We recall many a charming tale, done in the most Lamb-like of
accents, regarding the rare and curious old volumes picked up at the
farthing stalls. Le Gallienne has reminisced most delightfully and
incredibly in this fashion, as have others; but I, for one, long ago
decided that these degenerate days never witnessed such discoveries
as those recorded in le temps jadis.
Many and many an hour have I spent delving along dusty shelves in
grimy shops, or by the less alluring ways of the spick-and-span,
rebound and furbished, dustless and listed Olde Book Shoppe whose
displays are priced at their weight in carets. In both have I been
disappointed. Many a catalog have I pored over, only to decide that
all catalogs are supplied from publishers' remainders.
One concludes that the old book trade is a thing of the past, at
least so far as we none too affluent consumers are concerned. The
dealers know too much about their wares and are too eager after
excess profits. They fatten upon the rich manufacturer who seeks
scholarly polish, or the scholar who has inherited the price of
gratification. If they find an Elzevir, however mean, they placard
it at a rare price, and await the victim who thinks that all Elzevirs
are treasures.
Once, indeed, I found a little shop in New Orleans, off the tourist
lanes, where I encountered over a score of delightful volumes in
French, filled with hand-tinted plates, at some very low figure.
Alas! I had just been entrapped in Royal street and had but little
money left. I bought a number of the sweet tooled-morocco volumes at
some little sacrifice, and went my way. Later, in funds, I returned
for the remainder of the set, only to find that a famous playwright
had discovered the treasure--and all were vanished.
With this exception, luck was seldom mine. Old book shops were many,
bargains few. From city to city it was the same old story; until,
upon a cold and foggy night in San Francisco, I chanced to pass the
forbidding and grimy portal of a shop kept by one Healy.
I merely sniffed and turned to catch a jitney; I had come from a
survey of certain downtown shops and felt that I had no more time to
waste. Then I saw the proprietor, sitting in an easy-chair in his
window, which framed dull old spectacles within a luxuriant and
mighty fringe of reddish-grey whiskers. Fascinated, I turned again.
Once more to try my luck! Hopeless though I knew it to be, I would
still essay the impossible--and I entered.
Truth to tell, my entry was compelled less by hope than by that
curious spectacle in the window. In the doorway I came to a pause,
aghast before a dim array of shelves which at some prior day had been
assorted, but were now jumbled and heaped in a most erratic madness
of confusion.
The fringed old gentleman in the easy chair was reading one of his
own books; and this was an excellent sign. He barely vouchsafed a
grunt to my greeting, directed me to switch on the lamps and help
myself, then resumed his book and a huge pipe.
As directed, I turned on the lights and began my explorations.
Already the mystic alchemy of this stage-setting held me gripped in a
pleasant excitation, a glowing confidence that here awaited unguessed
treasure-trove!
Mirabile dictu! At the very first turn I pulled down a glorious big
volume, newly bound in half morocco, which proved to be no other than
Dr. Shaw's Travels in Barbary.
Every map, every letter and engraving and page was perfect, even the
paper was as chastely unblemished as when struck off the press of
Oxford University in the days of the first George. The press-work,
like that of the first folio of Beaumont & Fletcher, was a delight to
the eye; abounding in Arabic, old-style Greek, Hebrew and
less-remembered tongues, it was all as nobly executed as if it had
been drawn by hand and lithographed.
A price was penciled on the flyleaf; it would scarcely have amounted
to taxicab fare home. I sighed over the high insolence that prompts
dealers to face their customers with the prices these wares fetched
twenty or fifty years ago; then I turned to the fringed divinity with
tremulous query.
"Everything marked plain," he made response, without raising his eyes
from the book in his lap.
Ye gods and little bookworms--the dream had come true! Or was it a
chance find--perhaps some lure to catch unwary feet?
No matter; within five minutes dinner was forgotten, all
responsibilities put aside, and I was hooked fast. Those unordered
shelves held everything from Russian novels to French scientific
treatises, and Americana ran riot.
Imagine a copy of Vetelius, that rare edition of saga-chants, for
fifty cents; and, no less expensive, a spanking fine copy of Mme. de
Grandfort's execrated work on the Louisiana Creoles, serene in its
dingy binding of ante-bellum days! Here was the sort of place
hitherto found only in romancers' tales!
And a little old French handbook for gardeners, with quaintly tinted
plates; or a first edition of Palgrave, or a historical work from the
library of the Garde Royale Hussars!
Then the discovery of Ripperda's memoirs--Ripperda, that fine
Hollander who became a Spaniard, wearing the collar of the Golden
Fleece and ruling all the wide realms of Spain, then passed into
Morocco and ruled that land as pasha--Ripperda, who took new
religions or families at will, but ruled always until the gout
fetched him to a devout Christian end--here was the crowning find!
I staggered home that night freighted with treasure. A few days
later I returned, with the intent of further March and seizure; but
this time I did not enter. I only turned mournfully from the
doorway, above which flaunted the dire announcement: