upon volumes true and tried; and through the ages his reverent,
disinterested spirit has builded better than it knew. Indeed, it
alone tided books across the Dark Ages; for even when they could not
read, some there were who had wit enough to appreciate letters in the
abstract. Contrast their attitude with that of the executive Caliph
Omar, who burned a great library at Alexandria in 635, declaring that
if the books were orthodox (Mohammedan orthodoxy, of course) they were
unnecessary; if heterodox, pernicious. That is what it means to have
mere practical people around among books.
I can conceive of no human relic more touching than a Bible copied
with conscientious care during this unsympathetic era. Hence the Book
of Kells,[5] which is destitute of one touch of the native artist,
however immature, is often spoken of as the most beautiful book in the
world. It is supposed to have been executed about the eighth century,
since its illuminators had advanced from the mere red capitals adorned
with twisted dragons to pictures relating to the text. The symbols
of the apostles, especially the bird-like lion of Saint Mark, appear
repeatedly on the margins; also, there is a representation of Saint
Matthew with hands growing from his shoulders, holding up to the world
two copies of “The Book.” Among its illustrations are the Arrest of
Jesus, the Agony of the Garden, and, most interesting of all, four
angels and a Virgin and Child appear on the old pages, for, crude as
these figures are, they may be reckoned among the direct ancestors of
those beautiful Holy Families born on Italian and Flemish canvases
eight or nine hundred years later, whose sweet faces still sway the
world.
[Illustration: _A Tribute to the Scribes of the Dark Ages, from One of
Their Intellectual Descendants, a Painter of the Moyen Age_]
Christian art began as illustration on the pages of holy books, and
as illustration it expanded onto wood and canvas, bronze and marble.
The peculiar grace of pictorial art crept into it incidentally, by
accident of genius. That famous Giotto of the Louvre showing “Saint
Francis receiving the Stigmata” is simply a direct explanation of
the subject, far more beautiful in idea than in execution. There are
the figures of Jesus and of Saint Francis; Christ is flying toward
“the most Christ-like of men,” and gilt lines from every wound in our
Savior piercing Saint Francis in the same parts of the body bind that
sympathetic saint to his Redeemer, while unknown to the holy brother a
halo appears back of his head.
This idea of illustration made beautiful that it might be worthy of the
subject which it treated, that arose in the old scriptoriums, reached
its perfection on Ghiberti’s doors to the Baptistry at Florence.
Michael Angelo called them the Gates of Paradise. Illuminated books
of a later date display equally noble, artistic connections. I have
seen little Madonnas in Books of Hours in the British Museum that seem
like imperfect copies of Raphael, whereas they precede him by nearly a
century.
Mediæval story is full of the visits of angels to despairing
illuminators and scribes who found themselves unable to execute books
worthy in their material beauty to convey the word of God. Our Lady
herself sometimes came down to console them. Did forecasts of the
beautiful pictures yet to come sometimes appear to the humble dreamers
of the cloister as they worked away on the margins of holy books?
Not literally, of course, for taste was too crude to conceive of a
developed art. But may not some old artist have conceived in his cell
of a pictured Madonna, so beautiful that pilgrims came from afar to do
her honor, so sweet that she could uplift them from sin? And perhaps
the soul of that humble old scribe finds its paradise in the better
part of some inscrutable genius whose Madonnas perpetually uplift the
world, for the soul of a saint is active forever.
[Illustration: _It is Said There is No Better Test of a Bible Student
Than to Ask Him to Read the Stories which Ghiberti Tells so Distinctly
on the Baptistry Doors._]
But from the vantage-ground of the Old Book of Kells it is as pretty to
look backward as to look forward, so sweetly does it recall a certain
monastery on the Island of Iona which casts its ray in history like a
good deed in a naughty world. This old book speaks eloquently of the
lonely Irish cloisters where, in perhaps the darkest hour of written
history, the seeds of occidental civilization were laid away until a
more favorable season dawned in which to sow them broadcast.
