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IN THE TRACK OF THE BOOK-WORM

by Irving Browne: thoughts,fancies and gentle gibes on Collecting andCollectors

by one of them.

DONE INTO A BOOK AT THE ROYCROFT
PRINTING SHOP AT EAST AURORA,
NEW YORK, U. S. A.
MDCCCXCVII

CHAPTERS.

BALLADS.

hilosophers have made various and ingenious but incomplete attempts toform a succinct definition of the animal, Man. At first thought it mightseem that a perfect definition would be, an animal who makes collections.But one must remember that the magpie does this. Yet this definition is asgood as any, and comes nearer exactness than most

What has not theanimal Man collected?

Clocks, watches, snuff-boxes, canes, fans, laces,precious stones, china, coins, paper money, spoons, prints, paintings,tulips, orchids, hens, horses, match-boxes, postal stamps, miniatures,violins, show-bills, play-bills, swords, buttons, shoes, china slippers,spools, birds, butterflies, beetles, saddles, skulls, wigs, lanterns,book-plates, knockers, crystal balls, shells, penny toys, death-masks,tea-pots,[Pg 10]autographs, rugs, armour, pipes, arrow heads, locks of hair andkey locks, and hats (Jules Verne’s “Tale of a Hat”), these are some of themost prominent subjects in search of which the animal Man runs up and downthe earth, and spends time and money without scruple or stint

But allthese curious objects of search fall into insignificance when comparedwith the ancient, noble and useful passion for collecting books. One ofthe wisest of the human race said, the only earthly immortality is inwriting a book; and the desire to accumulate these evidences of earthlyimmortality needs no defense among cultivated men.

II.

he mania for book-collecting is by no means a modern disease, but hasexisted ever since there were books to gather, and has infected many ofthe wisest and most potent names in history. Euripides is ridiculed byAristophanes in “The Frogs” for collecting books. Of the Roman emperor,Gordian, who flourished (or rather did not flourish, because he was slainafter a reign of thirty-six days) in the third century, Gibbon says,“twenty-two acknowledged concubines and a library of sixty thousandvolumes attested the variety of his inclinations.” This combination ofuxorious and literary tastes seems to have existed in another monarch of alater period—Henry VIII.—the seeming disproportion of whose expenditureof 10,800 pounds for jewels in three years, during which he spent but 100pounds for books and binding, is explained by the fact that he wasindebted for the contents of his libraries to the plunder of monasteries.Henry printed a few copies of his book against Luther on vellum

Cicero,who possessed a superb library, especially rich in Greek, at his villa inTusculum, thus describes his favorite acquisitions: “Books to quicken theintelligence of youth, delight age,[Pg 12]decorate prosperity, shelter andsolace us in adversity, bring enjoyment at home, befriend us out-of-doors,pass the night with us, travel with us, go into the country with us.”

etrarch, who collected books not simply for his own gratification, butaspired to become the founder of a permanent library at Venice, gave hisbooks to the Church of St. Mark; but the greater part of them perishedthrough neglect, and only a small part remains. Boccaccio, anticipating anearly death, offered his library to Petrarch, his dear friend, on his ownterms, to insure its preservation, and the poet promised to care for thecollection in case he survived Boccaccio; but the latter, outlivingPetrarch, bequeathed his books to the Augustinians of Florence, and someof them are still shown to visitors in the Laurentinian Library. FromBoccaccio’s own account of his collection, one must believe his booksquite inappropriate for a monastic library, and the good monks probablyinstituted an auto da fe for most of them, like that which befell theknightly romances in “Don Quixote.” Perhaps the naughty story-tellerintended the donation as a covert satire. The walls of the room whichformerly contained Montaigne’s books, and is at this day exhibited topilgrims, are covered with inscriptions burnt in with branding-irons onthe beams and rafters by the eccentric and delightful essayist

Theauthor of “Ivanhoe” adorned his magnificent library with[Pg 13] suits of superbarmor, and luxuriated in demonology and witchcraft. The caustic Swift wasin the habit of annotating his books, and writing on the fly-leaves asummary opinion of the author’s merits; whatever else he had, he owned noShakespeare, nor can any reference to him be found in the nineteen volumesof Swift’s works. Military men seem always to have had a passion forbooks. To say nothing of the literary and rhetorical tastes of Cæsar, “theforemost man of all time,” Frederick the Great had libraries at SansSouci, Potsdam, and Berlin, in which he arranged the volumes by classeswithout regard to size. Thick volumes he rebound in sections for moreconvenient use, and his favorite French authors he sometimes caused to bereprinted in compact editions to his taste. The great Conde inherited avaluable library from his father, and enlarged and loved it. Marlboroughhad twenty-five books on vellum, all earlier than 1496. The hard-fightingJunot had a vellum library which sold in London for 1,400 pounds, whilehis great master was not too busy in conquering Europe not only to solacehimself in his permanent libraries, and in books which he carried with himin his expeditions, but to project and actually commence the printing of acamp library of duodecimo volumes, without margins, and in thin covers, toembrace some three thousand volumes, and which he had designed to completein six years by employing one hundred and twenty compositors andtwenty-five editors, at an outlay of about 163,000 pounds

St.[Pg 14] Helenadestroyed this scheme. It is curious to note that Napoleon despisedVoltaire as heartily as Frederick admired him, but gave Fielding and LeSage places among his traveling companions; while the Bibliomaniac appearsin his direction to his librarian: “I will have fine editions and handsomebindings. I am rich enough for that.”

The main thing that shakes one’sconfidence in the correctness of his literary taste is that he was fond of“Ossian.” Julius Cæsar also formed a traveling library of forty-fourlittle volumes, contained in an oak case measuring 16 by 11 by 3 inches,covered with leather. The books are bound in white vellum, and consist ofhistory, philosophy, theology, and poetry, in Greek and Latin. Thecollector was Sir Julius Cæsar, of England, and this exquisite and uniquecollection is in the British Museum. The books were all printed between1591 and 1616

outhey brought together fourteen thousand volumes, the most valuablecollection which had up to that time been acquired by any man whose meansand estate lay, as he once said of himself, in his inkstand. Time fails meto speak of Erasmus, De Thou, Grotius, Goethe, Bodley; Hans Sloane, whoseprivate library of fifty thousand volumes was the beginning of that of theBritish Museum; the Cardinal Borromeo, who founded the Ambrosian Libraryat Milan with his own forty thousand volumes, and the other great namesentitled to the description of Bibliomaniac.[Pg 15] We must not forget SirRichard Whittington, of feline fame, who gave 400 pounds to found thelibrary of Christ’s Hospital, London

The fair sex, good and bad, have been lovers of books or founders oflibraries; witness the distinguished names of Lady Jane Gray, Catherine DeMedicis, and Diane de Poictiers.

t only remains to speak of the great opium-eater, who was a sort ofliterary ghoul, famed for borrowing books and never returning them, andwhose library was thus made up of the enforced contributions offriends—for who would have dared refuse the loan of a book to Thomas deQuincey? The name of the unhappy man would have descended to us with thatof the incendiary of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. But the great Thomaswas recklessly careless and slovenly in his use of books; and Burton, inthe “Book-hunter,” tells us that “he once gave in copy written on theedges of a tall octavo ‘Somnium Scipionis,’ and as he did not obliteratethe original matter, the printer was rather puzzled, and made a funnyjumble between the letter-press Latin and the manuscript English.”

Iseriously fear that with him must be ranked the gentle Elia, who said: “Abook reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to usthat we know the topography of its blots and dog’s ears, and can trace thedirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe,which I think is the maximum.” And yet a[Pg 16] great degree of slovenliness maybe excused in Charles because, according to Leigh Hunt, he once gave akiss to an old folio Chapman’s “Homer,” and when asked how he knew hisbooks one from the other, for hardly any were lettered, he answered: “Howdoes a shepherd know his sheep?”

The love of books displayed by the sensual Henry and the pugnacious Junotis not more remarkable than that of the epicurean and sumptuous Lucullus,to whom Pompey, when sick, having been directed by his physician to eat athrush for dinner, and learning from his servants that in summer-timethrushes were not to be found anywhere but in Lucullus’ fattening coops,refused to be indebted for his meal, observing: “So if Lucullus had notbeen an epicure, Pompey had not lived.” Of him the veracious Plutarchsays: “His furnishing a library, however, deserved praise and record, forhe collected very many and choice manuscripts; and the use they were putto was even more magnificent than the purchase, the library being alwaysopen, and the walks and reading rooms about it free to all Greeks, whosedelight it was to leave their other occupations and hasten thither as tothe habitation of the Muses.”

It is not recorded that Socrates collected books—his wife probablyobjected—but we have his word for it that he loved them. He did not lovethe country, and the only thing that could tempt him thither was a book.Acknowledging this to Phædrus he says:

[Pg 17]“Very true, my good friend; and I hope that you will excuse me when youhear the reason, which is, that I am a lover of knowledge, and the men whodwell in the city are my teachers, and not the trees or the country.Though I do indeed believe that you have found a spell with which to drawme out of the city into the country, like a hungry cow before whom a boughor a bunch of fruit is waved. For only hold up before me in like manner abook, and you may lead me all round Attica, and over the wide world. Andnow having arrived, I intend to lie down, and do you choose any posture inwhich you can read best.”

III.

t is fortunate for the harmony of book-collectors that they do not alldesire the same thing, just as it was fortunate for their young State thatall the Romans did not want the same Sabine woman. Otherwise the Helenicbattle of the books would be fiercer than it is. Thus there arebibliomaniacs who reprint rare books from their own libraries in limitednumbers; authors, like Walpole, who print their own works, and whose fameas printers is better deserved than their reputation as writers; likeThackeray, who design the illustrations for their own romances, or, likeAstor, who procure a single copy of their novel to be illustrated atlavish expense by artists; amateurs who bind their own books; lunatics whoyearn for books wholly engraved, or printed only on one side of the leaf,or Greek books wholly in capitals, or others in the italic letter; orblack-letter fanciers; or tall copy men; or rubricists, missal men, orfirst edition men, or incunabulists

One seeks only ancient books; another limited editions; another thoseprivately printed; a fourth wants nothing but presentation copies; yetanother only those that have belonged to famous men, and still anotherillustrated or illuminated books. There is a perfectly rabid and incurableclass, of whom the most harmless are devoted to pamphlets; another,[Pg 19]rather more dangerous, to incorrect or suppressed editions; and a third,stark mad, to play-bills and portraits. One patronizes the drama, onepoetry, one the fine arts, another books about books and their collectors;and a very recherche class devote themselves to works on playing-cards,angling, magic, or chess, emblems, dances of death, or the jest books andfacetiæ

Finally, there are those unhappy beings who run up and down forduplicates, searching for every edition of their favorite authors. In veryrecent days there has arisen a large class who demand the first editionsof popular novelists like Dickens, Thackeray and Hawthorne, and will paylarge prices for these issues which have no value except that of rarity. Ican quite understand the enthusiasm of the collector over the beautifulfirst editions of the Greek and Latin classics, or for the first “ParadiseLost,” or even for the ugly first folio “Shakespeare,”

and why he shouldprefer the comparatively rude first Walton’s Angler to Pickering’sedition, the handsomest of this century, with its monumental title page.But why a first edition of a popular novel should be more desirable than alate one, which is usually the more elegant, I confess I cannotunderstand. It is one of those things which, like the mystery of religion,we must take on trust. So when a bookseller tells me that a copy of thefirst issue[Pg 20] of “The Scarlet Letter” has sold for seventy-five dollars,and that a copy of the second, with the same date, but put out six monthslater, is worth only seventy-five cents, I open my eyes but not my purse,especially when I consider that the second is greatly superior to thefirst on account of its famous preface of apology, and when I read of someone’s bidding $1875 for a copy of Poe’s worthless “Tamerlane,” I amflattered by the reflection that there is one man in the world whom Ibelieve to be eighteen hundred and seventy-five times as great a fool as I am!

IV.

ere I a despotic ruler of the universe I would make it a serious offenseto publish a book larger than royal octavo. Books should be made to read,or at all events to look at, and in this view comfort and ease should beconsulted. Any one who has ever undertaken to read a huge quarto or foliowill sympathize with this view. The older and lazier the Book-Worm growsthe more he longs for little books, which he can hold in one hand withoutgetting a cramp, or at least support with arms in an elbow chair withoutfatigue. Darwin remorselessly split big books in two. Mr. Slater says in“Book Collecting:” “When the library at Sion College took fire theattendants, at the risk of their lives, rescued a pile of books from theflames, and it is said that the librarian wept when he found that theporters had taken it for granted that the value of a book was in exactproportion to its size.” Few of us, I suspect, ever read our family Bible,and all of us probably groan when we lift out the unabridged dictionary.The “Century Dictionary” is a luxury because it is published in small andconvenient parts. I cannot conceive any good in a big book except that theladies may use it to press flowers or mosses in, or the nurses may put[Pg 22] itin a chair to sit the baby on at table. I have heard of a gentleman whoinherited a mass of folio volumes and arranged them as shelves for hissmaller treasures, and of another who arranged his 12-mos on a stand madeup of the seventeen volumes of Pinkerton’s “Voyages” and Denon’s “Egypt”for shelves. What reader would not prefer a dainty little Elzevir to thehuge folio, Cæsar’s “Commentaries,” even with the big bull in it, and thewicker idol full of burning human victims? What can be more pleasing thanthe modern Quantin edition of the classics? Or, to speak of a popularbook, take the “Pastels in Prose,” the most exquisite book for the priceever known in the history of printing

The small book ought however tobe easily legible. The health and comfort of the human eye should beconsulted in the size of the type. Nothing can be worse in this regardthan the Pickering diamond classics, if meant to be read; and it seemsthat there are too many of them to be intended as mere curiosities ofprinting. Let us approve the exit of the folio and the quarto, and applaudthe modern tendency toward little and handy volumes. Large paper howeveris a worthy distinction when the subject is worth the distinction and theedition is not too large. Nothing raises the gorge of the true Book-Wormmore than to see an issue on large paper of a row of histories, forexample; and the very worst instance conceivable was a large paperWebster’s “Unabridged Dictionary” issued some years ago. The book thusdistinguished ought to be a classic, or[Pg 23]peculiar for elegance, never aseries, or stereotyped, the first struck off, and the issue ought not tobe more than from fifty to one hundred copies; any larger issue is notworth the extra margin bestowed, and no experienced buyer will tolerateit

But if all these conditions are observed, the large paper copiesbear the same relation to the small that a proof before letters of a printholds to the other impressions. Large margins are very pleasant in alibrary as well as in Wall Street, and much more apt to be permanent.There are some favorite books of which the possessor longs in vain for alarge copy, as for instance, the Pickering “Walton and Cotton.”

great deal of fun is made of the Book-Worm because of his desire forlarge paper and of his insistence on uncut edges, but his reasons aresound and his taste is unimpeachable. The tricks of the book-trade tocatch the inexperienced with the bait of large paper are very amusing.“Strictly limited” to so many copies for England and so many for America,say a thousand in all, or else the number is not stated, and alwaysdescribed as an edition de luxe, and its looks are always very repulsive.But the bait is eagerly bitten at by a shoal of beings anxious to get oneof these rarities—a class to one of whom I once found it necessary toexplain that “uncut edges” does not mean leaves not cut open, and that hewould not injure the value of his book by being able to read it, and wasnot bound to peep in surreptitiously like a[Pg 24] maid-servant at a door “onthe jar.” I once knew a satirical Book-Worm who issued a pamphlet, “onehundred copies on large paper, none on small.” There is no justdistinction in an ugly large-paper issue, and sometimes it is not nearlyso beautiful as the small, especially when the latter has uncut edges. Theindependence of the collector who prefers the small in such circumstancesis to be commended and imitated.

Too great inequality in uncut edges is also to be shunned as an ugliness.It seems that some French books are printed on paper of two differentsizes, the effect of which is very grotesque, and the device is a cateringto a very crude and extravagant taste.

he binding of books for several centuries has held the dignity of a fineart, quite independent of printing. This has been demonstrated byexhibitions in this country and abroad. But every collector ought toobserve fitness in the binding which he procures to be executed. Truefitness prevails in most old and fine bindings; seldom was a costly garbbestowed on a book unworthy of it. But in many a luxurious library we seea modern binding fit for a unique or rare book given to one that iscomparatively worthless or common. Not to speak of bindings that are realworks of art, many collectors go astray in dressing lumber in purple andfine linen—putting full levant morocco on blockhead histories and suchstuff that perishes in the not using. It is a sad spectacle to behold aunique binding wasted on a book of no more value than a backgammon board.There are of course not a great many of us who can afford unique bindings,but those who cannot should at least observe propriety and fitness in thisregard, and draw the line severely between full dress and demi-toilette,and keep a sharp eye to appropriateness of color. I have known several menwho bound their books all alike.[Pg 26] Nothing could be worse except one whoshould bind particular subjects in special styles, pace Mr. Ellwanger,who, in “The Story of My House,” advises the Book-Worm to “bind the poetsin yellow or orange, books on nature in olive, the philosophers in blue,the French classics in red,” etc. I am curious to know what color thispleasant writer would adopt for the binding of his books by military men,such for example as “Major Walpole’s Anecdotes.” (p. 262)

mbrose FerminDidot

recommended binding the “Iliad” in red and the“Odyssey” in blue, for the Greek rhapsodists wore a scarlet cloak whenthey recited the former and a blue one when they recited the latter. Thechurchmen he would clothe in violet, cardinals in scarlet, philosophers inblack

