CONFESSIONS OF A
BOOK-LOVER
CONFESSIONS OF A
BOOK-LOVER
BY
E. WALTER WALTERS
_With an Introduction by_
COULSON KERNAHAN
AUTHOR OF ‘THE FACE BEYOND THE DOOR,’
‘GOD AND THE ANT,’ ETC.
LONDON
CHARLES H. KELLY
25-35 CITY ROAD, AND 26 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
_First Edition, 1913_
To
THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY COULSON KERNAHAN 9
I. ‘HUMBLY TO CONFESS’ 17
II. BOOKS AND GARDENS 27
III. BOOKS THAT TEMPT 37
IV. ‘OUTSIDE THEIR BOOKS’ 47
V. BOOKS THAT CAPTIVATE 55
VI. PERSONALITIES IN ‘BOOKLAND’ 63
VII. SECOND-HAND BOOKS 73
VIII. ‘THE CULT OF THE BOOKPLATE’ 81
IX. BEDSIDE BOOKS 91
X. OLD FRIENDS 99
XI. THROUGH ROSE-COLOURED SPECTACLES 107
XII. WITH NATURE 117
XIII. A PILGRIMAGE 127
XIV. FAREWELL 137
INTRODUCTION
BY COULSON KERNAHAN
I
PART of the present volume appeared in _Great Thoughts_. Yet here
am I, whose name is associated--if at all--in the memory of readers
with ‘little thoughts,’ and with booklets impudent in the slenderness
of their matter, presumptuously standing forth to bow the public into
the writer’s presence, and essaying to introduce the one to the other.
The necessary explanation shall be brief. I must have been a young man,
and Mr. E. Walter Walters a boy, when he and I last met; indeed I am
not sure that I altogether remember him. But his father, who bore an
honoured name, I well remember.
The Rev. W. D. Walters and my own dear and honoured father were
personal friends; and when the former’s son sent me a manuscript of
a book, with the request that I should write an introduction, how
could I do otherwise than accede, and express myself honoured by the
invitation?
That I share all Mr. Walters’s whole-hearted bookish enthusiasm, I
may not pretend, for, as R. L. Stevenson says, in _An Apology for
Idlers_, ‘Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a
mighty bloodless substitute for life.’ So long, however, as the reading
of it be not allowed to deprive either man or woman of drinking deep
at the wells of life, there are few greater joys, for young or old,
than are to be found within the covers of a noble book; and to the
enthusiastic book-lover, Mr. Walters’s volume should prove treasure
trove indeed.
He drags (to use a phrase of Stevenson’s) with a wide net, but his
castings are made, for the most part, in the same waters. Of the
literature of the time of Elizabeth, or even of Anne, he tells us
little, and it is not until we come to Goldsmith, Lamb, De Quincey,
Leigh Hunt, and, later, to Jefferies, Thoreau, and Stevenson, that Mr.
Walters may be said to let himself go. What my friend Mr. Le Gallienne
calls The Lilliput of Literary London, he wisely leaves severely alone.
That Mr. Walters has a pretty sense of humour is clear from the
following passage:
‘Here is a copy of Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, “hooked” in the deep
waters of a “penny tub.” It is calf-bound, mark you, and in fairish
condition, though much stained with the passing of years. My heart
leaps; it is very old--a first edition possibly! But no, it is anything
but that.... Many of the pages are entirely missing, and others
partially so. Judged by the books that surround me it is dear at a
penny ... _Paradise Lost_!’
The word-play is not unworthy of Mr. Zangwill; but when Mr. Walters
writes, ‘I have frequently trodden snow-covered ground with my nose a
few inches from an open book,’ I wish him, for the time being, ‘Good
afternoon’ and seek other company, preferably that of some lover of the
Emerson who wrote:
See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books,
Leave authors’ eyes, and fetch your own
To brave the landscape’s looks.
Or, better still:
Canst thou copy in verse one chime
Of the woodbell’s peal and cry?
Write in a book the morning’s prime?
Or match with words that tender sky?
II
‘I KNOW a pretty little edition of the _Religio Medici_,’ writes
Mr. Le Gallienne in his _Retrospective Reviews_, ‘which has
been quite spoiled for me by the astounding remark of its editor upon
Browne’s beautiful description of his life as “a miracle of thirty
years”--yet its actual incidents justify no such description!’
Mr. Walters will not thus spoil for his readers the work of the writers
he loves. He strikes no jarring note. On the contrary, he is capable,
when writing of books, book-making, and book-buying, of an enthusiasm
which I envy as much as I admire.
‘I have confessed,’ he says in his chapter on ‘Second-hand Books,’
‘that _I_ am of the company of book-lovers who delight in dipping
into the “lucky tubs” to be found outside booksellers’ windows. I know
of no pleasanter way of spending a spare half-hour. Give me a few
“loose” coppers, place my feet upon a likely road, and I am content. I
am now, let me say, of the happy company of _book-fishermen_. And
this, mark you, is fishing in real earnest, this effort to “hook” good
food for the mind, to place in one’s basket a “book that delighteth and
giveth perennial satisfaction.”’
The comparison of a book-seeker to an angler is as happy as it is
original, and the phrase--though phrase-making must not be confused, as
Leslie Stephen points out, with thought-finding--‘a book-fisherman’
has something of Charles Lamb’s own ‘self-pleasing quaintness.’
