them mounted here at home,
And though my dreadful husband laughs,
I've put them in "The Marble Faun,"
And envious women vainly seek
At Scribner's shop, from early dawn,
To find a volume so unique.
And monthly here, in deep surmise,
Minerva's bust above us frowning,
A club of women analyze
The works of Ibsen and of Browning.
In the charming romance, "Realmah," the noble African prince prescribes
monogamy to his subjects, but he allows himself three wives; one is a
State wife, to sit by his side on the throne, help him receive
embassadors, and preside at court dinners; another a household wife, to
rule the kitchen and the homely affairs of the palace; the third is a
love-wife, to be cherished in his heart and bear him children. Why would
it not be fair to the Book-Worm to concede him a Book-wife, who should
understand and sympathize with him in his eccentricity, and who should
care more for rare and beautiful books than for diamonds, laces, Easter
bonnets and ten-button gloves?
In regard to women's book-clubs, a recent writer, Mr. Edward Sanford
Martin, in "Windfalls of Observation," observes: "If a man wants to read a
book he buys it, and if he likes it he buys six more copies and gives (not
all the same day, of course) to six women whose intelligence he respects.
But if a club of fifteen girls determine to read a book, do they buy
fifteen copies? No. Do they buy five copies? No. Do they buy--No, they
don't buy at all; they borrow a copy. It doesn't lie in womankind to spend
money for books unless they are meant to be a gift for some man." Mr.
Martin is a little too hard here, for I have been told of such clubs which
sometimes bought one copy. To be sure they always bully the bookseller
into letting them have it at cost on account of the probable benefit to
his trade. But it is true that no normally organized woman will forego a
dollar's worth of ribbon or gloves for a dollar's worth of book. I have
sometimes read aloud to a number of women while they were sewing, but I do
it no more, for just as I got to a point where you ought to be able to
hear a pin drop, I always have heard some woman whisper, "Lend me your
eighty cotton." A story was told me of the first meeting of a Browning
Club in a large city in Ohio. My informant was a young lady from the East,
who was present, and my readers can safely rely on the correctness of the
narration. The club was composed of young ladies from sixteen to
twenty-five years of age, all of the "first families." It was thought best
to take an easy poem for the first meeting, and so one of them read aloud,
"The Last Ride Together". After the reading there was a moment's
silence, and then one observed that she would like to know whether they
took that ride on horseback or in a "buggy." Another silence, and then an
artless young bud ventured the remark that she thought it must have been
in a buggy, because if it was on horseback he could not have got his arm
around her. I once thought of sending this anecdote to Mr. Browning, but
was warned that he was destitute of the sense of humor, especially at his
own expense, and so desisted.
"Ah, that our wives could only see
How well the money is invested
In these old books, which seem to be
By them, alas! so much detested."
But the wives are not always unwise in their opposition to their husband's
book-buying. There is nothing more pitiful than to see the widow of a poor
clergyman or lawyer trying to sell his library, and to witness her
disappointment at the shrinkage of value which she had been taught and
accustomed to regard as so great. A woman who has a true and wise
sympathy with her husband's book-buying is an adored object. I recollect
one such, who at her own suggestion gave up the largest and best room in
her house to her husband's books, and received her callers and guests in a
smaller one--she also received her husband's blessing.
VIII.
THE ILLUSTRATOR.
The popular notion of the Illustrator, as the term is used by the
Book-Worm, is that he buys many valuable books containing pictures and
spoils them by tearing the pictures out, and from them constructs another
valuable book with pictures. We smile to read this in the newspapers. If
it were strictly true it would be a very reprehensible practice. But
generally the books compelled to surrender their prints to the Illustrator
are good for nothing else. To lament over them is as foolish as to grieve
over the grape-skins out of which has been pressed the luscious
Johannisburger, or to mourn over the unsightly holes which the
porcelain-potter has made in the clay-bank. Even among Book-Worms the
Illustrator, or the "Grangerite," as the term of reproach is, has come in
for many hard knocks in recent years. John Hill Burton set the tune by his
merry satire in "The Book-Hunter," in which he portrays the Grangerite
illustrating the pious Watts' stanzas, beginning, "How doth the little
busy bee." In his first edition Mr. Burton mentioned among "great writers
on bees," whose portrait would be desirable, Aristarchus, meaning probably
Aristomachus. This mistake is not corrected in the last edition, but the
name is omitted altogether.
Mr. Beverly Chew "drops into poetry" on the subject, and thus
apostrophises the Grangerite:
"Ah, ruthless wight,
Think of the books you've turned to waste,
With patient skill."
Mr. Henri Pere Du Bois thus describes the ordinary result: "Of one hundred
books extended by the insertion of prints which were not made for them,
ninety-nine are ruined; the hundredth book is no longer a book; it is a
museum. An imperfect book, built with the spoils of a thousand books; a
crazy quilt made of patches out of gowns of queens and scullions." So
Burton compares the Grangerite to Genghis Kahn. Mr. Lang declares the
Grangerites are "book ghouls, and brood, like the obscene demons of
Arabian superstition, over the fragments of the mighty dead." I would like
to show Mr. Lang how I have treated his "Letters to Dead Authors" and "Old
Friends" by illustration. He would probably feel, with AEsop's lawyer, that
"circumstances alter cases," although he says "no book deserves the
honor".
So a reviewer in "The Nation" stigmatises Grangerism as "a vampire art,
maiming when it does not murder" (I did not know that vampires "maim"
their victims) "and incapable of rising beyond canibalism" (not that they
feed on one another, but when critics get excited their metaphors are apt
to become mixed).
"G. W. S.," of the New York "Tribune," speaks of the achievement of the
Illustrators as "colossal vulgarities." Mr. Percy Fitzgerald observes:
"The pitiless Grangerite slaughters a book for a few pictures, just as an
epicure has had a sheep killed for the sweetbread".
These are very choice hard words. There is much extravagance, but some
justice in all this criticism. As a question of economics I do not find
any great difference between a Book-worm who spends thousands of dollars
in constructing one attractive book from several not attractive, and one
who spends a thousand dollars in binding a book, or for an example of a
famous old binder. If there is any difference it is in favor of the
Grangerite, who improves the volume for the intelligent purposes of the
reader, as against the other who merely caters to "the lust of the eye".
I am willing to concede that the Grangerite is sometimes guilty of some
gross offenses against good taste and good sense. The worst of these is
when he extends the text of the volume itself to a larger page in order to
embrace large prints. This is grotesque, for it spoils the very book. He
is also blamable when he squanders valuable prints and time and patience
on mere book lumber, such as long rows of histories; and when he stuffs
and crams his book; and when his pictures are not of the era of the
events or of the time of life of the persons described; and when they are
too large or too small to be in just proportion to the printed page; and
when the book is so heavy and cumbersome that no one can handle it with
comfort or convenience. Above all he is blamable, in my estimation, when
he entrusts the selection of prints to an agent. Such agency is frequently
very unsatisfactory, and at all events the Illustrator misses the sport of
the hunt. Few men would entrust the furnishing or decorating of a house,
the purchase of a horse, or the selection of a wife to a third person, and
the delicate matter of choosing prints for a book is essentially one to be
transacted in person. The danger of any other procedure in the case of a
wife was illustrated by Cromwell's agency for Henry Eighth in the affair
of Anne of Cleves, the "Flanders mare."