A popular and fairly orthodox opinion concerning
book-collectors is that their vices are many, their virtues of a
negative sort, and their ways altogether past finding out. Yet the
most hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity of
bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If their doings are
inscrutable, they are also romantic; if their vices are numerous, the
heinousness of those vices is mitigated by the fact that it is
possible to sin humorously. Regard him how you will, the sayings and
doings of the collector give life and color to the pages of those
books which treat of books. He is amusing when he is purely an
imaginary creature. For example, there was one Thomas Blinton. Every
one who has ever read the volume called _Books and Bookmen_ knows
about Thomas Blinton. He was a man who wickedly adorned his volumes
with morocco bindings, while his wife 'sighed in vain for some old
_point d'Alençon lace_.' He was a man who was capable of bidding
fifteen pounds for a Foppens edition of the essays of Montaigne,
though fifteen pounds happened to be 'exactly the amount which he owed
his plumber and gas-fitter, a worthy man with a large family.' From
this fictitious Thomas Blinton all the way back to Richard Heber, who
was very real, and who piled up books as other men heap together
vulgar riches, book-collectors have been a picturesque folk.
The name of Heber suggests the thought that all men who buy books are
not bibliophiles. He alone is worthy the title who acquires his
volumes with something like passion. One may buy books like a
gentleman, and that is very well. One may buy books like a gentleman
and a scholar, which counts for something more. But to be truly of the
elect one must resemble Richard Heber, and buy books like a gentleman,
a scholar, and a madman.
You may find an account of Heber in an old file of _The Gentleman's
Magazine_. He began in his youth by making a library of the classics.
Then he became interested in rare English books, and collected them
_con amore_ for thirty years. He was very rich, and he had never given
hostages to fortune; it was therefore possible for him to indulge his
fine passion without stint. He bought only the best books, and he
bought them by thousands and by tens of thousands. He would have held
as foolishness that saying from the Greek which exhorts one to do
nothing too much. According to Heber's theory, it is impossible to
have too many good books. Usually one library is supposed to be enough
for one man. Heber was satisfied only with eight libraries, and then
he was hardly satisfied. He had a library in his house at Hodnet. 'His
residence in Pimlico, where he died, was filled, like Magliabecchi's
at Florence, with books from the top to the bottom; every chair, every
table, every passage containing piles of erudition.' He had a house in
York Street which was crowded with books. He had a library in Oxford,
one at Paris, one at Antwerp, one at Brussels, and one at Ghent. The
most accurate estimate of his collections places the number at 146,827
volumes. Heber is believed to have spent half a million dollars for
books. After his death the collections were dispersed. The catalogue
was published in twelve parts, and the sales lasted over three years.
Heber had a witty way of explaining why he possessed so many copies of
the same book. When taxed with the sin of buying duplicates he replied
in this manner: 'Why, you see, sir, no man can comfortably do without
_three_ copies of a book. One he must have for his show copy, and he
will probably keep it at his country house; another he will require
for his own use and reference; and unless he is inclined to part with
this, which is very inconvenient, or risk the injury of his best copy,
he must needs have a third at the service of his friends.'
In the pursuit of a coveted volume Heber was indefatigable. He was not
of those Sybaritic buyers who sit in their offices while agents and
dealers do the work. 'On hearing of a curious book he has been known
to put himself into the mail-coach, and travel three, four, or five
hundred miles to obtain it, fearful to trust his commission to a
letter.' He knew the solid comfort to be had in reading a book
catalogue. Dealers were in the habit of sending him the advance sheets
of their lists. He ordered books from his death-bed, and for anything
we know to the contrary died with a catalogue in his fingers.
A life devoted to such a passion is a stumbling-block to the
practical man, and to the Philistine foolishness. Yet you may hear men
praised because up to the day of death they were diligent in
business,--business which added to life nothing more significant than
that useful thing called money. Thoreau used to say that if a man
spent half his time in the woods for the love of the woods he was in
danger of being looked upon as a loafer; but if he spent all his time
as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making Earth bald before
her time, he was regarded as an upright and industrious citizen.