Lamb would, indeed, appear to be Mr. Walters’s favourite author. That
he knows his Elia intimately and can interpret him aright to others is
clear from the chapter on ‘Books and Gardens.’
‘We are told,’ says Mr. Walters, ‘that Lamb was a lover of towns and
crowded streets. Would it not be truer to say that he was a lover
of the conditions in which he chanced to be placed? London claimed
him--for the sanest reasons, no doubt--and, lo! under his pen, London
became a garden.’
This is truly and finely said. Of such acute and illuminative comment,
there is no lack in Mr. Walters’s delightful book, which should
assuredly find a place in the library of book-loving women and men.
I
‘HUMBLY TO CONFESS’
HOW ruthlessly Webster strips the word ‘confession’ of the tender
associations woven around it by the hand of the gentle essayist! A
confession, he informs us, is the acknowledgement of a crime or fault,
open declaration of guilt, &c. True, a brighter note is struck in
further definitions; but I cannot find in any book at my command a
definition of the word as used, for example, by Thomas De Quincey. The
fact that De Quincey took opium was, I believe, known long before he
wrote his _Confessions_. He personally avers that his object was
to emblazon the power of opium, not over bodily disease and pain, but
over the grander and more shadowy world of dreams. He desired
Humbly to confess
A penitential loneliness.
And I take that to mean that he desired to admit us into the innermost
recesses of his heart, to speak to us as one speaks to a bosom friend.
I plead, therefore, for a wider definition of the word ‘confession’--a
definition that embraces those ‘gentle whisperings’ which pass between
bosom friends, the confidence that springs from the very roots of the
human heart.
An eminent essayist of our own day has been pleading for more
autobiographies of unknown persons. If I read him aright, he wishes
that more persons, however humble, however obscure, would set forth
their thoughts and experiences. He believes that such writings would
make better reading than much that finds its way into print. There is
an idea in some quarters that unless a person enjoys peculiar gifts
of expression, or has achieved distinction in some walk of life, his
thoughts and experiences are of no public interest. But there are, I
am certain, many who would rather have the unadorned expression of a
man’s innermost feelings than the thoughts that flit so lightly from
the mind of the accomplished _litterateur_. How many are they--men
whose names are emblazoned upon the roll of honour--who have confessed
to a love for conversing with the ordinary man, ‘the man in the
street’! As for your ‘men of letters,’ you are well aware of their love
for conversing with unknown and frequently humble persons, ‘casual
acquaintances.’ And who shall say to what extent we are indebted to
those persons for the thoughts which, having been selected and refined,
sparkle like jewels fresh from the cutter’s hands?
How numerous are the men who have read widely and thought deeply,
and yet hesitate before expressing an opinion upon the most trivial
matters! Fortunate is the person who can induce such men to talk
freely, to express their views, their secret thoughts, on this,
that, and the other subject--their beloved books, their likes, their
dislikes, their aspirations, their fears, their hopes. Such confessions
should make good reading. By dint of a little gentle persuasion I have
managed to glean ‘copy’ of this description, which I shall hope to set
down in these pages, carefully avoiding meanwhile any mention of names.
The mere thought of publicity would bring a blush to the cheeks of the
good gentlemen I have in mind. I must adopt the plan of those ‘Knights
of the Pen’ of whom mention has been made. But here the process will
be reversed. Here the rich thought of others will come forth in homely
attire.
I would, however, first inquire in what respect the lover of
books differs from the rank-and-file? What are his distinctive
characteristics? Langford has declared that no matter what his rank
or position may be, the lover of books is the richest and happiest of
men. But is that entirely true? I confess that I do not find it so.
The lover of books is, I fancy, grievously prone to hanker after the
moon, or, to put it another way, to build wondrous fairy palaces, which
he would fain inhabit and cannot. I fancy he is apt to suffer from a
‘glorious discontent.’ He is too imaginative, too sensitive, to enjoy
the distinction of being the happiest of men.
Indeed, is it not a fact that we book-lovers stand in danger of falling
out of sympathy with this rough-and-tumble old world? Certainly many
of us resent anything that threatens to come between us and our idols.
(I have friends, book-lovers, who as strongly resent an intrusion into
the sacred nook that holds themselves and a book as they would resent
the invasion of a foreign power.) Thus grows upon the book-lover an
ever-deepening desire for solitude, for the quiet life. Others may,
if they choose, jostle for the gilded things of life. He is for other
prizes, treasures of the mind and spirit. He, for his part, prefers to
saunter through quiet by-ways, knowing full well that prizes will rest
in his path, and that these, which he need but stoop to gather, will
prove abiding treasures.
Yes, certainly the lover of books is rich. Every true lover must in the
nature of the case be that. Listen to Gibbon: ‘My early and invincible
love of reading I would not change for the treasures of India.’ How
many have spoken in like manner! ‘You, O Books,’ cried Aungervyle, ‘are
the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the clerical militia with
which missiles of the most wicked are destroyed; fruitful olives, vines
of Engedi, fig-trees knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be ever
held in hand.’
I have a friend, a book-lover, who confesses that he acquired this
love of his after having passed through the most painful experiences.