About a hundred years after the blessed Saint Patrick converted
Ireland, in which time many had fallen from grace, Saint Columba
appeared on the scene, made a second conversion of that region and
founded the old Scotch Kirk (very indirectly). When Saint Columba
appealed to the canny Scots and the thrifty northern Irishmen for a
situation for his monastery, they hospitably turned over to his use
the rocky Island of Iona. Though agriculturally it was not much,
through long ages it had borne the fruits of the spirit until even
its stones did duty as amulets. In its bosom slept the Scottish
kings, King Macbeth being the last of the royal line to lie there.
Iona was hallowed ground to the Druid, and is, to this day, a haven
of superstition. There Saint Columba, the scribe, located his
lonely monastery wherein books were made, wondrous in their day
and generation, and there or at some Columbian monastery in the
neighborhood, perhaps at Kells, the Book of Kells was executed.
One of its big pages, which is covered by a great cross wherein
eight circles are incorporated in a network of infinitely involved
interlacements, especially illustrates one phase of early art—its
reverent patience. Study that cross as you may you will find no false
line, no irregular interlacement, for all this was done in the olden
time when the ways of holy men were made so clear unto them. That none
might disturb the holy calm of the silent scribes as they multiplied
the precious “Word” Saint Jerome had taken down from the direct
dictation of the angels, a code of signs was in use in the scriptoriums
of the monasteries. The sign of the cross indicated a missal, the sign
of the crown, King David’s psalms, while a contemptuous scratching of
the ear, in the manner of a dog, was an order for a mere pagan volume;
for then “the world was very wicked,” as the good monks droned; or at
least very rude, cruel, lazy and barbarous, as history affirms, and
gentle spirits were only too prone to recoil from it.
The early Christians in general were filled with contempt for this
life and proud certainty of reward in the next: those whose practice
was no higher than their theory withdrew from the world to secure to
themselves particularly high seats in heaven. The composite story of
their lives emphasizes the barrenness of the scoffer, the futility of
the contemptuous. But the story of the scribe, though he may have seen
through the glass just as darkly as the anchorite did, is the living
story of Christian brotherhood.
One of the first of these scribes, old Cassiodorus of Ravenna, writes:
“All who sing form but a single voice, and we may mingle our notes
with those of the angels, though we may not hear them.” I am sure that
was the sentiment which finally turned this old statesman from the
world, even though he did not retire till after the death of Theodoric,
his patron. Perhaps the career of a statesman prepared him to be a
statesman of the world of letters; at any rate, when he repaired to
the cloister he gathered together, according to his lights, the best
books of his world, and especially enjoined upon the monks the noble
duty of multiplying them.
All this was some hundred years before Saint Columba’s time, but angel
voices carry, and I do believe in their highest moments the ignorant,
undeveloped scribes of the old Irish monasteries vaguely echoed ideals
like those of Cassiodorus.
These scribes came to feel a certain ownership in the great Bibles on
which they worked. At the end of each section of the old Book of Durrow
its scribe smuggled in his petition that all who take the book in hand
might pray for him. I have known a merry old scribe to insert a jingle
in very bad Latin at the end of a chapter, indicating that after so
much good work he should be rewarded with a drink. The jolly old monk
has always appealed to me most unreasonably.
Within the century of the making of the old Book of Kells in Ireland,
stirring old Charlemagne brought a semblance of order to the land of
the Gaul and the Frank and, “that requests should not be made to God
in bad language,” he regulated copists and reproductions by law; he
ordered holy books elaborately adorned, and collected, to the best
of his ability, artists for that purpose, thereby leaving his mark
on the books of his time and of some generations following, which
are technically known as Carlovingians. Indeed, as a bibliophile
Charlemagne shows the most charming side of his character. In his
enthusiasm he went to work and learned to read, but he never could
succeed in learning to write.