Heber had a genius for friendship as well as for gathering together
choice books. Sir Walter Scott addressed verses to him. Professor
Porson wrote emendations for him in his favorite copy of _Athenæus_.
To him was inscribed Dr. Ferrier's poetical epistle on Bibliomania.
His virtues were celebrated by Dibdin and by Burton. In brief, the
sketch of Heber in The_ Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1834,
contains a list of forty-six names,--all men of distinction by birth,
learning, or genius, and all men who were proud to call Richard Heber
friend. He was a mighty hunter of books. He was genial, scholarly,
generous. Out-of-door men will be pleased to know that he was active
physically. He was a tremendous walker, and enjoyed tiring out his
bailiff by an all-day tramp.
Of many good things said of him this is one of the best: 'The learned
and curious, whether rich or poor, have always free access to his
library.' Thus was it possible for Scott very truthfully to say to
Heber, 'Thy volumes open as thy heart.'
No life of this Prince of Book-Hunters has been written, I believe.
Some one with access to the material, and a sympathy with the love of
books as books, should write a memoir of Heber the Magnificent. It
ought not to be a large volume, but it might well be about the size of
Henry Stevens's _Recollections of James_ _Lenox_. And if it were
equally readable it were a readable book indeed.
Dibdin thought that Heber's tastes were so catholic as to make it
difficult to classify him among hunters of books. The implication is
that most men can be classified. They have their specialties. What
pleases one collector much pleases another but little or not at all.
Collectors differ radically in the attitude they take with respect to
their volumes. One man buys books to read, another buys them to gloat
over, a third that he may fortify them behind glass doors and keep the
key in his pocket. Therefore have learned words been devised to make
apparent the varieties of motive and taste. These words begin with
_biblio_; you may have a _biblio_ almost anything.
Two interesting types of maniac are known respectively as the
bibliotaph and the biblioclast. A biblioclast is one who indulges
himself in the questionable pleasure of mutilating books in order more
sumptuously to fit out a particular volume. The disease is English in
origin, though some of the worst cases have been observed in America.
Clergymen and presidents of colleges have been known to be seized with
it. The victim becomes more or less irresponsible, and presently runs
mad. Such an one was John Bagford, of diabolical memory, who mutilated
not less than ten thousand volumes to form his vast collection of
title-pages. John Bagford died an unrepentant sinner, lamenting with
one of his later breaths that he could not live long enough to get
hold of a genuine Caxton and rip the initial page out of that.
The bibliotaph buries books; not literally, but sometimes with as much
effect as if he had put his books underground. There are several
varieties of him. The dog-in-the-manger bibliotaph is the worst; he
uses his books but little himself, and allows others to use them not
at all. On the other hand, a man may be a bibliotaph simply from
inability to get at his books. He may be homeless, a bachelor, a
denizen of boarding-houses, a wanderer upon the face of the earth. He
may keep his books in storage or accumulate them in the country,
against the day when he shall have a town house with proper library.
The most genial lover of books who has walked city streets for many a
day was a bibliotaph. He accumulated books for years in the huge
garret of a farmhouse standing upon the outskirts of a Westchester
County village. A good relative 'mothered' the books for him in his
absence. When the collection outgrew the garret it was moved into a
big village store. It was the wonder of the place. The country folk
flattened their noses against the panes and tried to peer into the
gloom beyond the half-drawn shades. The neighboring stores were in
comparison miracles of business activity. On one side was a
harness-shop; on the other a nondescript establishment at which one
might buy anything, from sunbonnets and corsets to canned salmon and
fresh eggs. Between these centres of village life stood the silent
tomb for books. The stranger within the gates had this curiosity
pointed out to him along with the new High School and the Soldiers'
Monument.
By shading one's eyes to keep away the glare of the light, it was
possible to make out tall carved oaken cases with glass doors, which
lined the walls. They gave distinction to the place. It was not
difficult to understand the point of view of the dressmaker from
across the way who stepped over to satisfy her curiosity concerning
the stranger, and his concerning the books, and who said in a friendly
manner as she peered through a rent in the adjoining shade, 'It's
almost like a cathedral, ain't it?'