Often he stumbled, often he fell, seemingly never to rise again. But,
happily, he has reached safe ground at last. He is now the contented
owner of a rich storehouse of books. But he confesses that he is not
boisterously happy. He doubts not that others laugh more heartily than
he; that many have lighter hearts. But he, be it remembered, has passed
through deep sorrow, has lost friends, home, wealth--all that men hold
most dear. Without his books and all they have taught him his lot would
be that of a wanderer in a wilderness. ‘My books,’ he says, ‘are my
inseparable comforters--my friends, companions, teachers, consolers,
creators, amusers.’ But he makes no claim to being a student, or an
authority on books. He does not burn the proverbial midnight oil. There
is nothing of the book-worm about him. He is simply a book-lover, and
being such, enjoys the very best that books can give.
I confess that I envy the pleasure derived by this friend of mine from
the little ‘crackling’ sound caused by the opening of a new book. It
is the sweetest music in his ears--an overture composed of the most
pleasing notes. And with what relish he enters into the entertainment
that follows! With what zest he reads aloud the choice passages! The
four walls of his library must, I fancy, have peculiar knowledge of
‘the dainties that are bred in books.’ They are his only audience. When
friends are with him, it is they who must do the reading, whilst he
plays the better part.
How many a tale such as this might be told! How full of eccentricities
is the lover of books, aye, and how full, too, of whims and fads and
fancies! Each one is for a particular type of binding. In no two cases
can you find tastes exactly alike. One is for plain cloth, plainly
lettered, another is for calf or russia, another for parchment. And
each one has his own views as regards size. Some cry out for books
that can be handled with ease; others maintain that the size of a book
should suit the nature of its contents. And thus the battle wages,
quite a long and wordy affair, before any question arises as regards
the actual contents of a book. But are not these views concerning
the make-up of a book healthy and desirable? I seem to remember
having read of men held in high repute who had marked preferences
as regards the get-up of a book. Did not Charles Lamb maintain that
to be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume?
‘Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not
lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress
a set of magazines, for instance, in full suit. The deshabille or
half-binding (with russia backs) is _our_ costume. A Shakespeare
or a Milton (unless the first editions) it were mere foppery to trick
out in gay apparel.’
And what of the ‘inside’ of books? What of their contents? For my
own part, I confess that, when pressed for a list of my favourite
authors, I am at a loss for an answer, or, at least, for a satisfactory
answer. The question is so pointed, the answer resting quietly in
my mind so wide, so shadowy, so needful of explanation. So much
depends upon one’s mood and environment. I require the opportunity
to say why certain books appeal to me in certain moods and leave me
untouched at other times. I desire to show that certain books, in
order to be enjoyed to the full, must be read in certain seasons and
under certain conditions. I wish to hold forth upon, say, ‘Books and
Gardens,’ ‘Unknown Books,’ and so forth, and on the peculiarities of
certain authors, giving reasons why I like or dislike their works. I
wish to confess, to bare my heart. And that is too lengthy a process
to cram in a direct answer to a direct question. Only this much can
I confess ‘off-hand’: The books that please me most are _the books
that speak to the heart_. Such volumes are my most highly treasured
possessions.
II
BOOKS AND GARDENS
The mind relaxing into needful sport,
Should turn to writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well-managed, and whose classic style
Give truth a lustre and make wisdom smile.
COWPER.
I have confessed that the books which please me most are the books that
speak to the heart--books that greet one with the ease and familiarity
of a friend. I desire to feel the humanity, the heart of an author.
I desire to know that he is genial, kindly, well-disposed. I have no
inclination for angry, fretful men of letters. I no more desire to
meet such through the medium of a book, than I desire to make the
acquaintance of quarrelsome individuals in the flesh. I, too, ‘find
myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, full of
doubts, difficulties, and disappointments, quite a hard enough life
without dark countenances at my elbow.’ Give me pleasant company. Give
me _gentlemen of letters_. Still, I have no taste for the company
of the maudlin or weak-kneed. Robert Louis Stevenson says that ‘we are
all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature; and not a man
amongst us will go to the head of the march to sound the heady drums!’
Note with what grace he makes the observation! It is more in the nature
of a good-tempered laugh than a growl. How gracefully he wears the
title--a Gentleman of Letters! How pleasantly he addresses us! Little
wonder if, in his presence, our failings are as open wounds. He has no
need to probe. His gentlest touch is sufficient, more effective by far
than the rough treatment of the irascible author.
Yes, for friends give me gracious authors. Give me the gentle Elia.
Give me Jefferies, Goldsmith, Leigh Hunt, and De Quincey. These are
the writers I would take into a garden on a summer’s afternoon. I need
have no fear, whilst in such company, of the flowers being robbed of
their fragrance. The song of the birds will not be silenced. The gentle
whisperings of the trees will still be audible. The writers in mind are
of the company who claim kinship with Nature. Whilst with them I may
read and yet meditate. I may learn and yet hear and feel.
