To arrive at a high degree of pleasure in collecting a library, one
must travel. The Bibliotaph regularly traveled in search of his
volumes. His theory was that the collector must go to the book, not
wait for the book to come to him. No reputable sportsman, he said,
would wish the game brought alive to his back-yard for him to kill.
Half the pleasure was in tracking the quarry to its hiding-place. He
himself ordered but seldom from catalogues, and went regularly to and
fro among the dealers in books, seeking the volume which his heart
desired. He enjoyed those shops where the book-seller kept open house,
where the stock was large and surprises were common, where the
proprietor was prodigiously well-informed on some points and
correspondingly ill-informed on others. He bought freely, never
disputed a price, and laid down his cash with the air of a man who
believes that unspent money is the root of all evil.
These travels brought about three results: the making of friends, the
compilation of scrap-books, and the establishment of 'bins.' Before
speaking of any one of these points, a word on the satisfactions of
bibliographical touring.
In every town of considerable size, and in many towns of
inconsiderable size, are bookshops. It is a poor shop which does not
contain at least one good book. This book bides its time, and usually
outstays its welcome. But its fate is about its neck. Somewhere there
is a collector to whom that book is precious. They are made for one
another, the collector and the book; and it is astonishing how
infrequently they miss of realizing their mutual happiness. The
book-seller is a marriage-broker for unwedded books. His business is
to find them homes, and take a fee for so doing. Sugarman the Shadchan
was not more zealous than is your vendor of rare books.
Now, it is a curious fact that the most desirable of bookish treasures
are often found where one would be least likely to seek them. Montana
is a great State, nevertheless one does not think of going to Montana
for early editions of Shakespeare. Let the book-hunter inwardly digest
the following plain tale of a clergyman and a book of plays.
There is a certain collector who is sometimes called 'The Bishop.' He
is not a bishop, but he may be so designated; coming events have been
known to cast conspicuous shadows in the likeness of mitre and
crosier. The Bishop heard of a man in Montana who had an old book of
plays with an autograph of William Shakespeare pasted in it. Being a
wise ecclesiastic, he did not exclaim 'Tush' and 'Fie,' but proceeded
at once to go book-hunting in Montana. He went by proxy, if not in
person; the journey is long. In due time the owner of the volume was
found and the book was placed in the Bishop's hands for inspection. He
tore off the wrappers, and lo! it was a Fourth Folio of Shakespeare
excellently well preserved, and with what appeared to be the great
dramatist's signature written on a slip of paper and pasted inside the
front cover. The problem of the genuineness of that autograph does not
concern us. The great fact is that a Shakespeare folio turned up in
Montana. Now when he hears some one express desire for a copy of
Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, or any other rare book of Elizabeth's
time, the Bishop's thoughts fly toward the setting sun. Then he smiles
a notable kind of smile, and says, 'If I could get away I'd run out to
Montana and try to pick up a copy for you.'
There is a certain gentleman who loves the literature of Queen Anne's
reign. He lives with Whigs and Tories, vibrates between coffee-house
and tea-table. He annoys his daughter by sometimes calling her
'Belinda,' and astonishes his wife with his mock-heroic apostrophes to
her hood and patches. He reads his _Spectator_ at breakfast while
other people batten upon newspapers only three hours old. He smiles
over the love-letters of Richard Steele, and reverences the name and
the writings of Joseph Addison. Indeed, his devotion to Addison is so
radical that he has actually been guilty of reading _The Campaign_ and
the _Dialogue on Medals_. This gentleman hunted books one day and was
not successful. It seemed to him that on this particular afternoon the
world was stuffed with Allison's histories of Europe, and Jeffrey's
contributions to the _Edinburgh Review_. His heart was filled with
bitterness and his nostrils with dust. Books which looked inviting
turned out to be twenty-second editions. Of fifty things upon his list
not one came to light. But it was predestined that he should not go
sorrowing to his home. He pulled out from a bottom shelf two musty
octavo volumes bound in dark brown leather, and each securely tied
with a string; for the covers had been broken from the backs. The
titles were invisible, the contents a mystery. The gentleman held the
unpromising objects in his hand and meditated upon them. They might be
a treatise on conic sections, or a Latin Grammar, and again they might
be a Book. He untied the string and opened one of the volumes. Was it
a breath of summer air from Isis that swept out of those pages, which
were as white as snow in spite of the lapse of nearly two centuries?
