The determination to found a story or a series of sketches on the
delights, adventures, and misadventures connected with bibliomania did
not come impulsively to my brother. For many years, in short during
the greater part of nearly a quarter of a century of journalistic work,
he had celebrated in prose and verse, and always in his happiest and
most delightful vein, the pleasures of book-hunting. Himself an
indefatigable collector of books, the possessor of a library as
valuable as it was interesting, a library containing volumes obtained
only at the cost of great personal sacrifice, he was in the most active
sympathy with the disease called bibliomania, and knew, as few
comparatively poor men have known, the half-pathetic, half-humorous
side of that incurable mental infirmity.
The newspaper column, to which he contributed almost daily for twelve
years, comprehended many sly digs and gentle scoffings at those of his
unhappy fellow citizens who became notorious, through his
instrumentality, in their devotion to old book-shelves and auction
sales. And all the time none was more assiduous than this same
good-natured cynic in running down a musty prize, no matter what its
cost or what the attending difficulties. "I save others, myself I
cannot save," was his humorous cry.
In his published writings are many evidences of my brother's
appreciation of what he has somewhere characterized the "soothing
affliction of bibliomania." Nothing of book-hunting love has been more
happily expressed than "The Bibliomaniac's Prayer," in which the
troubled petitioner fervently asserts:
"But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation's way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold and keep,
Whereon, when other men shall look,
They'll wail to know I got it cheap."
And again, in "The Bibliomaniac's Bride," nothing breathes better the
spirit of the incurable patient than this:
"Prose for me when I wished for prose,
Verse when to verse inclined,--
Forever bringing sweet repose
To body, heart and mind.
Oh, I should bind this priceless prize
In bindings full and fine,
And keep her where no human eyes
Should see her charms, but mine!"
In "Dear Old London" the poet wailed that "a splendid Horace cheap for
cash" laughed at his poverty, and in "Dibdin's Ghost" he revelled in
the delights that await the bibliomaniac in the future state, where
there is no admission to the women folk who, "wanting victuals, make a
fuss if we buy books instead"; while in "Flail, Trask and Bisland" is
the very essence of bibliomania, the unquenchable thirst for
possession. And yet, despite these self-accusations, bibliophily rather
than bibliomania would be the word to characterize his conscientious
purpose. If he purchased quaint and rare books it was to own them to
the full extent, inwardly as well as outwardly. The mania for books
kept him continually buying; the love of books supervened to make them
a part of himself and his life.
Toward the close of August of the present year my brother wrote the
first chapter of "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." At that time
he was in an exhausted physical condition and apparently unfit for any
protracted literary labor. But the prospect of gratifying a
long-cherished ambition, the delight of beginning the story he had
planned so hopefully, seemed to give him new strength, and he threw
himself into the work with an enthusiasm that was, alas, misleading to
those who had noted fearfully his declining vigor of body. For years
no literary occupation had seemed to give him equal pleasure, and in
the discussion of the progress of his writing from day to day his eye
would brighten, all of his old animation would return, and everything
would betray the lively interest he felt in the creature of his
imagination in whom he was living over the delights of the
book-hunter's chase. It was his ardent wish that this work, for the
fulfilment of which he had been so long preparing, should be, as he
playfully expressed it, a monument of apologetic compensation to a
class of people he had so humorously maligned, and those who knew him
intimately will recognize in the shortcomings of the bibliomaniac the
humble confession of his own weaknesses.
It is easy to understand from the very nature of the undertaking that
it was practically limitless; that a bibliomaniac of so many years'
experience could prattle on indefinitely concerning his "love affairs,"
and at the same time be in no danger of repetition. Indeed my
brother's plans at the outset were not definitely formed. He would
say, when questioned or joked about these amours, that he was in the
easy position of Sam Weller when he indited his famous valentine, and
could "pull up" at any moment. One week he would contend that a
book-hunter ought to be good for a year at least, and the next week he
would argue as strongly that it was time to send the old man into
winter quarters and go to press. But though the approach of cold
weather increased his physical indisposition, he was not the less
interested in his prescribed hours of labor, howbeit his weakness
warned him that he should say to his book, as his much-loved Horace had
written:
"Fuge quo descendere gestis:
Non erit emisso reditis tibi."
Was it strange that his heart should relent, and that he should write
on, unwilling to give the word of dismissal to the book whose
preparation had been a work of such love and solace?
During the afternoon of Saturday, November 2, the nineteenth instalment
of "The Love Affairs" was written. It was the conclusion of his
literary life. The verses supposably contributed by Judge Methuen's
friend, with which the chapter ends, were the last words written by
Eugene Field. He was at that time apparently quite as well as on any
day during the fall months, and neither he nor any member of his family
had the slightest premonition that death was hovering about the
household. The next day, though still feeling indisposed, he was at
times up and about, always cheerful and full of that sweetness and
sunshine which, in his last years, seem now to have been the
preparation for the life beyond. He spoke of the chapter he had
written the day before, and it was then that he outlined his plan of
completing the work. One chapter only remained to be written, and it
was to chronicle the death of the old bibliomaniac, but not until he
had unexpectedly fallen heir to a very rare and almost priceless copy
of Horace, which acquisition marked the pinnacle of the book-hunter's
conquest. True to his love for the Sabine singer, the western poet
characterized the immortal odes of twenty centuries gone the greatest
happiness of bibliomania.
In the early morning of November 4 the soul of Eugene Field passed
upward. On the table, folded and sealed, were the memoirs of the old
man upon whom the sentence of death had been pronounced. On the bed in
the corner of the room, with one arm thrown over his breast, and the
smile of peace and rest on his tranquil face, the poet lay. All around
him, on the shelves and in the cases, were the books he loved so well.
Ah, who shall say that on that morning his fancy was not verified, and
that as the gray light came reverently through the window, those
cherished volumes did not bestir themselves, awaiting the cheery voice:
"Good day to you, my sweet friends. How lovingly they beam upon me,
and how glad they are that my rest has been unbroken."
Could they beam upon you less lovingly, great heart, in the chamber
warmed by your affection and now sanctified by death? Were they less
glad to know that the repose would be unbroken forevermore, since it
came the glorious reward, my brother, of the friend who went gladly to
it through his faith, having striven for it through his works?