Where is the nature-lover who will not readily confess that when in a
flowering-garden he is frequently torn between his devotion to the
book in his hand and the beauties that surround him? I confess that I,
for one, like to mix ‘the dainties that are bred in books’ with the
wondrous attractions of Nature. I am ready enough to take my favourite
authors into a garden, but not so ready to give them my undivided
attention. Another book--which must for ever remain unrivalled--claims
my eyes, my attention. Richard Jefferies is pleasing, but not so
pleasing as the beauties to be found in a garden. Goldsmith brings a
warm glow, but see! the sun shines in the heavens. Lamb puts me in
playful vein, but his tune is not so gay as the song of the birds in
yonder bushes. The light touch of Leigh Hunt is delightful, but not so
pleasing as the quickly shifting lights upon the tree-tops.
But it is good to have old friends at one’s elbow. And if I am able to
enjoy myself without them on a summer’s afternoon, it is because they,
on some winter’s evening, have opened my eyes and quickened my senses.
It is they, I say, who have taught me to love the beauties of Nature.
I am familiar with their golden passages, and whilst seated beneath
the trees can recall them at my pleasure, or, should the mood arise,
read them again, and yet again. How good, for example, to read such
a passage as this: ‘There is something beyond the philosophers in the
light, in the grass-blades, the leaf, the grasshopper, the sparrow on
the wall. Some day the great and beautiful thought which hovers on the
confines of the mind will at last alight. In that is hope, the whole
sky is full of abounding hope.’
Still, one does not always experience a sense of loss when reading in
the open. Far from it! The heavens are not always blue. And prate as we
will about the subtle beauty of grey skies and leafless trees, we are
at times willing enough to escape from them. I, for one, am glad under
such conditions to warm myself by the light of a printed page. Happily,
I am of the company of men who can walk and read, and have frequently
trodden snow-covered ground with my nose a few inches from an open
book. Believe me, he who can read whilst walking has a long pull over
the book-lover who must needs have quietude and a bended knee upon
which to nurse his beloved books.
There is a worthy and distinguished company of book-lovers to whom
reading whilst afoot is not only uncongenial but impossible. I seem
to remember a passage in which that great book-lover Charles Lamb
speaks of his inability to enjoy a book whilst out of doors. These, I
find, are the words in mind: ‘I am not much a friend to out-of-doors
reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister
who was generally to be seen upon Snow Hill (as yet Skinner’s Street
was not) between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning studying
a volume of Lardner. I own this to have been a strain of abstraction
beyond my reach. I used to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of
secular contacts. An illiterate encounter with a porter’s knot, or a
bread-basket, would have quickly put to flight all the philosophy I am
master of, and have left me worse than indifferent to the five points.’
Thus the gentle Elia playfully dismissed the person who is pleased to
boast of his ability to read whilst walking. Was there ever a writer
so fastidious, yet so tolerant, so playful as he? Speaking of the
conditions under which certain books should be read, he says: ‘Much
depends upon _when_ and _where_ you read a book. In the five
or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would
think of taking up the _Faerie Queene_ for a stop-gap, or a volume
of Bishop Andrewes’ sermons? Milton almost requires a solemn service
of music before you enter upon him. Winter evenings--and the world
shut out--with less of ceremony the gentle Shakespeare enters. At such
seasons _The Tempest_, or his own _Winter’s Tale_. Books of
quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide
over only.’
I wish it was possible to add a few words from the same whimsical pen
upon reading in a garden on a summer’s afternoon. I have a friend who
is disposed to think that such writing would contain little about books
and _much_ about Nature. We are told that Lamb was a lover of
towns and crowded streets. Would it not be truer to say that he was
a lover of the conditions in which he chanced to be placed? London
claimed him--for the sanest reasons, no doubt--and lo! under his pen
London became a garden.
It is well that some brave souls can make-believe that the noise of the
traffic of a London thoroughfare makes good music!
It is well that some have the spirit to sound the ‘heady drums.’ But
for my own part, give me a garden removed from the turmoil of a big
town. I shall not then be over-particular as regards my reading. Let me
drop in my breast-pocket a volume by one of the authors named, and I
shall be content. I too shall then be able to say, ‘It matters nothing
to me that the earth and the solar system are whirling through space
at a rate of sixty miles a second, from no one knows where to no one
knows whither, if I may sit in my garden (with a book for company) on a
summer’s afternoon.’
III
BOOKS THAT TEMPT
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to
be chewed and digested.--BACON.
WHAT are the books that tempt? Are they the old, familiar volumes, old
friends in old clothes--well-worn editions of the classics? Or are
they those same old friends decked in rich and fanciful bindings? I am
acquainted with a book-lover who confesses that he has no taste for the
fanciful modern reprint. You may show him Lamb, or Hazlitt, or Hunt,
or Jefferies, or Stevenson in the richest of binding, and tempt him
not. He is not, he declares, to be caught that way. As well might the
reader go arrayed in frills and furbelows to a masculine friend and
expect to be received with decorum. This friend of mine, I say, is as
contemptuous of the modern, richly-bound classic as of any other form
of foppery. He insists on meeting his friends, whether it be in print
or in the flesh, in unaffected, homely attire.