As might be expected, Carlovingians are mechanically decorated. They
show Byzantine importation rather than the loving development of an
early and original art. We still have a couple of pages of the Amiens
copy of a work written by the Abbot of Fulda during Charlemagne’s
reign. One page is covered by a lone figure, without ground or
background, of Louis the Pious with text printed all over it. (Not
that in the Dark Ages anybody read between the lines; that they failed
to do so was their greatest difficulty.) Then other Carlovingians are
examples of the dyers’ art, being written in gold on purple vellum,
like the “Golden Gospels” which one thousand one hundred years later
proved such an excellent speculation on Wall street. But that is
unquestionably “another story.”
There is a certain book in the Bodleian not quite so old which I
should value more highly. With considerably more evidence than usual
in such cases, it is identified as the book of mass of Queen Margaret
of Scotland. I wonder if the lovely Saxon princess had it with her
when she fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest to implore the
protection of Malcomb Canmore who made her his Queen? But, better
still, his people afterwards made her their patron saint, realizing
that she had done more to refine them than any other early ruler.
Tradition tells how the King, though he could not read, loved to handle
the Queen’s precious books—perhaps he gave this little volume adorned
with gold and jewels to the lady of his reverent love.
The thirteenth century has great attractions for a bibliophile. Never
were the embellishments on books more liberal and amusing. Nowadays
illuminators consider the fitness of things, but in the thirteenth
century they just designed. I know of a most charming psalter of the
late thirteenth century with the capitals filled with the spirited
knights and the margins with all-colored dragons whose attenuated tails
form circles, sometimes not more than an eighth of an inch in diameter,
that separate tiny butting goats or strutting cocks, or Darwinian
monkeys or other irrelevant matter from the text.
Did these dragons creep in from the Norse mythologies, I wonder, or
were they just creatures of adaptive anatomy for decorative purposes?
The early illuminators did not turn to nature; simple people never do.
This illustrator’s mind certainly wandered; whether it started with
the psalms I cannot determine, but he displays two tiny gilded stops
one-eighth of an inch by two inches that the seriously inclined might
take as sermons. One represents a jester, with cap and bells and wand,
and little other raiment, successfully charging a fully armed knight;
and the other, Venus, attended by a blue dragon, pursuing a cross
between a man and a devil.
The fourteenth and fifteenth century illuminators and illustrators
begin to think; indeed, they are among the best historians we find of
that period: modern illustration is fast returning to their methods.
At the commencement of the fourteenth century, miniatures of the noble
owners of elaborate volumes began to be inserted in their books. Thus
a consecutive history of two hundred years of French portraiture is
safely folded away in the Bibliotheque Nationale, where we may watch
the stiff early miniatures gradually develop into charming little
_genre_ pictures. Though the consideration of atmosphere was passed
over at that time, many of them are models of composition.
Some of these little illustrations show the conceptions as well as
the manners of the age. In one of these old Bibles is a picture of
six seigneurs (two famous bibliophiles among them), in full regalia
(no grave clothes for them), cordially received by Saint Peter at the
Gothic Gates of Paradise in the courteous days of the old regime. There
is that magnificent jeweled Bible of Jean Sans Peur, Duc de Bourgoyne,
decorated with his armorial bearings, which was given to him by some
monks of his domain when he deigned to honor them with a visit; it
contains a charming little picture of the presentation scene.
[Illustration: _A Page from the Bible of Jean Sans Peur._]
Those were royal days for bibliophiles; but a change was to come
over the spirit of their dreams. Printing was invented and the
democracy of letters set in,—jeweled bindings made way for calf, and
collectors are diverted from painting to presses. Bibliophiles develop
individual tastes and such a plebeian variety of them; it is akin to
free speech—one doting on prayer-books, another on cook-books; one on
pamphlets, another on palimpsests; one on school-books, another on
Virgils; one on curiosities of literature, execrably illustrated books
of travel in impossible lands and comedies of error generally; another
on distant glimpses of dawning light, until within the order arises the
confusion of Babel, one no longer understanding the language of another.