To an inquiry about the owner of the books she replied that he was
brought up in that county; that there were people around there who
said that he had been an exhorter years ago; her impression was that
now he was a 'political revivalist,' if I knew what that was.
The phrase seemed hopeless, but light was thrown upon it when, later,
I learned that this man of many buried books gave addresses upon the
responsibilities of citizenship, upon the higher politics, and upon
themes of like character. They said that he was humorous. The farmers
liked to hear him speak. But it was rumored that he went to colleges,
too. The dressmaker thought that the buying of so many books was
'wicked.' 'He goes from New York to Beersheba, and from Chicago to
Dan, buying books. Never reads 'em because he hardly ever comes here.'
It became possible to identify the Bibliotaph of the country store
with a certain mature youth who some time since 'gave his friends the
slip, chose land-travel or seafaring,' and has not returned to build
the town house with proper library. They who observed him closely
thought that he resembled Heber in certain ways. Perhaps this fact
alone would justify an attempt at a verbal portrait. But the
additional circumstance that, in days when people with the slightest
excuse therefor have themselves regularly photographed, this
old-fashioned youth refused to allow his 'likeness' to be taken,--this
circumstance must do what it can to extenuate minuteness of detail in
the picture, as well as over-attention to points of which a photograph
would have taken no account.
You are to conceive of a man between thirty-eight and forty years of
age, big-bodied, rapidly acquiring that rotund shape which is thought
becoming to bishops, about six feet high though stooping a little,
prodigiously active, walking with incredible rapidity, having large
limbs, large feet, large though well-shaped and very white hands; in
short, a huge fellow physically, as big of heart as of body, and, in
the affectionate thought of those who knew him best, as big of
intellect as of heart.
His head might be described as leonine. It was a massive head, covered
with a tremendous mane of brown hair. This was never worn long, but it
was so thick and of such fine texture that it constituted a real
beauty. He had no conceit of it, being innocent of that peculiar
German type of vanity which runs to hair, yet he could not prevent
people from commenting on his extraordinary hirsute adornment. Their
occasional remarks excited his mirth. If they spoke of it again, he
would protest. Once, among a small party of his closest friends, the
conversation turned upon the subject of hair, and then upon the beauty
of _his_ hair; whereupon he cried out, 'I am embarrassed by this
unnecessary display of interest in my Samsonian assertiveness.'
He loved to tease certain of his acquaintances who, though younger
than himself, were rapidly losing their natural head-covering. He
prodded them with ingeniously worded reflections upon their unhappy
condition. He would take as a motto Erasmus's unkind salutation, 'Bene
sit tibi cum tuo calvitio,' and multiply amusing variations upon it.
He delighted in sending them prescriptions and advertisements clipped
from newspapers and medical journals. He quoted at them the remark of
a pale, bald, blond young literary aspirant, who, seeing him, the
Bibliotaph, passing by, exclaimed audibly and almost passionately,
'Oh, I perfectly adore _hair_!'
Of his clothes it might be said that he did not wear them, but rather
dwelt at large in them. They were made by high-priced tailors and were
fashionably cut, but he lived in them so violently--that is, traveled
so much, walked so much, sat so long and so hard, gestured so
earnestly, and carried in his many pockets such an extraordinary
collection of notebooks, indelible pencils, card-cases, stamp-boxes,
penknives, gold toothpicks, thermometers, and what not--that within
twenty-four hours after he had donned new clothes all the artistic
merits of the garments were obliterated; they were, from every point
of view, hopelessly degenerate.
He was a scrupulously clean man, but there was a kind of civilized
wildness in his appearance which astonished people; and in perverse
moments he liked to terrify those who knew him but little by affirming
that he was a near relative of Christopher Smart, and then explaining
in mirth-provoking phrases that one of the arguments used for proving
Smart's insanity was that he did not love clean linen.
His appetite was large, as became a large and active person. He was a
very valiant trencher-man; and yet he could not have been said to love
eating for eating's sake. He ate when he was hungry, and found no
difficulty in being hungry three times a day. He should have been an
Englishman, for he enjoyed a late supper. In the proper season this
consisted of a bountiful serving of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, with
a glass of lemonade. As a variant upon the beverage he took milk. He
was the only man I have known, whether book-hunter or layman, who
could sleep peacefully upon a supper of cucumbers and milk.