No doubt a Book-Worm so far gone as this could invent stricter analogiesand make even the binder fit the book

After all, whether one can afford a three-hundred or a three-dollarbinding, the gentle Elia has said the last word about fitness of bindingswhen he observed: “To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratumof a volume; magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, isnot to be lavished on all kinds of books indiscriminately

“Where we know that a book is at once both good and rare—where theindividual is almost the species,

[Pg 30]‘We know not where is that Prometian torch
That can its light relumine;’

“Such a book for instance as the ‘Life of the Duke of Newcastle’ by hisDuchess—no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, tohonor and keep safe such a jewel

“To view a well arranged assortment of block-headed encyclopœdias(Anglicana or Metropolitanas), set out in an array of Russia and Morocco,when a tithe of that good leather would comfortably reclothe my shiveringfolios, would renovate Parcelsus himself, and enable old Raymond Lully tolook like himself again in the world. I never see these impostors but Ilong to strip them and warm my ragged veterans in their spoils.”

here spoke the true Book-Worm. What a pity he could not have sold a partof his good sense and fine taste to some of the affluent collectors ofthis period!

Doubtless an experienced binder could give some amusing examples ofmistakes in indorsing books with their names. One remains in my memory. AFrench binder, entrusted with a French translation of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”in two volumes, put “L’Oncle” on both, and numbered them “Tome 1,” “Tome2.” Charles Cowden-Clarke tells of his having ordered Leigh Hunt’s poemsentitled “Foliage” to be bound in green, and how the book came home inblue. That would answer for the “blue[Pg 31] grass” region of Kentucky. I haveno patience with those disgusting realists who bind books in human orsnake skin. In his charming book on the Law Reporters, Mr. Wallace says ofDesaussures’ South Carolina Reports: “When these volumes are found intheir original binding most persons, I think, are struck with itspeculiarity. The cause of it is, I believe, that it was done by negroes.”What the “peculiarity” is he does not disclose. But book-binding seems tobe an unwonted occupation for negro slaves. It was not often that theybeat skins, although their own skins were frequently beaten.

VI.

t is a serious question whether the art of printing has been improvedexcept in facility. Is not the first printed book still the finest everprinted? But in one point I am certain that the moderns have fallen away,at least in the production of cheap books, and that is in the quality andfinish of the paper. Not to speak of injurious devices to make the bookheavy, the custom of calendering the paper, or making it smooth and shiny,practised by some important publishers, is bad for the eyes, and theresult is not pleasant to look at. It is like the glare of the glass overthe framed print. It is said to be necessary to the production of themodern “process” pictures. Even here however there is a just mean, forsome of the modern paper is absurdly rough, and very difficult for a goodimpression of the types. Modern paper however has one advantage: Mr.Blades, in his pleasant “Enemies of Books,” tells us “that the worm willnot touch it,” it is so adulterated. One hint I would give thepublishers—allow us a few more fly leaves, so that we may paste innewspaper cuttings, and make memoranda and suggestions

It is predicted by some that our nineteenth century books—at least thoseof the last third—will not last; that the paper and ink are far inferiorto those of preceding centuries, and that the destroying tooth of[Pg 33] timewill work havoc with them. No doubt the modern paper and the modern inkare inferior to those of the earlier ages of printing, when making a bookwas a fine art and a work of conscience, but whether the modernproductions of the press will ultimately fade and crumble is a question tobe determined only by a considerable lapse of time, which probably no oneliving will be qualified to pronounce upon. Take for what they are worthmy sentiments respecting

It has occurred to me that publishers might appeal to bibliomaniacaltastes by paying a little more attention to their paper, and I have throwna few suggestions on this point into rhyme, so that they may be readilycommitted to memory:

VII.

omen collect all sortsof

things except books. To them the book-senseseems to be denied, and it is difficult for them to appreciate itsexistence in men. To be sure, there have been a few celebratedbook-collectors among the fair sex, but they have usually been ratherreprehensible ladies, like Diane de Poictiers and Madame Pompadour.Probably Aspasia was a collector of MSS. Lady Jane Grey seems to have beena virtuous exception, and she was cruelly “cropped.” I am told that thereare a few women now-a-days who collect books, and only a few weeks ago alady read, before a woman’s club in Chicago, a paper on the Collection andAdornment of Books, for which occasion a fair member of the club solicitedme to write her something appropriate to read, which of course I was gladto do. But this was in Chicago, where the women go in for culture. Inthirty years’ haunting of the book-shops and print-shops of New York, Ihave never seen a woman catching a cold in her head by turning over thelarge prints, nor soiling her dainty gloves by handling the dirty oldbooks. Women have been depicted in literature in many differentoccupations, situations and pleasures, but in all the literature that Ihave[Pg 37] read I can recall only one instance in which she is imagined abook-buyer. This is in “The Sentimental Journey,” and in celebrating theunique instance let me rise to a nobler strain and sing a song of

M. Uzanne, in “The Book-Hunter in Paris,” avers that “the woman of fashionnever goes book-hunting,” and he puts the aphorism in italics. He alsosays that the occasional woman at the book-stalls, “if by chance she wantsa book, tries to bargain for it as if it were a lobster or a fowl.” Alsothat the book-stall keepers are always watchful of the woman with anulster, a water-proof, or a muff. These garments are not always imperviousto books, it seems.

he imitative effortsof women at “extra-illustrating” are usually

limitedto buying a set of photographs at Rome and sticking them into the cracksof “The Marble Faun,” and giving it away to a friend as a marked favor

Poor Hawthorne! he would wriggle in his grave if he could see his fairadmirers doing this. Mr. Blades certainly ought to have included womenamong the enemies of books. They generally regard the husband’s orfather’s expenditure on books as so much spoil of their gowns and jewels.We book-men are up to all the tricks of getting the books into the housewithout their knowing it