He read the title, MUSARUM ANGLICANARUM ANALECTA. The date was 1699.
He turned to the table of contents, and his heart gave a contented
throb. There was the name he wished to see, J. Addison, Magd. Coll:
The name occurred eight times. The dejected collector had found a
clean and uncut copy of those two volumes of contemporary Latin verse
compiled by Joseph Addison, when he was a young man at Oxford, and
printed at the Sheldonian Theatre. Addison contributed eight poems to
the second volume. The bookseller was willing to take seventy-five
cents for the set, and told the gentleman as he did up the package
that he was a comfort to the trade.
That night the gentleman read _The Battle of the Pigmies and the
Cranes_, while his wife read the evening edition of the _Lurid
Paragraph_. Now he says to his friends, 'Hunt books in the most
unpromising places, but make a thorough search. You may not discover a
Koh-i-noor, but you will be pretty sure to run upon some desirable
little thing which gives you pleasure and costs but a trifle.'
One effect of this adventure upon himself is that he cannot pass a
volume which is tied with a string. He spends his days and Saturday
nights in tying and untying books with broken covers. Even the
evidence of a clearly-lettered title upon the back fails to satisfy
him. He is restless until he has made a thorough search in the body of
the volume.
The Bibliotaph's own best strokes of fortune were made in
out-of-the-way places. But some god was on his side. For at his
approach the bibliographical desert blossomed like the rose. He used
to hunt books in Texas at one period in his life; and out of Texas
would he come, bringing, so it is said, first editions of George
Borrow and Jane Austen. It was maddening to be with him at such times,
especially if one had a gift for envy.
Yet why should one envy him his money, or his unerring hand and eye?
He paid for the book, but it was yours to read and to caress so long
as you would. If he took it from you it was only that he might pass it
on to some other friend. But if that volume once started in the
direction of the great tomb of books in Westchester County, no power
on earth could avail to restore it to the light of day.
It is pleasant to meditate upon past journeys with the Bibliotaph. He
was an incomparable traveling companion, buoyant, philosophic,
incapable of fatigue, and never ill. Yet it is a tradition current,
that he, the mighty, who called himself a friend to physicians,
because he never robbed them of their time either in or out of
office-hours, once succumbed to that irritating little malady known as
car-sickness. He succumbed, but he met his fate bravely and with the
colors of his wit flying. The circumstances are these:--
There is a certain railway thoroughfare which justly prides itself
upon the beauty of its scenery. This road passes through a
hill-country, and what it gains in the picturesque it loses in that
rectilinear directness most grateful to the traveler with a sensitive
stomach. The Bibliotaph often patronized this thoroughfare, and one
day it made him sick. As the train swept around a sharp curve, he
announced his earliest symptom by saying: 'The conspicuous advantages
of this road are that one gets views of the scenery and reviews of his
meals.'
A few minutes later he suggested that the road would do well to change
its name, and hereafter be known as 'The Emetic G. and O.'
They who were with him proffered sympathy, but he refused to be
pitied. He thought he had a remedy. He discovered that by taking as
nearly as possible a reclining posture, he got temporary relief. He
kept settling more and more till at last he was nearly on his back.
Then he said: 'If it be true that the lower down we get the more
comfortable we are, the basements of Hell will have their
compensations.'
He was too ill to say much after this, but his last word, before the
final and complete extinction of his manhood, was, 'The influence of
this road is such that employees have been known involuntarily to
throw up their jobs.'
The Bibliotaph invariably excited comment and attention when he was
upon his travels. I do not think he altogether liked it. Perhaps he
neither liked it nor disliked it. He accepted the fact that he was not
as other men quite as he would have accepted any indisputable fact. He
used occasionally to express annoyance because of the discrepancy
between his reputation and appearance; in other words, because he
seemed a man of greater fame than he was. He suffered the petty
discomforts of being a personage, and enjoyed none of the advantages.
He declared that he was quite willing to be much more distinguished or
much less conspicuous. What he objected to was the Laodicean character
of his reputation as set over against the pronounced and even
startling character of his looks and manner.