He will tell you that the ‘gentle Elia’ was of the same way of
thinking, and that he wrote in effect: ‘How beautiful to a genuine
lover of reading are the sullied leaves and worn-out appearance,
nay, the very odour (beyond Russia) if we would not forget the kind
feeling in fastidiousness, of old circulating library volumes! How
they speak of the thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages
with delight! of the lone seamstress, whom they cheered (milliner or
hard-working mantua-maker) after her long day’s needle-toil, running
far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from
sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out
their enchanting contents! Who would have them a whit less soiled? What
better condition could you desire to see them in?’
Fastidious readers who insist upon having new books, or books ‘good
as new,’ must, I fancy, feel a ‘twinge of guilt’ in the face of such
humane sentiments. I confess, to my shame, that I am of the guilty
company; that I am fastidious as regards the condition of a book; that
torn, well-thumbed books do not tempt me, whatever their contents. And
not only am I guilty, but would seek to defend my guilt. I protest that
it is the pleasurable duty of the book-lover to keep his treasured
volumes in goodly condition; that a cover is but a new home, and
that when the old one has served its purpose it should be replaced
as readily as one would find a worthy dwelling-place for a beloved
relative. I like to see my friends in the best possible circumstances.
I like to see them bearing a well-cared-for, well-favoured appearance.
I do not forget the ‘lone sempstress’ spoken of so tenderly by Lamb.
I would have torn volumes repaired and shabby ones replaced in all
circulating libraries. In no circumstances would I permit a treasured
classic to go forth in a shabby condition. I would place new volumes,
or volumes good as new, within the reach of all.
But it cannot be denied that many tender associations are woven around
numerous aged, _well-preserved_ volumes. Where is the true
book-lover who could not give a list of such? ‘Their very odour,’ he
will tell you, ‘is beyond Russia.’ How sacred their well-preserved
pages! Your up-to-date reprints, with their fanciful covers, are no
company for such. Their gaiety is shamed by stately calf-bound volumes.
Yes, there is a grave and sober dignity about old well-preserved books.
It matters not whether they be bound in morocco, calf, or russia. The
sacred associations of old age are theirs. If we do not love them, at
least we reverence them. ‘What a place to be in is an old library! It
seems as though all the souls of the Bodleians were reposing here as in
some dormitory or middle state.... I seem to inhale learning, walking
amid their foliage; and the odour of the old moth-scented coverings is
fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grow amid
the happy orchard.’
Yes, to many the old ‘moth-scented’ volumes are the books that tempt.
I have a friend who has placed a standing order with a bookseller to
supply him with all old calf-bound volumes to be procured at a certain
sum. Dare I state the sum fixed? It is counted in pence--pence only,
mark you! But as my friend has made no stipulations as regards the
contents of the desired volumes, he has a goodly array of books, each
one ‘moth-scented,’ each one a model of dignity.
My friend, however, is not a great reader. He is not, I venture to
assert, a book-lover. I fancy he should be called an antiquarian.
Certainly his liking for antiquities is greater than his love for the
contents of books. Books to him are rather furniture for rooms than for
minds. Show him an example of skilfully ‘tooled’ calf, and you will
please him better than if you had voiced an inspiring thought. But
wait! I must hold my pen. Who can say to what depths of thought and
feeling my friend is moved by the sight of his well-filled shelves?
Has it not been said that there is inspiration in a mere glance at old
volumes; that they seem to exhale learning?
Still, I, for one, am ready enough to confess that old calf-bound
volumes as such leave me unmoved. Too often have I, together with other
lovers of books, found them dry, as well as dusty. I respect their
age. I consider the mellowed calf in which they are bound admirable
material. I admire their durability. But such features do not greatly
tempt me. I am for volumes of homely appearance. My own coat being of
simple homespun, I am more at home with volumes bound in cloth. Give me
for my daily companions unpretentious books. Many in my possession cost
no more than from two to three pence. For I, too, am of the company of
book-lovers who dip at times into the ‘lucky-tubs’ to be found outside
booksellers’ shops. I confess, moreover, that I belong to the class ‘of
street reader who, not having the wherewithal to buy or hire a book,
filch a little learning at the open stalls.’ Often and often have I
been tempted by the well-worn volumes--so unpretentious without, so
rich within--that await the attention of the leisurely passer-by. Two
humble pence, and a mine of wisdom becomes one’s own.
So much, then, for old volumes. Now, what of the new? What of the
many dainty volumes sent out daily by modern makers of books? I am
thinking at the moment of the men whose business it is to bind and
print, who with amazing ingenuity send forth volumes having the
appearance of jewel caskets--wondrous designs of every tint to be
found on a painter’s palette. I confess that I find such productions
exceedingly attractive. I confess that I am frequently tempted by them.
It would be good, I feel, to be the possessor of a volume of Selected
English Essays bound in ‘leather soft as velvet.’ I am more fanciful
in my tastes than that friend of mine who insists upon seeing his old
comrades in well-worn attire. I like to see Charles Lamb strutting
forth in purple and gold. I am touched when I behold the great men who
reign in the ‘world of the classics’ standing shoulder to shoulder,
arrayed in ‘gorgeous confections’ upon a shelf in a bookseller’s window.
But I have no desire to possess the large and weighty volume that falls
under the title _Edition de Luxe_. I am not tempted by bulky
volumes, however elaborately they may be adorned. I have no desire
to undergo the painful experience of a certain gentleman pictured in
_Punch_, who, after making valiant efforts to handle one such
volume, was finally reduced to an abject state of exhaustion. Give me
volumes of convenient size. Give me, I pray, volumes I can master.