But there is an early Episcopal prayer-book in the British Museum
before which all the brotherhood right gallantly might bow. It was Lady
Jane Grey’s companion in distress; she is said to have taken it with
her to the scaffold, where she certainly carried its lessons. In it she
wrote her last message to her father: “The Lord comfort Your Grace in
this world wherein all creatures are only to be comforted.” Her story
is almost too harrowing to recall. This studious young girl, just
seventeen, is offered the English crown. Her common sense tells her to
decline it. “His Grace,” always harsh, even for his day and generation,
forces her to accept. In consequence, after a ten days’ reign, she is
imprisoned in the Tower. While she is held there “His Grace” makes
another false move; as a result of his idiocy Lady Jane and her young
husband are condemned to death.
Could we believe this gentle message on hearsay? We should probably
argue, the age was so narrow, the girl was so young, the expression
is too condensed, too mature. The rational doubt would blur one of
the loveliest pictures in Time’s gallery of fair women. A martyr
without the spur, or the blemish of fanaticism! A Queen of ten days
but a Defender of the Faith forever. The crown jewels pale before this
illuminated prayer-book of Her Most Christian Majesty. This dear little
Protestant called forth the one tender letter extant from the highly
practical Diana of Poitiers. “I have just been hearing the account of
the poor young Queen Jane, and I could not keep myself from weeping at
the sweet, resigned words she spoke to them on the scaffold; surely
never was such a sweet and accomplished princess.”
Indeed, the best thing in the world of books, as well as in the
world of men, “is something out of it,” and it is the appreciation
of this “something,” manifest to sympathetic souls, which makes us
bibliophiles. If unknown to history a tender touch of hands long dead
lurks in an old edition, is it not beyond price?
Although there are priceless books like this little prayer-book of
Queen Jane, every good bibliophile is a bit of a speculator; to bet on
an author is as loyal an excitement as to bet on a racer; and to feel
a beloved volume appreciating upon one’s shelves is like watching the
development of a promising child.
Robert Browning, who was brought up in the fold, his father being a
collector, writes:
Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I’ the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man’s life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a _lira_ for it, eightpence English just.
_Opening lines of_
“_The Ring and the Book_.”
That eightpence has the regular bibliomaniacal ring. Next to giving
fifty prices for a book, the genuine collector delights in paying an
improperly low one—a _tour de force_ either of wit or of purse.
Just think of getting material for the longest poem of the century for
eightpence! and material so unique! with the inspiration of the old
tome thrown in!
But now, when books are so cheap they are almost free, when exact
reproductions of wonderful editions might flood the market at any day,
when venders of old books have become too expert for book hunters, we
are assured that bibliophiles, grasping the tangible in the hope of
realizing the intangible, are the absurdities of a rational age.
Remember our record in the past and trust us a little in the present.
In blind reverence we saved books and inaugurated Christian art.
Historians suddenly began to demand documents and they grow more and
more insistent on that point. Well, we can come to their aid and
they can come to ours; many a pretty bargain has been struck in the
exchange. Along with its old books and letters we have especially
preserved the gentler, though none too gentle, side of the past.
We can introduce you to men of other days in their libraries: a very
good place to study them sympathetically.
Among other charming facts, we can assure you that even during the
confusion of a period of infinite intrigue complicated by religious
wars and the Fronde, Richelieu and Mazarin found time to play at
bibliomania, and perhaps we can persuade you that of all their games
it was the most profitable. The executive Mazarin got hold of an
invaluable expert, Naudé, who brought him bargains by the yard.
What fun they must have had out of it,—Naudé literally taking a
measuring-stick with him when he went “book-hunting,” and “the stalls
where he had passed were like the towns through which Attila or the
Tartars had swept!” But the result was different. Deserving books
were sumptuously decked out in red and olive morocco with gold-tooled
cardinal hats thereon, and took their rightful place in Mazarin’s
palace, that Earthly Paradise of the bibliophile graced by beautiful
books and gentle readers, for Mazarin’s library was cordially free, the
first really free library in France.
It is true that Saint Louis, always open to a beautiful idea, hearing
of a sultan who had had copies made of the manuscripts of his realm
for the benefit of the savants, endeavored to follow the example of
the Moslem. Accordingly he made a beautiful collection of copies which
were kept in the royal chapel—hardly a convenient place for the reading
public; but then there was no reading public.