There is probably no occult relation between first editions and
onions. The Bibliotaph was mightily pleased with both: the one, he
said, appealed to him æsthetically, the other dietetically. He
remarked of some particularly large Spanish onions that there was 'a
globular wholesomeness about them which was very gratifying;' and
after eating one he observed expansively that he felt 'as if he had
swallowed the earth and the fullness thereof.' His easy, good-humored
exaggerations and his odd comments upon the viands made him a pleasant
table companion: as when he described a Parker House Sultana Roll by
saying that 'it looked like the sanguinary output of the whole Crimean
war.'
High-priced restaurants did not please him as well as humbler and less
obtrusive places. But it was all one,--Delmonico's, the Bellevue, a
stool in the Twelfth Street Market, or a German café on Van Buren
Street. The humors of certain eating-houses gave him infinite delight.
He went frequently to the Diner's Own Home, the proprietor of which,
being both cook and Christian, had hit upon the novel plan of giving
Scriptural advice and practical suggestions by placards on the walls.
The Bibliotaph enjoyed this juxtaposition of signs: the first read,
'The very God of peace sanctify you wholly;' the second, 'Look out for
your Hat and Coat.'
The Bibliotaph had no home, and was reputed to live in his post-office
box. He contributed to the support of at least three clubs, but was
very little seen at any one of them. He enjoyed the large cities, and
was contented in whichever one he happened to find himself. He was
emphatically a city man, but what city was of less import. He knew
them all, and was happy in each. He had his favorite hotel, his
favorite bath, his work, bushels of newspapers and periodicals,
friends who rejoiced in his coming as children in the near advent of
Christmas, and finally book-shops in which to browse at his pleasure.
It was interesting to hear him talk about city life. One of his quaint
mannerisms consisted in modifying a well-known quotation to suit his
conversational needs. 'Why, sir,' he would remark, 'Fleet Street has a
very animated appearance, but I think the full tide of human existence
is at the corner of Madison and State.'
His knowledge of cities was both extensive and peculiar. I have heard
him name in order all the hotels on Broadway, beginning at the lower
end and coming up as far as hotels exist, branching off upon the
parallel and cross streets where there were noted caravansaries, and
connecting every name with an event of importance, or with the life
and fortunes of some noted man who had been guest at that particular
inn. This was knowledge more becoming in a guide, perhaps, but it will
illustrate the encyclopædic fullness of his miscellaneous information.
As was natural and becoming in a man born within forty miles of the
metropolis, he liked best the large cities of the East, and was least
content in small Western cities. But this was the outcome of no
illiberal prejudice, and there was a quizzical smile upon his lips and
a teasing look in his eyes when he bantered a Westerner. 'A man,' he
would sometimes say, 'may come by the mystery of childbirth into Omaha
or Kansas City and be content, but he can't come by Boston, New York,
or Philadelphia.' Then, a moment later, paraphrasing his remark, he
would add, 'To go to Omaha or Kansas City by way of New York and
Philadelphia is like being translated heavenward with such violence
that one _passes through_--into a less comfortable region!'
Strange to say, the conversation of this most omnivorous of
book-collectors was less of books than of men. True, he was deeply
versed in bibliographical details and dangerously accurate in his talk
about them, but, after all, the personality back of the book was the
supremely interesting thing. He abounded in anecdote, and could
describe graphically the men he had met, the orators he had heard, the
occasions of importance where he had been an interested spectator. His
conversation was delightfully fresh and racy because of the vividness
of the original impressions, the unusual force of the ideas which were
the copies of these impressions, and the fine artistic sense which
enabled him to determine at once what points should be omitted, and
what words should be used most fittingly to express the ideas
retained.
He had no pride in his conversational power. He was always modest, but
never diffident. I have seen him sit, a respectful listener,
absolutely silent, while some ordinary chatterer held the company's
attention for an hour. Many good talkers are unhappy unless they have
the privilege of exercising their gifts. Not so he. Sometimes he had
almost to be compelled to begin. On such occasions one of his
intimates was wont to quote from Boswell: 'Leave him to me, sir; I'll
make him rear.'
The superficial parts of his talk were more easily retained. In mere
banter, good-humored give-and-take, that froth and bubble of
conversational intercourse, he was delightful. His hostess, the wife
of a well-known comedian, apologized to him for having to move him out
of the large guest-chamber into another one, smaller and higher
up,--this because of an unexpected accession of visitors. He replied
that it did not incommode him; and as for being up another flight of
stairs, 'it was a comfort to him to know that when he was in a state
of somnolent helplessness he was as near heaven as it was possible to
get in an actor's house.' The same lady was taking him roundly to task
on some minor point in which he had quite justly offended her;
whereupon he turned to her husband and said, 'Jane worships but little
at the shrine of politeness because so much of her time is mortgaged
to the shrine of truth.'
When asked to suggest an appropriate and brief cablegram to be sent to
a gentleman who on the following day would become sixty years of age,
and who had taken full measure of life's joys, he responded, 'Send him
this: "_You don't look it, but you've lived like it._"'
His skill in witty retort often expressed itself by accepting a verbal
attack as justified, and elaborating it in a way to throw into shadow
the assault of the critic. At a small and familiar supper of bookish
men, when there was general dissatisfaction over an expensive but
ill-made salad, he alone ate with apparent relish. The host, who was
of like mind with his guests, said, 'The Bibliotaph doesn't care for
the quality of his food, if it has filling power.' To which he at once
responded, 'You merely imply that I am like a robin: I eat cherries
when I may, and worms when I must.'
His inscriptions in books given to his friends were often singularly
happy. He presented a copy of _Lowell's Letters_ to a gentleman and
his wife. The first volume was inscribed to the husband as follows:--
'To Mr. ---- ----, who is to the owner of the second volume of these
Letters what this volume is to that: so delightful as to make one glad
that there's another equally as good, if not better.'
In volume two was the inscription to the wife, worded in this
manner:--
'To Mrs. ---- ----, without whom the owner of the first volume of
these Letters would be as that first volume without this one:
interesting, but incomplete.'
Perhaps this will illustrate his quickness to seize upon ever so minute
an occasion for the exercise of his humor. A young woman whom he admired,
being brought up among brothers, had received the nickname, half
affectionately and half patronizingly bestowed, of 'the Kid.' Among
her holiday gifts for a certain year was a book from the Bibliotaph, a
copy of _Old-Fashioned Roses_, with this dedication: 'To a Kid, had
Abraham possessed which, Isaac had been the burnt-offering.'
It is as a buyer and burier of books that the subject of this paper
showed himself in most interesting light. He said that the time to
make a library was when one was young. He held the foolish notion that
a man does not purchase books after he is fifty; I shall expect to see
him ransacking the shops after he is seventy, if he shall survive his
eccentricities of diet that long. He was an omnivorous buyer, picking
up everything he could lay his hands upon. Yet he had a clearly
defined motive for the acquisition of every volume. However absurd the
purchase might seem to the bystander, he, at any rate, could have
given six cogent reasons why he must have that particular book.
He bought according to the condition of his purse at a given time. If
he had plenty of money, it would be expensive publications, like those
issued by the Grolier Club. If he was financially depressed, he would
hunt in the out-of-door shelves of well-known Philadelphia bookshops.
It was marvelous to see what things, new and old, he was able to
extract from a ten-cent alcove. Part of the secret lay in this idea:
to be a good book-hunter one must not be too dainty; one must not be
afraid of soiling one's hands. He who observes the clouds shall not
reap, and he who thinks of his cuffs is likely to lose many a bookish
treasure. Our Bibliotaph generally parted company with his cuffs when
he began hunting for books. How many times have I seen those cuffs
with the patent fasteners sticking up in the air, as if reaching out
helplessly for their owner; the owner in the mean time standing high
upon a ladder which creaked under his weight, humming to himself as he
industriously examined every volume within reach. This ability to live
without cuffs made him prone to reject altogether that orthodox bit of
finish to a toilet. I have known him to spend an entire day in New
York between club, shops, and restaurant, with one cuff on, and the
other cuff--its owner knew not where.