He used also to note with amusement how indelible a mark certain early
ambitions and tentative studies had made upon him. People invariably
took him for a clergyman. They decided this at once and conducted
themselves accordingly. He made no protest, but observed that their
convictions as to how they should behave in his presence had
corollaries in the shape of very definite convictions as to how he
should carry himself before them. He thought that such people might be
described as moral trainers. They do not profess virtue themselves,
but they take a real pleasure in keeping you up to your profession.
The Bibliotaph had no explanation to give why he was so immediately
and invariably accounted as one in orders. He was quite sure that the
clerical look was innate, and by no means dependent upon the wearing
of a high vest or a Joseph Parker style of whisker; for once as he sat
in the hot room of a Turkish bath and in the Adamitic simplicity of
attire suitable to the temperature and the place, a gentleman who
occupied the chair nearest introduced conversation by saying, 'I beg
your pardon, sir, but are you not a clergyman?'
'This incident,' said the Bibliotaph, 'gave me a vivid sense of the
possibility of determining a man's profession by a cursory examination
of his cuticle.' Lowell's conviction about N. P. Willis was
well-founded: namely, that if it had been proper to do so, Willis
could have worn his own plain bare skin in a way to suggest that it
was a representative Broadway tailor's best work.
I imagine that few boys escape an outburst of that savage instinct for
personal adornment which expresses itself in the form of rude tattooing
upon the arms. The Bibliotaph had had his attack in early days, and
the result was a series of decorations of a highly patriotic character,
and not at all in keeping with South Kensington standards. I said to
him once, apropos of the pictures on his arms: 'You are a great
surprise to your friends in this particular.' 'Yes,' he replied, 'few
of them are aware that the volume of this Life is extra-illustrated.'
But that which he of necessity tolerated in himself he would not
tolerate in his books. They were not allowed to become pictorially
amplified. He saw no objection to inserting a rare portrait in a good
book. It did not necessarily injure the book, and it was one way of
preserving the portrait. Yet the thing was questionable, and it was
likely to prove the first step in a downward path. As to cramming a
volume with a heterogeneous mass of pictures and letters gathered from
all imaginable sources, he held the practice in abhorrence, and the
bibliographical results as fit only for the libraries of the
illiterate rich. He admitted the possibility of doing such a thing
well or ill; but at its best it was an ill thing skillfully done.
The Bibliotaph upon his travels was a noteworthy figure if only
because of the immense parcel of books with which he burdened himself.
That part of the journeying public which loves to see some new thing
puzzled itself mightily over the gentleman of full habit, who in
addition to his not inconsiderable encumbrance of flesh and luggage,
chose to carry about a shawl-strap loaded to utmost capacity with a
composite mass of books, magazines, and newspapers. It was enormously
heavy, and the way in which its component parts adhered was but a
degree short of the miraculous. He appeared hardly conscious of its
weight, for he would pick the thing up and literally _trip_ with it on
a toe certainly not light, but undeniably fantastic.
He carried the books about with him partly because he had just
purchased them and wished to study their salient points, and partly
because he was taking them to a 'bin.' There is no mystery about these
'bins.' They were merely places of temporary rest for the books before
the grand moving to the main library. But if not mysterious they were
certainly astonishing, because of their number and size. With respect
to number, one in every large city was the rule. With respect to size,
few people buy in a lifetime as many books as were sometimes heaped
together in one of these places of deposit. He would begin by leaving
a small bundle of books with some favorite dealer, then another, and
then another. As the collection enlarged, the accommodations would be
increased; for it was a satisfaction to do the Bibliotaph this favor,
he purchased so liberally and tipped the juvenile clerks in so royal a
manner. Nor was he always in haste to move out after he had once moved
in. One bookseller, speaking of the splendid proportions which the
'bin' was assuming, declared that he sometimes found it difficult to
adjust himself mentally to the situation; he couldn't tell when he
came to his place of business in the morning whether he was in his own
shop or the Bibliotaph's library.
The corner of the shop where the great collector's accumulations were
piled up was a centre of mirth and conversation if he himself chanced
to be in town. Men dropped in for a minute and stayed an hour. In some
way time appeared to broaden and leisure to grow more ample. Life had
an unusual richness, and warmth, and color, when the Bibliotaph was
by. There was an Olympian largeness and serenity about him. He seemed
almost pagan in the breadth of his hold upon existence. And when he
departed he left behind him what can only be described as great
unfilled mental spaces. I recall that a placard was hung up in his
particular corner with the inscription, 'English spoken here.' This
amused him. Later there was attached to it another strip upon which
was crayoned, 'Sir, we had much good talk,' with the date of the talk.