IV
‘OUTSIDE THEIR BOOKS’
The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had
gained a new friend.--GOLDSMITH.
I HAVE confessed that I like to feel the heart, the humanity, of an
author. How natural, then, if I desire to know something about his
home-life, his family, his manner of living, his favourite means of
recreation. Surely such curiosity is free from censure. Of what stuff
are the fine gentlemen made who tell us that we have no business with
the private affairs of our great writers? Does not our curiosity spring
from respect, from admiration--from _love_? Am I to be blamed if
I desired to know how the affairs of this world went with the writer
who has charmed and instructed me, who has led me into new worlds of
thought and feeling? If I have learned to love an author through his
books, may I not be permitted to ask whether he was happily situated?
We speak glibly enough of the ‘friendship of books,’ and what, pray,
does that mean but the friendship of _authors_? I have still to
learn that it is no part of a man’s duty to take an interest in the
home-life of his friends.
‘We are not all hero-worshippers,’ says Alexander Smith, ‘but most of
us are so to a large extent. A large proportion of mankind feel a quite
peculiar interest in famous writers. Concerning such men no bit of
information is too trifling; everything helps to make out the mental
image we have dimly formed for ourselves. And this kind of interest
is heightened by the artistic way in which Time occasionally groups
them. We think of the wild geniuses who came up from the Universities
to London in the dawn of the English drama. Greene, Nash, Marlowe--our
professional men of letters--how they cracked their satirical whips,
how pinched they were at times; how, when they possessed money, they
flung it from them as if it was poison; with what fierce speed they
wrote, how they shook the stage.’
Wherefore I say let the fine gentlemen who boast of their superiority
to the so-called trivialities of life go their way, whilst I go
mine. Let them stand upon their lofty pedestals, whilst I inquire
how my favourite authors lived, how they spent their days, how they
divided their time, how many hours were given to work and how many
to recreation. I have no fear that such knowledge will lessen my
admiration for my heroes. I look up, it is true, with feelings akin
to awe at the great men who have influenced me. But I desire at times
to have a clearer view, I like to walk round and about them, to peer
through the brilliant glow by which they are surrounded, to see the
_men_, to feel their humanity, to learn how they met the ‘common
daily round.’
And I confess that it matters little to me how I glean the desired
information. But for preference give me the records of a trained
observer. For how much better to see with the eyes of one whose vision
is clear, keen, and penetrating! How good, for instance, to accompany
Alexander Smith on a visit to the ‘Mermaid’ in session, and there
behold the great ‘Shakespeare’s bland oval face, the light of a smile
spread over it, and Ben Jonson’s truculent image, and Beaumont and
Fletcher sitting together in their beautiful friendship!’ And how good
to think that we may go in the company of the same gracious guide, to
the famous Literary Club, and there find Burke and Johnson and Garrick
and Goldsmith. ‘The Doctor has been talking there for a hundred years,
and there will talk for many a hundred more.’ And then, so highly
are we favoured, we may go (and who would not?) to Charles Lamb’s
snug little room in Inner Temple Lane, and there find ‘the hush of a
whist-table in one corner, the host stuttering puns as he deals the
cards, and sitting about; Hunt, whose every sentence is flavoured with
the hawthorn and the primrose, and Hazlitt maddened by Waterloo and
St. Helena, and Goodwin with his wild theories, and Kemble with his
Roman look. And before the morning comes, and Lamb stutters yet more
thickly--for there is a slight flavour of punch in the apartment--what
talk there has been of Hogarth’s prints, of Izaak Walton, of the old
dramatists, of Sir Thomas Browne’s _Urn Burial_, with Elia’s
quaint humour breaking through every interstice, and flowing in every
fissure and cranny of the conversation.’
Ah, yes! it is good to have such glimpses as these, to find the
authors who have charmed and instructed us free from the ‘fetters of
the pen’--their own good or bad, sweet or petulant, always brilliant
selves. And how true it is that such glimpses lend peculiar interest
to written words! The book-lovers who like to feel the humanity of an
author must surely form a vast and ever-increasing company.
You know how it fares with the superior individual who bears himself
as though unmoved by feelings common to the average mortal. He does
not inspire friendship, or admiration, or, for that matter, any feeling
worth the having. Knowing the frailty of human nature, we suspect him
of playing a double part. And so it is, surely, with the author who
addresses us in the manner of one who is a stranger to the feelings
that mould this mortal clay. We know better. We know full well that
‘the writer is not continually dwelling amongst the roses and lilies
of life; he is not continually uttering generous sentiments and saying
fine things. On him, as on his brethren, the world presses with prosaic
needs. He has to make love, and marry, and run the usual matrimonial
risks. The income-tax collector visits him as well as others. Around
his head at Christmas drives a snow-storm of bills.’ Outside of his
books he is pretty much the same as other men. And so, I say, we have
greater sympathy with an author if he takes us into his confidence,
allows us to bear a part of his burdens--to feel that he, too, is
subject to human trials and difficulties.
It is interesting to note that authors themselves are of the same way
of thinking. They, too, like to get at the hearts of men. Speaking of
a visit paid to Coleridge at Highgate, Emerson complained that he was
in his company for about an hour, but found it impossible to recall the
largest part of his discourse, which was often like so many printed
paragraphs in his books--perhaps the same--so readily did the great
Coleridge fall into certain commonplaces.... ‘The visit was rather a
spectacle than a conversation.’
And so, you see, we who desire at times to meet authors outside their
books are in good company. And if we are not so fortunate as to play
Boswell’s part, if we cannot sit at the feet of our heroes, if we
cannot mourn or make merry in their company, we can, at least, approach
them through the medium of a printed page. And that, I hold, is as
good a way as any other--if not the best. Few are the books so deep
in human interest as biographies of men of letters. This, it is said,
arises from the pictures of comparative defeat which, in almost every
instance, such books contain. ‘We see failure more or less--seldom
clear, victorious effort. Like the Old Guard at Waterloo, they are
fighting bravely on a lost field. In literary biography there is always
an element of tragedy, and the love we bear the dead is mingled with
pity.’
V
BOOKS THAT CAPTIVATE
If thought unlock her mysteries,
If friendship on me smile,
I walk in marble galleries,
I talk with kings the while.
EMERSON.
THE world of books is full of friendly voices. Where is the book-lover
who has not at times felt like a sulky guest in genial, well-disposed
company? Many authors who await our attentions have no other desire
than to entertain, to please, to delight, ‘All authors are not
preachers.’ I confess, however, that for my part I like to be ‘preached
at.’ But my preacher must be of the gentle, captivating type--one
who employs the beckoning finger. I am willing enough to be led, but
immediately adopt a proverbial stubbornness at the touch of a rod.
This reminds me of a certain book-lover who declares that he is only
influenced by authors who preach from his own pulpit. That is his way
of saying that the authors who captivate him are the authors who touch
a responsive chord in his nature, who view affairs from his standpoint.
How greatly tastes differ! I know of many persons, book-lovers of a
kind, who must have what they are pleased to call original books. But
where, I ask, are such books to be found? Is it not true that there is
no such thing as original thought? A writer expresses his views with
regard to this, that, or the other subject, only to find that the same
observations have been made before, or were made at the same moment
by some other person in some other quarter of the globe. ‘Ideas march
along in extended order. They are not isolated discoveries made by
specially brilliant individuals. Their influence is in the air. It is
felt by numbers of thinkers at the same time. Often it is by no means
the greatest of them who first announces that he has felt it.’
Thus we come to see that style is the immortal thing in literature. The
style that echoes a charming personality is ever fresh. Who can deny
that many an author has earned popularity by expressing in a winsome
manner thoughts that are common to every thinking mind? I confess that
I, as in the case of many others, am not so anxious to come across
fresh and startling views as I am to find writers who bring fresh
light to bear upon the old problems. I would rather dwell upon the
descriptive passages quoted elsewhere in these pages than keep company
with a mental acrobat. Too often one finds that the so-termed original
author is a mere trickster, who does not hesitate to employ any means
that promise to produce a startling effect. I am of the same opinion as
the book-lover who declares that ‘any merry-andrew can blow down the
wrong end of a trumpet.’
But it does not follow that the style that captivates me will captivate
my neighbour. I am for a ‘mellow style’ in letters, for delicate
phrasing--the polite manner. My neighbour may prefer ‘the style that
has a sting in it.’ I am acquainted with a book-lover who confesses
that he has no objection to being driven by an author. He likes to feel
that an author has a firm hand upon the reins, and will use a whip
if the need arises. Gentle, conciliatory authors bore this friend of
mine. Others are for whimsical authors; others again are for writers
who ‘play’ with their readers’ emotions, now drawing forth tears, now
causing laughter. A few are for grave and solemn teachers. Many are for
the authors whose only ambition is to entertain. There is no limit to
the world’s requirements. But, happily, ‘of the making of books there
is no end.’ We need have no fear of the supply running short, or of
our own peculiar needs going unsupplied. ‘Books,’ says Langford, ‘are
always with us, and always ready to respond to our wants.’ ‘As you grow
ready for it,’ adds another, ‘somehow or other you will find what is
needful for you in a book.’
A wise man will select his book with the utmost care. ‘He will not wish
to class them all under the sacred name of friends.’ For my own part,
I confess that I like to turn at times to authors of ‘humbler sorts.’
I like to dip into the volumes which booksellers label ‘Remainders.’
How frequently one finds in such books the very features that
captivate--the style and matter that immediately touch a responsive
chord in one’s temperament! Many a book labelled ‘Remainder’ deserves
our warmest gratitude. ‘Learning,’ says Fuller, ‘has gained most by
those books by which the printers have lost.’
But it must not be supposed that I crave for ‘new’ books. I beg leave
to be of the same opinion as Lowell, who says in his _Fables for
Critics_: ‘Reading new books is like eating new bread. One can bear
it at first, but by gradual steps he is brought to death’s door of a
mental dyspepsy.’