He differed from Heber in that he was not 'a classical scholar of the
old school,' but there were many points in which he resembled the
famous English collector. Heber would have acknowledged him as a son
if only for his energy, his unquenchable enthusiasm, and the exactness
of his knowledge concerning the books which he pretended to know at
all. For not alone is it necessary that a collector should know
precisely what book he wants; it is even more important that he should
be able to know a book _as_ the book he wants when he sees it. It is a
lamentable thing to have fired in the dark, and then discover that you
have shot a wandering mule, and not the noble game you were in pursuit
of. One cannot take his reference library with him to the shops. The
tests, the criteria, must be carried in the head. The last and most
inappropriate moment for getting up bibliographical lore is that
moment when the pressing question is, to buy or not to buy. Master
Slender, in the play, learned the difficulties which beset a man whose
knowledge is in a book, and whose book is at home upon a shelf. It is
possible to sympathize with him when he exclaims, 'I had rather than
forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here!' In making
love there are other resources; all wooers are not as ill equipped as
Slender was. But in hunting rare books the time will be sure to come
when a man may well cry, 'I had rather than forty dollars I had my
list of first editions with me!'
The Bibliotaph carried much accurate information in his head, but he
never traveled without a thesaurus in his valise. It was a small
volume containing printed lists of the first editions of rare books.
The volume was interleaved; the leaves were crowded with manuscript
notes. An appendix contained a hundred and more autograph letters from
living authors, correcting, supplementing, or approving the printed
bibliographies. Even these authors' own lists were accurately
corrected. They needed it in not a few instances. For it is a wise
author who knows his own first edition. Men may write remarkable
books, and understand but little the virtues of their books from the
collector's point of view. Men are seldom clever in more ways than
one. Z. Jackson was a practical printer, and his knowledge as a
printer enabled him to correct sundry errors in the first folio of
Shakespeare. But Z. Jackson, as the Rev. George Dawson observes,
'ventured beyond the composing-case, and, having corrected blunders
made by the printers, corrected excellencies made by the poet.'
It was amusing to discover, by means of these autograph letters, how
seldom a good author was an equally good bibliographer. And this is as
it should be. The author's business is, not to take account of first
editions, but to make books of such virtue that bibliomaniacs shall be
eager to possess the first editions thereof. It is proverbial that a
poet is able to show a farmer things new to him about his own farm.
Turn a bibliographer loose upon a poet's works, and he will amaze the
poet with an account of _his_ own doings. The poet will straightway
discover that while he supposed himself to be making 'mere literature'
he was in reality contributing to an elaborate and exact science.
The Bibliotaph was not a blind enthusiast on the subject of first
editions. He was one of the few men who understood the exceeding great
virtues of second editions. He declared that a man who was so
fortunate as to secure a second edition of Henry Crabb Robinson's
_Diary_ was in better case than he who had bothered himself to obtain
a first. When it fell in with his mood to argue against that which he
himself most affected, he would quote the childish bit of doggerel
beginning 'The first the worst, the second the same,' and then grow
eloquent over the dainty Templeman Hazlitts which are chiefly third
editions. He thought it absurd to worry over a first issue of
Carlyle's _French Revolution_ if it were possible to buy at moderate
price a copy of the third edition, which is a well-nigh perfect book,
'good to the touch and grateful to the eye.' But this lover of books
grew fierce in his special mania if you hinted that it was also
foolish to spend a large sum on an _editio princeps_ of _Paradise
Lost_ or of _Robinson Crusoe_. There are certain authors concerning
the desirability of whose first editions it must not be disputed.