Still later a victim added the words, 'Yes, sir, on that day the
Bibliotaph tossed and gored a number of people admirably.'
It was difficult for the Bibliotaph not to emit intellectual sparks of
one kind or another. His habit of dealing with every fact as if it
deserved his entire mental force, was a secret of his originality.
Everything was worth while. If the fact was a serious fact, all the
strength of his mind would be applied to its exposition or defense. If
it was a fact of less importance, humor would appear as a means to the
conversational end. And he would grow more humorous as the topics grew
less significant. When finally he rioted in mere word-play, banter,
quizzing, it was a sign that he regarded the matter as worthy no
higher species of notice.
I like this theory of his wit so well that I am minded not to expose
it to an over-rigid test. The following small fragments of his talk
are illustrative of such measure of truth as the theory may contain.
Among the Bibliotaph's companions was one towards whose mind he
affected the benevolent and encouraging attitude of a father to a
budding child. He was asked by this friend to describe a certain
quaint and highly successful entertainer. This was the response: 'The
gentleman of whom you speak has the habit of coming before his
audience as an idiot and retiring as a genius. You and I, sir,
couldn't do that; we should sustain the first character consistently
throughout the entire performance.'
It was his humor to insist that all the virtues and gifts of a
distinguished collector were due for their expansion and development
to association with himself and the writer of these memories. He would
say in the presence of the distinguished collector: 'Henry will
probably one day forget us, but on the Day of Judgment, in any just
estimate of the causes of his success, the Lord won't.'
I have forgotten what the victim's retort was; it is safe to assume
that it was adequate.
This same collector had the pleasing habit of honoring the men he
loved, among whom the Bibliotaph was chief, with brightly written
letters which filled ten and fifteen half-sheets. But the average
number of words to a line was two, while a five-syllable word had
trouble in accommodating itself to a line and a half, and the sheets
were written only upon one side. The Bibliotaph's comment was: 'Henry
has a small brain output, but unlimited influence at a paper-mill.'
Of all the merry sayings in which the Bibliotaph indulged himself at
the expense of his closest friend this was the most comforting. A
gentleman present was complaining that Henry took liberties in
correcting his pronunciation. 'I have no doubt of the occasional need
of such correction, but it isn't often required, and not half so often
as he seems to think. I, on the other hand, observe frequent minor
slips in his use of language, but I do not feel at liberty to correct
him.'
The Bibliotaph began to apply salve to the bruised feelings of the
gentleman present as follows: 'The animus of Henry's criticism is
unquestionably envy. He probably feels how few flies there are in your
ointment. While you are astonished that in his case there should be so
little ointment for so many flies.'
The Bibliotaph never used slang, and the united recollections of his
associates can adduce but two or three instances in which he sunk
verbally so low as even to _hint_ slang. He said that there was one
town which in his capacity of public speaker he should like to visit.
It was a remote village in Virginia where there was a girls' seminary,
the catalogue of which set forth among advantages of location this:
that the town was one to which the traveling lecturer and the circus
never came. The Bibliotaph said, 'I should go there. For I am the one
when I am on the platform, and by the unanimous testimony of all my
friends I am the other when I am off.'
The second instance not only illustrates his ingenuity in trifles, but
also shows how he could occasionally answer a friend according to his
folly. He had been describing a visit which he had made in the
hero-worshiping days of boyhood to Chappaqua; how friendly and
good-natured the great farmer-editor was; how he called the Bibliotaph
'Bub,' and invited him to stay to dinner; how he stayed and talked
politics with his host; how they went out to the barn afterwards to
look at the stock; what Greeley said to him and what he said to
Greeley,--it was a perfect bit of word-sketching, spontaneous,
realistic, homely, unpretentious, irresistibly comic because of the
quaintness of the dialogue as reported, and because of the mental
image which we formed of this large-headed, round-bellied, precocious
youth, who at the age of sixteen was able for three consecutive hours
to keep the conversational shuttlecock in the air with no less a
person than Horace Greeley. Amid the laughter and comment which
followed the narration one mirthful genius who chose for the day to
occupy the seat of the scorner, called out to the Bibliotaph:--
'How old did you say you were at that time, "Bub"?'
