I should explain that I cannot write unless I have a sloping desk, and
the reading-room of the British Museum, where alone I can compose
freely, is unprovided with sloping desks. Like every other organism, if
I cannot get exactly what I want, I make shift with the next thing to
it; true, there are no desks in the reading-room, but, as I once heard a
visitor from the country say, 'it contains a large number of very
interesting works.' I know it was not right, and hope the Museum
authorities will not be severe upon me if any one of them reads this
confession; but I wanted a desk, and set myself to consider which of the
many very interesting works which a grateful nation places at the
disposal of its would-be authors was best suited for my purpose.
For mere reading I suppose one book is pretty much as good as another:
but the choice of a desk-book is a more serious matter. It must be
neither too thick nor too thin; it must be large enough to make a
substantial support; it must be strongly bound so as not to yield or
give; it must not be too troublesome to carry backwards and forwards;
and it must live on shelf C, D, or E, so that there need be no stooping
or reaching too high.... For weeks I made experiments upon sundry
poetical and philosophical works, whose names I have forgotten, but
could not succeed in finding my ideal desk, until at length, more by
luck than cunning, I happened to light upon Frost's '_Lives of Eminent
Christians_', which I had no sooner tried than I discovered it to be the
very perfection and _ne plus ultra_ of everything that a book should
be.... On finding myself asked for a contribution to the _Universal
Review_, I went, as I have explained, to the Museum, and presently
repaired to bookcase No. 2008 to get my favourite volume. Alas! it was
in the room no longer. It was not in use, for its place was filled up
already; besides, no one ever used it but myself.... Till I have found a
substitute I can write no more, and I do not know how to find even a
tolerable one. I should try a volume of Migne's _Complete Course of
Patrology_, but I do not like books in more than one volume, for the
volumes vary in thickness, and one never can remember which one took;
the four volumes, however, of Bede in Giles's _Anglican Fathers_ are not
open to this objection, and I have reserved them for favourable
consideration. Mather's _Magnalia_ might do, but the binding does not
please me; Cureton's _Corpus Ignatianum_ might also do if it were not
too thin. I do not like taking Norton's _Genuineness of the Gospels_, as
it is just possible some one may be wanting to know whether the Gospels
are genuine or not, and be unable to find out because I have got Mr.
Norton's book. Baxter's _Church History of England_, Lingard's
_Anglo-Saxon Church_, and Cardwell's _Documentary Annals_, though none
of them as good as Frost, are works of considerable merit; but on the
whole I think Arvine's _Cyclopaedia of Moral and Religious Anecdote_ is
perhaps the one book in the room which comes within measurable distance
of Frost.... Some successor I must find, or I must give up writing
altogether, and this I should be sorry to do.--S. BUTLER. _Essays on
Life, Art, and Science._