What joy and glee when we successfully smugglein a parcel from the express, right under our wife’s nose, while she isbusy talking scandal to another woman in the drawing-room! The goodcreatures make us positively dishonest and endanger our eternal welfare.How we “hustle around” in their absence, when the embargo is temporarilyraised; and when the new purchases are[Pg 40] detected, how we pretend that theyare old, and wonder that they have not seen them before, and rattle awayin a fevered, embarrassed manner about the scarcity and value of thesurreptitious purchases, and how meanly conscious we are all the time thatthe pretense is unavailing and the fair despots see right through us

God has given them an instinct that is more than a match for ouracknowledged superior intellect. And the good wife smiles quietly butsatirically, and says, in the form in that case made and provided, “Mydear, you’ll certainly ruin yourself buying books!” with a sigh thatagitates a very costly diamond necklace reposing on her shapely bosom; orshe archly shakes at us a warning finger all aglow with ruby and sapphire,which she has bought on installments out of the house allowance. Fortunatefor us if the library is not condemned to be cleaned twice a year. Thesebeloved objects ought to deny themselves a ring, or a horse, or a gown, ora ball now and then, to atone for their mankind’s debauchery in books; butdo they? They ought to encourage the Bibliomania, for it keeps theirhusbands out of mischief, away from “that horrid club,” and safe at homeof evenings. The Book-Worm is always a blameless being. He never has tohie to Canada as a refuge. He is “absolutely pure,” like all the bakingpowders

The gentle Addison, in “The Spectator,” thus described a woman’s library:“The very sound of a lady’s library gave me a great curiosity to see it;and[Pg 41] as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunityof turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in avery beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely boundand gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another in a verynoble piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from the octavosby a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid

Theoctavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, whichwere so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continuedpillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with thegreatest variety of dyes. That part of the library which was designed forthe reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was inclosedin a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque worksthat I ever saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, mandarins, monkeys,trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In themidst of the room was a little Japan table with a quire of gilt paper uponit, and on the paper a silver snuff-box made in shape of a little book. Ifound there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves,which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, likefagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such amixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both to the lady and thescholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in agrotto or in a library”

[Pg 42]If so great a favorite with the fair sex could say such satirical thingsof them, I may be permitted to have my own idea of

n the charming romance, “Realmah,” the noble African prince prescribesmonogamy to his subjects, but he allows himself three wives; one is aState wife, to sit by his side on the throne, help him receiveembassadors, and preside at court dinners; another a household wife, torule the kitchen and the homely affairs of the palace; the third is alove-wife, to be cherished in his heart and bear him children. Why wouldit not be fair to the Book-Worm to concede him a[Pg 44] Book-wife, who shouldunderstand and sympathize with him in his eccentricity, and who shouldcare more for rare and beautiful books than for diamonds, laces, Easterbonnets and ten-button gloves?

In regard to women’s book-clubs, a recent writer, Mr. Edward SanfordMartin, in “Windfalls of Observation,” observes: “If a man wants to read abook he buys it, and if he likes it he buys six more copies and gives (notall the same day, of course) to six women whose intelligence he respects.But if a club of fifteen girls determine to read a book, do they buyfifteen copies? No. Do they buy five copies? No. Do they buy—No, theydon’t buy at all; they borrow a copy. It doesn’t lie in womankind to spendmoney for books unless they are meant to be a gift for some man.” Mr.Martin is a little too hard here, for I have been told of such clubs whichsometimes bought one copy. To be sure they always bully the booksellerinto letting them have it at cost on account of the probable benefit tohis trade. But it is true that no normally organized woman will forego adollar’s worth of ribbon or gloves for a dollar’s worth of book

I havesometimes read aloud to a number of women while they were sewing, but I doit no more, for just as I got to a point where you ought to be able tohear a pin drop, I always have heard some woman whisper, “Lend me youreighty cotton.” A story was told me of the first meeting of a BrowningClub in a large city in Ohio. My informant was a young lady from the East,who was present, and my readers can[Pg 45] safely rely on the correctness of thenarration. The club was composed of young ladies from sixteen totwenty-five years of age, all of the “first families.” It was thought bestto take an easy poem for the first meeting, and so one of them read aloud,“The Last Ride Together”

After the reading there was a moment’ssilence, and then one observed that she would like to know whether theytook that ride on horseback or in a “buggy.” Another silence, and then anartless young bud ventured the remark that she thought it must have beenin a buggy, because if it was on horseback he could not have got his armaround her. I once thought of sending this anecdote to Mr. Browning, butwas warned that he was destitute of the sense of humor, especially at hisown expense, and so desisted

“Ah, that our wives could only see
How well the money is invested
In these old books, which seem to be
By them, alas! so much detested.”

But the wives are not always unwise in their opposition to their husband’sbook-buying. There is nothing more pitiful than to see the widow of a poorclergyman or lawyer trying to sell his library, and to witness herdisappointment at the

shrinkage of value which she had been taught andaccustomed to regard as so[Pg 46] great. A woman who has a true and wisesympathy with her husband’s book-buying is an adored object. I recollectone such, who at her own suggestion gave up the largest and best room inher house to her husband’s books, and received her callers and guests in asmaller one—she also received her husband’s blessing.