'Sixteen.'
'And did you wear whiskers?'
The query was insulting. But the Bibliotaph measured the flippancy of
the remark with his eye and instantly fitted an answer to the mental
needs of the questioner.
'Even if I had,' he said, 'it would have availed me nothing, for in
those days there was no wind.'
The Bibliotaph was most at home in the book-shop, on the street, or at
his hotel. He went to public libraries only in an emergency, for he
was impatient of that needful discipline which compelled him to ask
for each volume he wished to see. He had, however, two friends in
whose libraries one might occasionally meet him in the days when he
hunted books upon this wide continent. One was the gentleman to whom
certain letters on literature have been openly addressed, and who has
made a library by a process which involves wise selection and infinite
self-restraint. This priceless little collection contains no volume
which is imperfect, no volume which mars the fine sense of repose
begotten in one at the sight of lovely books becomingly clothed, and
no volume which is not worthy the name of literature. And there is
matter for reflection in the thought that it is not the library of a
rich man. Money cannot buy the wisdom which has made this collection
what it is, and without self-denial it is hardly possible to give the
touch of real elegance to a private library. When dollars are not
counted the assemblage of books becomes promiscuous. How may we better
describe this library than by the phrase Infinite riches in a little
book-case!
There was yet another friend, the Country Squire, who revels in
wealth, buys large-paper copies, reads little but deeply, and raises
chickens. His library (the room itself, I mean) is a gentleman's
library, with much cornice, much plate-glass, and much carving;
whereof a wit said, 'The Squire has such a beautiful library, and no
place to put his books.'
These books are of a sort to rejoice the heart, but their tenure of
occupancy is uncertain. Hardly one of them but is liable to eviction
without a moment's notice. They have a look in their attitude which
indicates consciousness of being pilgrims and strangers. They seem to
say, 'We can tarry, we can tarry but a night.' Some have tarried two
nights, others a week, others a year, a few even longer. But aside
from a dozen or so of volumes, not one of the remaining three thousand
dares to affirm that it holds a permanent place in its owner's heart
of hearts. It is indeed a noble procession of books which has passed
in and out of those doors. A day will come in which the owner realizes
that he has as good as the market can furnish, and then banishments
will cease. One sighs not for the volumes which deserved exile, but
for those which were sent away because their master ceased to love
them.
There was no friend with whom the Bibliotaph lived on easier terms
than with the Country Squire. They were counterparts. They
supplemented one another. The Bibliotaph, though he was born and bred
on a farm, had fled for his salvation to the city. The Squire, a man
of city birth and city education, had fled for his soul's health to
the country; he had rendered existence almost perfect by setting up an
urban home in rural surroundings. It was well said of that house that
it was finely reticent in its proffers of hospitality, and regally
magnificent in its kindness to those whom it delighted to honor.
It was in the Country Squire's library that the Bibliotaph first met
that actor with whom he became even more intimate than with the Squire
himself. The closeness of their relation suggested the days of the old
Miracle plays when the theatre and the Church were as hand in glove.
The Bibliotaph signified his appreciation of his new friend by giving
him a copy of a sixteenth-century book 'containing a pleasant
invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like
Caterpillars of a Commonwealth.' The Player in turn compiled for his
friend of clerical appearance a scrap-book, intended to show how evil
associations corrupt good actors.
This actor professed that which for want of a better term might be
called parlor agnosticism. The Bibliotaph was sturdily inclined
towards orthodoxy, and there was from time to time collision between
the two. It is my impression that the actor sometimes retired with
four of his five wits halting. But he was brilliant even when he
mentally staggered. Neither antagonist convinced the other, and after
a while they grew wearied of traveling over one another's minds.
It fell out on a day that the actor made a fine speech before a large
gathering, and mindful of stage effect he introduced a telling
allusion to an all-wise and omnipotent Providence. For this he was, to
use his own phrase, 'soundly spanked' by all his friends; that is, he
was mocked at, jeered, ridiculed. To what end, they said, was one an
agnostic if he weakly yielded his position to the exigencies of an
after-dinner speech. The Bibliotaph alone took pains to analyze his
late antagonist's position. He wrote to the actor congratulating him
upon his success. 'I wondered a little at this, remembering how
inconsiderable has been your practice; and I infer that it has been
inconsiderable, for I am aware how seldom an actor can be persuaded to
make a speech. I, too, was at first shocked when I heard that you had
made a respectful allusion to Deity; but I presently took comfort,
_remembering that your gods, like your grease-paints, are purely
professional_.'