However humble a Christian, however gentle a knight Saint Louis may
have been, he was destitute of one instinct of the democrat. After his
death his collection was broken up, but his idea descended to Charles
the Wise, who practically started the Royal Library which, joined to
the Mazarin, developed into the present Bibliotheque Nationale.
As the oldest branch of the Public Library, the Bibliotheque
Nationale occupies the ancestral home, the Palais Mazarin at Paris,
where Mazarin’s motto, “Time and I,” rings forth in the majesty of
accomplishment.
As “Ever since the days of Captain Kidd, the Yankees think there’s
money hid,” so ever since the disappearance of Molière’s library the
bibliophiles think there’s treasure hid. Only one book which belonged
to that prince of bibliophiles has turned up so far, a little Elzevir
of 1651, in which he obligingly wrote his name and the price, 1
_livre_, 10 _sous_. But think of his two hundred and forty odd comedies
which he handled so deftly both in the letter and in the spirit,
“taking his property wherever he found it!” What pearls of price if one
could only trace them!
We know this collection was broken up; it cannot be that every single
book has perished. One is almost justified in counting such chickens
before they are hatched. Molière was not only one of the greatest but
one of the most lovable of authors—that quality we collectors value so
highly! Why a book of his would be like a relic of a saint (there is a
bit of mediævalism in every good bibliophile); a saint, a bibliophile
of other days, an actor, a gentle reader and a genius! What might not
any one of them bring? Ah, there is still a golden fleece for the quest
of the Romantic Modern.
Romance will always deal in talismans. We bibliophiles make ours a
thing of the mind, which we lay away between the lines of some gentle
old volume, hoping that some day, somewhere in the vague realm of
Books, it may work its pleasant magic upon some unknown comrade.
_The Romantic Twentieth Century: A Deduction_
The simple story-tellers of old, singing away before History was born,
long, long before she became contradictory and disrespectful, chose the
past as a setting for certain beatitudes—love, beauty, valor, fidelity
and justice. Theirs was not the harsh justice of the common law, for
there was no common law, but true, or, as the world terms it, poetic
justice. They strengthened the warp of their story with the noblest
deeds done, or almost done, around them, for human beings so often
fall just short of great things; this it is the gentle and honorable
duty of story to remedy, for “What we would be, that we are for one
transcendent moment.”
When they only recorded the prowess of the victor, History and Romance
were one and at peace, and the glorious days of which together they
sung were known as the Golden Age.
Then History began to feel the heroism of the vanquished. To give them
their meed she conceived the idea of recording impartially the good and
evil around her, whereat childish Romance turned from her in disgust.
But each claimed the Golden Age: Romance declaring that golden tales
that live and grow were hers for all time; History declaring that the
fact that a great poet imagined an event to have happened counted for
more in the human record than any other given occurrence. And History
and Romance quarreled on until it seemed as though the Golden Age would
be lost to both of them.
Then Romance, always enterprising to the point of flightiness,
suggested that, as the Golden Age had no chronology, it might safely be
recast in the future, in which period she, at least, was quite as much
at home as in the past.
Politic Old Dame History smiled at the idea of her dealing in futures,
but she did make herself responsible for the statement that the real
present is infinitely more romantic than the real past. Then waxing
bold she declared that, with some trifling digression, she had all
along been leading men toward a purer justice more mixed with love. Of
this sweeping assertion she calmly cast the burden of proof upon “my
most persuasive witness, my dear old friend, Romance.” And Romance,
who always begs the question, replies with a smile, “Let me tell some
stories. No, I will not commence with the Greeks, they are hardly my
people. Great poets may find other themes, but as for me, my humble
fancy must rest upon a woman and she should be pure, sweet and gentle
and brave men should bow before her.
“The Grecian woman was in no way a free agent. To assert herself at
all, she was obliged to be either deceitful or defiant; both attitudes
are so unbeautiful! I commence with the days of chivalry, for though
women were not free then, it was supposed that they ought to be, which
is enough for me.”