VIII.

he popular notion of the Illustrator, as the term is used by theBook-Worm, is that he buys many valuable books containing pictures andspoils them by tearing the pictures out, and from them constructs anothervaluable book with pictures. We smile to read this in the newspapers. Ifit were strictly true it would be a very reprehensible practice. Butgenerally the books compelled to surrender their prints to the Illustratorare good for nothing else. To lament over them is as foolish as to grieveover the grape-skins out of which has been pressed the lusciousJohannisburger, or to mourn over the unsightly holes which theporcelain-potter has made in the clay-bank. Even among Book-Worms theIllustrator, or the “Grangerite,” as the term of reproach is, has come infor many hard knocks in recent years. John Hill Burton set the tune by hismerry satire in “The Book-Hunter,” in which he portrays the Grangeriteillustrating the pious Watts’ stanzas, beginning, “How doth the littlebusy bee.” In his first edition Mr. Burton mentioned among “great writerson bees,” whose portrait would be desirable, Aristarchus,

meaning probablyAristomachus. This mistake is not[Pg 48] corrected in the last edition, but thename is omitted altogether

Mr. Beverly Chew “drops into poetry” on the subject, and thusapostrophises the Grangerite:

“Ah, ruthless wight,
Think of the books you’ve turned to waste,
With patient skill.”

r. Henri Pere Du Bois thus describes the ordinary result: “Of one hundredbooks extended by the insertion of prints which were not made for them,ninety-nine are ruined;

the hundredth book is no longer a book; it is amuseum. An imperfect book, built with the spoils of a thousand books; acrazy quilt made of patches out of gowns of queens and scullions.” SoBurton compares the Grangerite to Genghis Kahn. Mr. Lang declares theGrangerites are “book ghouls, and brood, like the obscene demons ofArabian superstition, over the fragments of the mighty dead.” I would liketo show Mr. Lang how I have treated his “Letters to Dead Authors” and “OldFriends” by illustration. He would probably feel, with Æsop’s lawyer, that“circumstances alter cases,” although he says “no book deserves thehonor”

So a reviewer in “The Nation” stigmatises Grangerism as “a vampire art,maiming when it does not murder” (I did not know that vampires “maim”their victims) “and incapable of rising beyond[Pg 49]canibalism” (not that theyfeed on one another, but when critics get excited their metaphors are aptto become mixed)

“G. W. S.,” of the New York “Tribune,” speaks of the achievement of theIllustrators as “colossal vulgarities.” Mr. Percy Fitzgerald observes:“The pitiless Grangerite slaughters a book for a few pictures, just as anepicure has had a sheep killed for the sweetbread”

hese are very choice hard words. There is much extravagance, but somejustice in all this criticism. As a question of economics I do not findany great difference between a Book-worm who spends thousands of dollarsin constructing one attractive book from several not attractive, and onewho spends a thousand dollars in binding a book, or for an example of afamous old binder. If there is any difference it is in favor of theGrangerite, who improves the volume for the intelligent purposes of thereader, as against the other who merely caters to “the lust of the eye”

I am willing to concede that the Grangerite is sometimes guilty of somegross offenses against good taste and good sense. The worst of these iswhen he extends the text of the volume itself to a larger page in order toembrace large prints. This is grotesque, for it spoils the very book. Heis also blamable when he squanders valuable prints and time and patienceon mere book lumber, such as long rows of histories; and when he stuffsand crams his book; and when[Pg 50] his pictures are not of the era of theevents or of the time of life of the persons described; and when they aretoo large or too small to be in just proportion to the printed page; andwhen the book is so heavy and cumbersome that no one can handle it withcomfort or convenience. Above all he is blamable, in my estimation, whenhe entrusts the selection of prints to an agent. Such agency is frequentlyvery unsatisfactory, and at all events the Illustrator misses the sport ofthe hunt. Few men would entrust the furnishing or decorating of a house,the purchase of a horse, or the selection of a wife to a third person, andthe delicate matter of choosing prints for a book is essentially one to betransacted in person. The danger of any other procedure in the case of awife was illustrated by Cromwell’s agency for Henry Eighth in the affairof Anne of Cleves, the “Flanders mare.”

ut when it is properly done, it seems to me that the very best thing theBook-Worm ever does is to illustrate his books, because this insures hisreading them, at least with his fingers. Not always, for a certainchronicler of collections of privately illustrated books in this countrynarrates, how “relying upon the index” of a book, which he illustrated, heinserted a portrait of Sam Johnson, the famous, whereas “the text calledfor Sam Johnson, an eccentric dramatic writer,” etc. His binder, he says,laughed at him for being ignorant that there “two Sam Johnsons” (there arefour in the biographical dictionaries, one of whom was an[Pg 51] early presidentof King’s College in New York). But if done personally and conscientiouslyit is a means of valuable culture. As one of the oldest survivors of thegenus Illustrator in this country, I have thus assumed to offer an apologyand defense for my much berated kind. And now let me make a fewsuggestions as to what seems to me the most suitable mode of the pursuit.

n illustrating there seem to be two methods, which may be described asthe literal or realistic, and imaginative. The first consists simply inthe insertion of portraits, views and scenes appropriate to the text. Apleasing variety may be imparted to this method by substituting for a mereportrait a scene in the life of the celebrity in question

For example,if Charles V. and Titian are mentioned together, it would be interestingto insert a picture representing the historical incident of the emperorpicking up and handing the artist a brush which he had dropped—and onewill have an interesting hunt to find it. But I am more an adherent of theromantic school, which finds excellent play in the illustration of poetry.For example, in the poem, “Ennui,” in “The Croakers,” for the line, “Thefiend, the fiend is on me still,” I found, after a search of some years, apicture of an imp sitting on the breast of a man in bed with the gout. Inthe same stanza are the lines, “Like a cruel cat, that sucks a child todeath,” and for this I have a print from a children’s magazine, of a catsquatting on the breast of a child in a cradle. Now I would like “aMadagascar bat,” which rhymes to “cat”[Pg 53] in the poem. “And like a tom-catdies by inches,” is illustrated by a picture of a cat caught by the paw ina steel trap. “Simon” was “a gentleman of color,” the favorite pastry cookand caterer of New York half a century ago—before the days of Mr. WardMcAllister. “The Croaker” advises him to “buy an eye-glass and become adandy and a gentleman.” This is illustrated by a rare and fine print of acolored gentleman, dressed in breeches, silk stockings, and ruffled shirt,scanning an overdressed lady of African descent through an eye-glass. “Theups and downs of politics” is illustrated by a Cruikshank print, the upperpart of which shows a party making an ascension in a balloon and the lowerpart a party making a descent in a diving-bell, and entitled “the ups anddowns of life.” To illustrate the phrase, “seeing the elephant,” take theprint of Pyrrhus trying to frighten his captive, Fabricus, by suddenlydrawing the curtains of his tent and showing him an elephant with histrunk raised in a baggage-smashing attitude. For “The Croakers” there areapt illustrations also of the following queer subjects: Korah, Dathan andAbiram; Miss Atropos, shut up your Scissors; Albany’s two Steeples high inAir, Reading Cobbett’s Register, Bony in His Prison Isle, Giant Wife,Beauty and The Beast, Fly Market, Tammany Hall, The Dove from Noah’s Ark,Rome Saved by Geese, Cæsar Offered a Crown, Cæsar Crossing the Rubicon,Dick Ricker’s Bust, Sancho in His Island Reigning, The Wisest of WildFowl, Reynold’ Beer House, A[Pg 54] Mummy, A Chimney Sweep, The Arab’s Wind,Pygmalion, Danae, Highland Chieftain with His Tail On, Nightmare, ShakingQuakers, Polony’s Crazy Daughter, Bubble-Blowing, First Pair of Breeches,Banquo’s Ghost, Press Gang, Fair Lady With the Bandaged Eye, A WarriorLeaning on His Sword, A Warrior’s Tomb, A Duel, and A Street Flirtation.