He was always capital in these teasing moods. To be sure, he buffeted
one about tremendously, but his claws were sheathed, and there was a
contagiousness in his frolicsome humor. Moreover one learned to look
upon one's self in the light of a public benefactor. To submit to be
knocked about by the Bibliotaph was in a modest way to contribute to
the gayety of nations. If one was not absolutely happy one's self,
there was a chastened comfort in beholding the happiness of the
on-lookers.
A small author wrote a small book, so small that it could be read in
less time than it takes to cover an umbrella, that is, 'while you
wait.' The Bibliotaph had Brobdingnagian joy of this book. He sat and
read it to himself in the author's presence, and particularly
diminutive that book appeared as its light cloth cover was outlined
against the Bibliotaph's ample black waistcoat. From time to time he
would vent 'a series of small private laughs,' especially if he was on
the point of announcing some fresh illustration of the fallibility of
inexperienced writers. Finally the uncomfortable author said, 'Don't
sit there and pick out the mistakes.' To which the Bibliotaph
triumphantly replied, 'What other motive is there for reading it at
all?'
He purchased every copy of this book which he could find, and when
asked by the author why he did so, replied, 'In order to withdraw it
from circulation.' A moment afterwards he added reflectively, 'But how
may I hope to withdraw a book from that which it has never had?'
He was apt to be severe in his judgment of books, as when he said of a
very popular but very feeble literary performance that it was an
argument for the existence of God. 'Such intensity of stupidity was
not realized without Infinite assistance.'
He could be equally emphatic in his comments upon men. Among his
acquaintance was a church dignitary who blew alternately hot and cold
upon him. When advised of some new illustration of the divine's
uncertainty of attitude, the Bibliotaph merely said, 'He's more of a
chameleon than he is a clergyman.'
That Bostonian would be deficient in wit who failed to enjoy this
remark. Speaking of the characteristics of American cities, the
Bibliotaph said, 'It never occurs to the Hub that anything of
importance can possibly happen at the periphery.'
He greatly admired the genial and philanthropic editor of a well-known
Philadelphia newspaper. Shortly after Mr. Childs's death some one
wrote to the Bibliotaph that in a quiet Kentucky town he had noticed a
sign over a shop-door which read, 'G. W. Childs, dealer in Tobacco and
Cigars.' There was something graceful in the Bibliotaph's reply. He
expressed surprise at Mr. Childs's new occupation, but declared that
for his own part he was 'glad to know that the location of Heaven had
at last been definitely ascertained.'
The Bibliotaph habitually indulged himself in the practice of
hero-worship. This propensity led him to make those glorified
scrap-books which were so striking a feature in his collection. They
were no commonplace affairs, the ugly result of a union of cheap
leather, newspaper-clippings and paste, but sumptuous books
resplendent in morocco and gilt tooling, the creations of an artist
who was eminent among binders. These scrap-books were chiefly devoted
to living men,--men who were famous, or who were believed to be on the
high road to fame. There was a book for each man. In this way did the
Bibliotaph burn incense before his Dii majores et minores.
These books were enriched with everything that could illustrate the
gifts and virtues of the men in whose honor they were made. They
contained rare manuscripts, rare pictures, autograph comments and
notes, a bewildering variety of records,--memorabilia which were above
price. Poets wrote humorous verse, and artists who justly held their
time as too precious to permit of their working for love decorated the
pages of the Bibliotaph's scrap-books. One does not abuse the word
'unique' when he applies it to these striking volumes.
The Bibliotaph did not always follow contemporary judgment in his
selection of men to be so canonized. He now and then honored a man
whose sense of the relation of achievement to fame would not allow him
to admit to himself that he deserved the distinction, and whose sense
of humor could not but be strongly excited at the thought of
deification by so unusual a process. It might be pleasant to consider
that the Bibliotaph cared so much for one's letters as to wish not to
destroy them, but it was awful to think of those letters as bound and
annotated. This was to get a taste of posthumous fame before
posthumous fame was due. The Bibliotaph added a new terror to life,
for he compelled one to live up to one's scrap-book. He reversed the
old Pagan formula, which was to the effect that 'So-and-So died and
was made a god.' According to the Bibliotaph's prophetic method, a man
was made a god first and allowed to die at his leisure afterward. Not
every one of that little company which his wisdom and love have marked
for great reputation will be able to achieve it. They are unanimously
grateful that he cared enough for them to wish to drag their humble
gifts into the broad light of publicity. But their gratitude is
tempered by the thought that perhaps he was only elaborately humorous
at their expense.