The singular readiness with which bookish treasures fell into his way
astonished less fortunate buyers. Rare Stevensons dropped into his
hand like ripe fruit from a tree. The most inaccessible of pamphlets
fawned upon him, begging to be purchased, just as the succulent little
roast pigs in _The New Paul and Virginia_ run about with knives and
forks in their sides pleading to be eaten. The Bibliotaph said he did
not despair of buying Poe's _Tamerlane_ for twenty-five cents one of
these days; and that a rarity he was sure to get sooner or later was a
copy of that English newspaper which announced Shelley's death under
the caption _Now he Knows whether there is a Hell or Not_.
He unconsciously followed Heber in that he disliked large-paper
copies. Heber would none of them because they took up too much room;
their ample borders encroached upon the rights of other books. Heber
objected to this as Prosper Mérimée objected to the gigantic English
hoopskirts of 1865,--there was space on Regent Street for but one
woman at a time.
Original as the Bibliotaph was in appearance, manners, habits, he was
less striking in what he did than in what he said. It is a pity that
no record of his talk exists. It is not surprising that there is no
such record, for his habits of wandering precluded the possibility of
his making a permanent impression. By the time people had fully
awakened to the significance of his presence among them he was gone.
So there grew up a legend concerning him, but no true biography. He
was like a comet, very shaggy and very brilliant, but he stayed so
brief a time in a place that it was impossible for one man to give
either the days or the thought to the reproduction of his more serious
and considered words. A greater difficulty was involved in the fact
that the Bibliotaph had many socii, but no fidus Achates. Moreover,
Achates, in this instance, would have needed the reportorial powers of
a James Boswell that he might properly interpret genius to the public.
This particular genius illustrated the misfortune of having too great
facility in establishing those relations which lie midway between
acquaintance and friendship. To put the matter in the form of a
paradox, he had so many _friends_ that he had no _friend_. Perhaps
this is unjust, but friendship has a touch of jealousy and
exclusiveness in it. He was too large-natured to say to one of his
admirers, 'Thou shalt have no other gods save myself;' but there were
those among the admirers who were quite prepared to say to him, 'We
prefer that thou shalt have no other worshipers in addition to us.'
People wondered that he seemed to have no care for a conventional home
life. He was taxed with want of sympathy with what makes even a humble
home a centre of light and happiness. He denied it, and said to his
accusers, 'Can you not understand that after a stay in _your_ home I
go away with much the feeling that must possess a lusty young calf
when his well-equipped mother tells him that henceforth he must find
means of sustenance elsewhere?'
He professed to have been once in love, but no one believed it. He
used to say that his most remarkable experience as a bachelor was in
noting the uniformity with which eligible young women passed him by on
the other side of the way. And when a married friend offered
condolence, with that sleek complacency of manner noteworthy in men
who are conscious of being mated for life better than they deserve,
the Bibliotaph said, with an admiring glance at the wife, 'Your
sympathy is supererogatory, sir, for I fully expect to become your
residuary legatee.'
It is most pleasing to think of this unique man 'buffeting his books'
in one of those temporary libraries which formed about him whenever he
stopped four or five weeks in a place. The shops were rifled of not a
few of their choicest possessions, and the spoils carried off to his
room. It was a joy to see him display his treasures, a delight to hear
him talk of them. He would disarm criticism with respect to the more
eccentric purchases by saying, 'You wouldn't approve of this, but _I_
thought it was curious,'--and then a torrent of facts, criticisms,
quotations, all bearing upon the particular volume which you were
supposed not to like; and so on, hour after hour. There was no limit
save that imposed by the receptive capacity of the guest. It reminded
one of the word spoken concerning a 'hard sitter at books' of the last
century, that he was a literary giant 'born to grapple with whole
libraries.' But the fine flavor of those hours spent in hearing him
discourse upon books and men is not to be recovered. It is evanescent,
spectral, now. This talk was like the improvisation of a musician who
is profoundly learned, but has in him a vein of poetry too. The talk
and the music strongly appeal to robust minds, and at the same time do
not repel the sentimentalist.
It is not to be supposed that the Bibliotaph pleased every one with
whom he came in contact. There were people whom his intellectual
potency affected in a disagreeable way. They accused him of applying
great mental force to inconsidered trifles. They said it was a
misfortune that so much talent was going to waste. But there is no
task so easy as criticising an able man's employment of his gifts.