s the charm of illustrating consists in the hunt for the prints, so thelatter method is the more engrossing because the game is the moredifficult to run down. Portraits, views and scenes are plenty, but to findthem properly adaptable is frequently difficult. Some things which onewould suppose readily procurable are really hard to find. For example, itwas a weary chase to get a treadmill, and so of a drum-major, although thelatter is now not uncommon: and although I know it exists, I have notattained unto a bastinado. Sirens and mermaids are rather retiring, andwhen Vedder depicted the Sea-Serpent he conferred a boon on Illustrators.“God’s Scales,” in which the mendicant weighs down the rich man, is ararity. Milton leaving his card on Galileo in prison is among my wants,although I have seen it

y way of jest I have inserted an anonymous portrait opposite an anonymouspoem, and was once gravely asked by an absent-minded friend if it reallywas the portrait of the author. One however will probably look in vain forportraits of “Quatorze” and “Quinze,” for which a print seller of New Yorkonce had an inquiry, and I have been told of a collector who returnedArlington because of the cut on his nose, and Ogle because of his damagedeye. But there is more sport in hunting for a dodo than a rabbit

It is also a pleasant thing to lay a picture occasionally in a bookwithout setting out to illustrate it[Pg 57]regularly, so that it may break uponone as a surprise when he takes up the book years afterward. It is agrateful surprise to find in Ruskin’s “Modern Painters” a casual printfrom Roger’s “Italy,” and in Hamerton’s books some sporadic etchings byRembrandt or Hayden. It is like discovering an unexpected “quarter” in thepocket of an old waistcoat. For example, in “With Thackeray in America,”Mr. Eyre Crowe tells how the second number of the first edition of “TheNewcomes” came to the author when he was in Paris, and how he found faultwith Doyle’s illustration of the games of the Charterhouse boys. He says:“The peccant accessory which roused the wrath of the writer was the groupof two boys playing at marbles on the left of the spectator. ‘Why,’ saidthe irate author, ‘they would as soon thought of cutting off their headsas play marbles at the Charterhouse!’ This woodcut was, I noticed,suppressed altogether in subsequent editions.” Now in my copy—not beingthe possessor of the first edition—I have made a reference to Mr. Crowe’spassage, and supplied the suppressed cut from an early American copy whichcost me twenty-five cents. How many of the first edition men know of theinteresting fact narrated by Mr. Crowe? The Illustrator ought always atleast to insert the portrait of the author whenever it has been omitted bythe publisher

Second: What to illustrate. The Illustrator should not be an imitator orfollower, but should strive after an unhackneyed subject. A man is not aptto marry[Pg 58] the woman who flings herself at his head; he loves theexcitement of courting; and so there is not much amusement in utilizingcommon pictures, but the charm consists in hunting for scarce ones. It isvery natural to tread in others’ tracks, and easy, because the marketaffords plenty of material for the common subjects. Shakespeare and Waltonand Boswell’s Johnson, and a few other things of that sort, have been doneto death, and there is fairer scope in something else. Biographies ofPainters, Elia’s Essays, Sir Thomas Browne’s “Religio Medici” and “UrnBurial,” “Childe Harold,” Horace, Virgil, the Life of Bayard, or ofVittoria Colonna, or Philip Sidney, and Sappho are charming subjects, andnot too common. A ponderous or voluminous work lends itself lessconveniently to the purpose than a small book in one or two volumes. Greatquartos and folios are mere mausoleums or repositories for expensiveprints, too huge to handle, and too extensive for any one ever to lookthrough, and therefore they afford little pleasure to the owners or theirguests. An illustrated Shakespeare in thirty volumes is theoretically avery grand object, but I should never have the heart to open it, and asfor histories, I should as soon think of illustrating a dictionary. Waltonis a lovely subject, but I would adopt a small copy and keep it within twoor three volumes. After all there is nothing so charming as a singlelittle illustrated volume, like “Ballads of Books,” compiled by BranderMatthews; Andrew Lang’s “Letters to[Pg 59] Dead Authors,” or “Old Friends,”Friswell’s “Varia,” the “Book of Death,” “Melodies and Madrigals,” “TheBook of Rubies,” Winter’s “Shakespeare’s England.”

gentleman who published, a good many years ago, a monograph of privatelyillustrated books in this country, spoke of the work that I had done inthis field, and criticised me for my “apparent want of method,”“eccentricity,” “madness,” “vagaries,” “omnivorousness,” and “lack ofspeciality or system,” and finally, although he blamed me for havingillustrated pretty much everything, he also blamed me for not havingillustrated any “biographical works.” This criticism seems not onlyinconsistent, but without basis, for one man may not dictate to anotherwhat he shall prefer to illustrate for his own amusement, any more thanwhat sort of a house or pictures he shall buy or what complexion orstature his wife shall have. The author also did me the honor to spell myname wrong, and did the famous Greek amatory poet the honor of mentioningamong my illustrated work, “Odes to Anacreon.” Would that I could findthat book!