The Bibliotaph's intellectual processes were so vigorous and his
pleasure in mental activity for its own sake was so intense that he
was quite capable of deciding after a topic of discussion had been
introduced which side he would take. And this with a splendid disdain
of the merits of the cause which he espoused. I remember that he once
set out to maintain the thesis that a certain gentleman, as notable
for his virtues as he was conspicuous for lack of beauty, was
essentially a handsome man. The person who initiated the discussion by
observing that 'Mr. Blank was unquestionably a plain man' expected
from the Bibliotaph (if he expected any remark whatever) nothing
beyond a Platonic 'That I do most firmly believe.' He was not a little
astonished when the great book-collector began an elaborate and
exhaustive defense of the gentleman whose claims to beauty had been
questioned. At first it was dialogue, and the opponent had his share
of talk; but when in an unlucky moment he hinted that such energy
could only be the result of consciousness on the Bibliotaph's part
that he was in a measure pleading his own cause, the dialogue changed
to monologue. For the Bibliotaph girded up his loins and proceeded to
smite his opponent hip and thigh. All in good humor, to be sure, and
laughter reigned, but it was tremendous and it was logically
convincing. It was clearly not safe to have a reputation for good
looks while the Bibliotaph was in this temper. All the gentlemen were
in terror lest something about their countenances might be construed
as beauty, and men with good complexions longed for newspapers behind
which to hide their disgrace.
As for the disputant who had stirred up the monster, his situation was
as unenviable as it was comic to the bystanders. He had never before
dropped a stone into the great geyser. He was therefore unprepared for
the result. One likened him to an unprotected traveler in a heavy
rain-storm. For the Bibliotaph's unpremeditated speech was a very
cloud-burst of eloquence. The unhappy gentleman looked despairingly in
every direction as if beseeching us for the loan of a word-proof
umbrella. There was none to be had. We who had known a like experience
were not sorry to stand under cover and watch a fellow mortal undergo
this verbal drenching. The situation recalled one described by
Lockhart when a guest differed on a point of scholarship with the
great Coleridge. Coleridge began to 'exert himself.' He burst into a
steady stream of talk which broadened and deepened as the moments
fled. When finally it ceased the bewildered auditor pulled himself
together and exclaimed, 'Zounds, I was never so _be-thumped_ with
words in my life!'
People who had opportunity of observing the Bibliotaph were tempted to
speculate on what he might have become if he had not chosen to be just
what he was. His versatility led them to declare for this, that, and
the other profession, largely in accordance with their own personal
preferences. Lawyers were sure that he should have been an advocate;
ministers that he would have done well to yield to the 'call' he had
in his youth; teachers were positive that he would have made an
inspiring teacher. No one, so far as I know, ever told him that in
becoming a book-collector he had deprived the world of a great
musician; for he was like Charles Lamb in that he was sentimentally
inclined to harmony but organically incapable of a tune.
Yet he was so broad-minded that it was not possible for him to hold
even a neutral attitude in the presence of anything in which other
people delighted. I have known him to sit through a long and heavy
organ recital, not in a resigned manner but actively attentive,
clearly determined that if the minutest portion of his soul was
sensitive to the fugues of J. S. Bach he would allow that portion to
bask in the sunshine of an unwonted experience. So that from one point
of view he was the incarnation of tolerance as he certainly was the
incarnation of good-humor and generosity. He envied no man his gifts
from Nature or Fortune. He was not only glad to let live, but
painstakingly energetic in making the living of people a pleasure to
them, and he received with amused placidity adverse comments upon
himself.
Words which have been used to describe a famous man of this century I
will venture to apply in part to the Bibliotaph. 'He was a kind of
gigantic and Olympian school-boy, ... loving-hearted, bountiful,
wholesome and sterling to the heart's core.'