Have you ever come out of the thick, smoky atmosphere of the town into
the fragrant, gracious atmosphere of a library? If you have, you know
how grateful the change is, and you will agree with me when I say that
nothing else is so quieting to the nerves, so conducive to physical
health, and so quick to restore a lively flow of the spirits.
Lafcadio Hearn once wrote a treatise upon perfumes, an ingenious and
scholarly performance; he limited the edition to fifty copies and
published it privately--so the book is rarely met with. Curiously
enough, however, this author had nothing to say in the book about the
smells of books, which I regard as a most unpardonable error, unless,
properly estimating the subject to be worthy of a separate treatise,
he has postponed its consideration and treatment to a time when he can
devote the requisite study and care to it.
We have it upon the authority of William Blades that books breathe;
however, the testimony of experts is not needed upon this point, for if
anybody be sceptical, all he has to do to convince himself is to open a
door of a bookcase at any time and his olfactories will be greeted by
an outrush of odors that will prove to him beyond all doubt that books
do actually consume air and exhale perfumes.
Visitors to the British Museum complain not unfrequently that they are
overcome by the closeness of the atmosphere in that place, and what is
known as the British Museum headache has come to be recognized by the
medical profession in London as a specific ailment due to the absence
of oxygen in the atmosphere, which condition is caused by the multitude
of books, each one of which, by that breathing process peculiar to
books, consumes several thousand cubic feet of air every twenty-four
hours.
Professor Huxley wondered for a long time why the atmosphere of the
British Museum should be poisonous while other libraries were free from
the poison; a series of experiments convinced him that the presence of
poison in the atmosphere was due to the number of profane books in the
Museum. He recommended that these poison-engendering volumes be
treated once every six months with a bath of cedria, which, as I
understand, is a solution of the juices of the cedar tree; this, he
said, would purge the mischievous volumes temporarily of their evil
propensities and abilities.
I do not know whether this remedy is effective, but I remember to have
read in Pliny that cedria was used by the ancients to render their
manuscripts imperishable. When Cneius Terentius went digging in his
estate in the Janiculum he came upon a coffer which contained not only
the remains of Numa, the old Roman king, but also the manuscripts of
the famous laws which Numa compiled. The king was in some such
condition as you might suppose him to be after having been buried
several centuries, but the manuscripts were as fresh as new, and their
being so is said to have been due to the fact that before their burial
they were rubbed with citrus leaves.
These so-called books of Numa would perhaps have been preserved unto
this day but for the fanaticism of the people who exhumed and read
them; they were promptly burned by Quintus Petilius, the praetor,
because (as Cassius Hemina explains) they treated of philosophical
subjects, or because, as Livy testifies, their doctrines were inimical
to the religion then existing.
As I have had little to do with profane literature, I know nothing of
the habits of such books as Professor Huxley has prescribed an antidote
against. Of such books as I have gathered about me and made my
constant companions I can say truthfully that a more
delectable-flavored lot it were impossible to find. As I walk amongst
them, touching first this one and then that, and regarding all with
glances of affectionate approval, I fancy that I am walking in a
splendid garden, full of charming vistas, wherein parterre after
parterre of beautiful flowers is unfolded to my enraptured vision; and
surely there never were other odors so delightful as the odors which my
books exhale!
My garden aboundeth in pleasant nooks
And fragrance is over it all;
For sweet is the smell of my old, old books
In their places against the wall.
Here is a folio that's grim with age
And yellow and green with mould;
There's the breath of the sea on every page
And the hint of a stanch ship's hold.
And here is a treasure from France la belle
Exhaleth a faint perfume
Of wedded lily and asphodel
In a garden of song abloom.
And this wee little book of Puritan mien
And rude, conspicuous print
Hath the Yankee flavor of wintergreen,
Or, may be, of peppermint.
In Walton the brooks a-babbling tell
Where the cheery daisy grows,
And where in meadow or woodland dwell
The buttercup and the rose.
But best beloved of books, I ween,
Are those which one perceives
Are hallowed by ashes dropped between
The yellow, well-thumbed leaves.
For it's here a laugh and it's there a tear,
Till the treasured book is read;
And the ashes betwixt the pages here
Tell us of one long dead.
But the gracious presence reappears
As we read the book again,
And the fragrance of precious, distant years
Filleth the hearts of men
Come, pluck with me in my garden nooks
The posies that bloom for all;
Oh, sweet is the smell of my old, old books
In their places against the wall!
Better than flowers are they, these books of mine! For what are the
seasons to them? Neither can the drought of summer nor the asperity of
winter wither or change them. At all times and under all circumstances
they are the same--radiant, fragrant, hopeful, helpful! There is no
charm which they do not possess, no beauty that is not theirs.
What wonder is it that from time immemorial humanity has craved the
boon of carrying to the grave some book particularly beloved in life?
Even Numa Pompilius provided that his books should share his tomb with
him. Twenty-four of these precious volumes were consigned with him to
the grave. When Gabriel Rossetti's wife died, the poet cast into her
open grave the unfinished volume of his poems, that being the last and
most precious tribute he could pay to her cherished memory.
History records instance after instance of the consolation dying men
have received from the perusal of books, and many a one has made his
end holding in his hands a particularly beloved volume. The reverence
which even unlearned men have for books appeals in these splendid
libraries which are erected now and again with funds provided by the
wills of the illiterate. How dreadful must be the last moments of that
person who has steadfastly refused to share the companionship and
acknowledge the saving grace of books!
Such, indeed, is my regard for these friendships that it is with misery
that I contemplate the probability of separation from them by and by.
I have given my friends to understand that when I am done with earth
certain of my books shall be buried with me. The list of these books
will be found in the left-hand upper drawer of the old mahogany
secretary in the front spare room.
When I am done,
I'd have no son
Pounce on these treasures like a vulture;
Nay, give them half
My epitaph
And let them share in my sepulture.
Then when the crack
Of doom rolls back
The marble and the earth that hide me,
I'll smuggle home
Each precious tome
Without a fear a wife shall chide me.
The dread of being separated by death from the objects of one's love
has pursued humanity from the beginning. The Hindoos used to have a
selfish fashion of requiring their widows to be entombed alive with
their corpses. The North American Indian insists that his horse, his
bow and arrows, his spear, and his other cherished trinkets shall share
his grave with him.
My sister, Miss Susan, has provided that after her demise a number of
her most prized curios shall be buried with her. The list, as I recall
it, includes a mahogany four-post bedstead, an Empire dresser, a brass
warming-pan, a pair of brass andirons, a Louis Quinze table, a
Mayflower teapot, a Tomb of Washington platter, a pewter tankard, a
pair of her grandmother's candlesticks, a Paul Revere lantern, a tall
Dutch clock, a complete suit of armor purchased in Rome, and a
collection of Japanese bric-a-brac presented to Miss Susan by a
returned missionary.
I do not see what Miss Susan can possibly do with all this trumpery in
the hereafter, but, if I survive her, I shall certainly insist upon a
compliance with her wishes, even though it involve the erection of a
tumulus as prodigious as the pyramid of Cheops.