The truth is, no hard-and-fast rule can be set down with regard to
the books that captivate. But it is, I fancy, pretty safe to affirm
that the books that please us most are the books that reflect our own
thoughts and feelings. There has been a ‘run’ of late upon authors who
are wise enough to recognize that the majority of persons are more
or less simple and unaffected at heart, nursing their pet aspiration
as a child nurses a beloved toy. For my own part, I desire to retain
a certain youthfulness of heart and mind. I am, therefore, willing
enough to confess that the books that captivated me in early life are
the books that captivate me still. We ‘grown-ups’ make a brave outward
show, but at the back of it there is still the old craving for a
friendly hand, a kindly word, a sympathetic friend.
And when it comes to the question of fiction, I confess that my own
liking is for books that introduce pleasing characters. I have no
desire to meet again in novels the type of individual who glares at me
from the ‘police columns’ of the daily press. Murderers, thieves, and
adulterers are not to my mind less unpleasant because they happened
to occupy a ‘romantic platform.’ Give me, I pray, congenial company.
And if, as some declare, we must needs have all types represented,
then let the artist who draws them employ the touch that convinces
and yet spares. I do not desire to see black laid upon black. To
dwell unduly in fiction upon sin and sinners is neither instructive
nor entertaining, and it is, as inferred, a poor sort of artist whose
pictures are all shade.
I beg leave to be of the company of book-lovers who prefer a pleasant
flavour to their fiction, and, happily, we are well supplied.
‘Bookland’ is rich in winsome personalities, both as regards authors
and their creations. When we speak of the books that captivate, how
often we have in mind the charming persons who in the working out of
this, that, or the other story played so noble and inspiring a part!
VI
PERSONALITIES IN ‘BOOKLAND’
Give me leave
T’ enjoy myself; that place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
IT is good to think of the many captivating personalities one has met
on one’s rambles through ‘Bookland’--to greet again with extended hands
the genial Vicar immortalized by Goldsmith, to ponder in one’s mind
his godly charity, to listen enthralled to his delicate and gracious
observations. It is good, I say, to set forth on a ‘mental pilgrimage’
to the homes of the entertaining folk who were first made known to
us through those ‘little sheets of paper,’ and who are ever ready to
‘amuse us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.’
One may select one’s own company, and may, as the mood takes one, be
learned or flippant, grave or gay. One may visit the famous Vicarage,
or, in another mood and with another end in view, go in the enchanting
company of Goldsmith to the home of Beau Tibbs, there to laugh at poor
Tibbs’ foibles, to learn from his old Scotch servant that his good lady
is away washing his ‘twa shirts’ at the next door, because they have
taken an oath against lending their tub out any longer. But eventually
the good lady presents herself, making ‘twenty apologies’ for the
carelessness of her attire, and explaining in a grand manner that she
had stayed the night at Vauxhall Gardens with a certain countess.
We are invited to dinner, something elegant being suggested by Mr.
Tibbs--a turbot or an ortolan. Whereupon Mrs. Tibbs cries, ‘What do
you think, my dear, of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and
dressed with a little of my own sauce?’ ‘The very thing!’ cries Mr.
Tibbs. ‘I hate your immense loads of meat; that is country all over;
extreme disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high
life.’ But we do not remain for the dainty morsel. For, as our guide
whispers, ‘the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last
never fails of rendering us melancholy.’ And so we take our leave,
assured by Beau Tibbs that had we remained, dinner would have been
ready in less than two hours.
And thus one may journey from house to house, from street to street,
from county to county, and from country to country, to wellnigh any
spot between the two Poles, there to find some old friend or other
whom one has met in Bookland. And how varied is the company, how
representative, how cosmopolitan, how sure one may be of finding just
the very persons one wishes to meet! The child, still in the ‘Age of
Innocence,’ looking for a playmate, may find one in Bookland. The youth
whose blood runs hot and strong, and who desires a companion who can
speak of mighty enterprises, may make his choice. The young woman who
desires lessons in deportment and manners will find many good souls
waiting to instruct her. And what company, what models of virtue and
loveliness, await the young man whose ‘fancy lightly turns to thoughts
of love’!
Yes, in Bookland there are persons to suit all ages, and all types, and
all moods. Can we who have read with delight from our childhood days
onward ever forget our dear old friends? Can we forget the characters,
some simple, sweet, and charming, others strange, wild, grotesque,
with whom we became acquainted in our nursery days? Can we forget Alice
and her adventures in Wonderland, or the army of whimsical beings found
in books of the same alluring order? Do they not still influence us and
guide our morals?
And what of the book-born acquaintances of our youth? Is it not true
that ‘the books that charmed us in youth recall the delight ever
afterwards’? What a time for reading is that period when the blood
runs warm and strong, and the mind is vigorous--one’s whole nature
keen and impressionable! Ah! youth is the time to meet a maiden in a
book, to feel--just as the author, no doubt, felt himself--that she is
wonderfully fair to look upon, charming alike in manners, voice, and
looks. One may venture to suspect that many a young man has lost his
heart to the maidens who flit so gracefully through the pages of books.
The young women of Bookland are not, however, all of fairy-like
type. Who can forget the many whose goodness of heart surpass their
bewitching looks--heroic women, true as steel, and faithful unto death?
Ideals must surely have been formed by readers from such as these, and
their like sought no doubt in real life. And one may go further and
venture to hope that they have been found and have given their hearts
to noble seekers, and lived with them, as the story-books say, ‘happily
ever after.’