I offer these suggestions with diffidence, and with no intention to imposemy taste upon others

If the Illustrator can get or make something absolutely unique he is afortunate man. For example, I know one, stigmatized as eccentric, who hasillustrated a printed catalogue of his own library with[Pg 60] portraits of theauthors, copies of prints in the books, and duplicates of engravedtitle-pages; also one who has illustrated a collection in print or inmanuscript of his own poems; also one who has illustrated a Life ofHercules, written by himself, printed by one of his own family, andadorned with prints from antique gems and other subjects; and even alawyer who has illustrated a law book written by himself, in which he hasfound place for prints so diverse and apparently out of keeping as Jonahand the whale, John Brown, a man pacing the floor in a nightgown with acrying baby, a “darkey” shot in a melon-patch, an elephant on the rampage,Cupid, Hudibras writing a letter, Joanna Southcote, Launce and his dog, adog catching a boy going over a wall, Dr. Watts, Robinson Crusoe, Barnumin the form of a hum-bug, Jacob Hall the rope dancer, Lord Mayor’sprocession, Raphael discoursing to Adam, gathering sea-weed, Artemus Ward,a whale ashore, a barber-shop, Gilpin’s ride, King Lear, St. Lawrence onhis gridiron, Charles Lamb, Terpsichore, and a child tumbling into a well.The owner of such a book may be sure that it is unique, as the man wascertain his coat of arms was genuine, because he made it himself

here are three singular things about the hunt for pictures. One is, themoment you have your book bound, no matter how many years you may havewaited, some rare picture you wanted is sure to turn up. Hence[Pg 61] thereluctance of the Illustrator to commit himself to binding, a reluctanceonly paralleled by that of the lover to marry the woman he had courted forten years, because then he would have no place to spend his evenings. (Ihave had books “in hand” for twenty years).

nother is, when you have found your rare picture you are pretty certainto find one or two duplicates. Prints, like accidents or crimes, seem tocome in cycles and schools. I have known a man to search in vain in thirtyprint-shops in London, and coming home find what he wanted in a New Yorkprint-shop, and two copies at that. The third is, that you are continuallycoming very near the object without quite attaining it. Thus one may getLady Godiva alone, and the effigy of Peeping Tom on the corner of an oldhouse at Coventry, but to procure the whole scene is, so far as I know,out of the question. It would seem that Mr. Anthony Comstock has put hisban on it. So one will find it difficult to get “God’s scales,” in whichwealth and poverty are weighed against each other, but I have had otherscales thrust at me, such as those in which the emblems of love areweighed against those of religion, and a king against a beggar, but eventhe latter is not the precise thing, for in these days there are poorkings and rich beggars

One opinion in which all illustrators agree seems sound, and that is, thatphotographs are not to be tolerated. Photography is the mostmisrepresentative[Pg 62] of arts. But an exception may be indulged in the caseof those few celebrities who are too modest to allow themselves to beengraved, and of whom photography furnishes the only portraiture

Aphotographic copy of a rare portrait in oil is also admissible. Some alsoexclude wood-cuts. I am not such a purist as that. They are frequently theonly means of illustrating a subject, and small and fine wood-cuts formcharming head and tail pieces and marginal adornments. One who eschewswood-cuts must forego such interesting little subjects as Washington andhis little hatchet, God’s scales, the skeleton in the closet, and many ofthose which I have particularized

I flatter myself that I have made themargins of a good many books very interesting by means of small wood-cuts,of which our modern magazines provide an abundant and exquisite supply.These furnish a copious source of specific illustration.

ith their zeal illustrators are sometimes apt to be anachronistic. Everybook ought to be illustrated in the spirit and costume of its time. Thebook should not be stuffed too full of prints; let a better proportion bepreserved between the text and the illustrations than Falstaff observedbetween his bread and his sack. The prints should not be so numerous as tocause the text to be forgotten, as in the case of a tedious sermon

Probably nearly every collector expects that his treasures will bedispersed at his death, if not sooner. But it is a serious question to theillustrator, what will become of these precious objects upon which he hasspent so much time, thought and labor, and for which he has expended somuch money. He never cares and rarely knows, and if he knows he nevertells, how much they have cost, but he may always be certain that theywill never fetch their cost. Let us not indulge in any false dreams onthis subject. The time may have[Pg 64] been when prints were cheap and when theillustrator may have been able to make himself whole or even reap aprofit, but that day I believe has gone by

One can hardly expect thathis family will care for these things; the son generally thinks theBook-Worm a bore, and the wife of one’s bosom and the daughter of one’sheart usually affect more interest than they feel, and if they kept suchobjects would do so from a sense of duty alone, as the ancient Romanspreserved the cinerary urns of their ancestors. For myself, I have oftenimagined my grandson listlessly turning over one of my favoriteillustrated volumes, and saying, “What a funny old duffer grandad musthave been!” Such a book-club, as the “Grolier,” of New York, is afortunate avenue of escape from these evils. There one might deposit atleast some of his peculiar treasures, certain that they would receive goodcare, be regarded with permanent interest, and keep alive his memory.

o augment his books by inserting prints is ordinarily just the one thingwhich the Book-Worm can do to render them in a deeper sense his own, andto gain for himself a peculiar proprietorship in them. Generally he cannothimself bind them, but by this means he may render himself a coadjutor ofthe author, and place himself on equal terms with the printer and thebinder

After he has illustrated a favorite book once, it is an enjoyableoccupation for the Book-Worm to do it over[Pg 65] again, in a different spiritand with different pictures. “Second thoughts are best,” it has been said,and I have more than once improved my subject by a second treatment

There is another form of illustration, of which I have not spoken, andthat is the insertion of clippings from magazines and newspapers in thefly leaves. Sometimes these are of intense interest. My own Dickens,Thackeray and Hawthorne, in particular have their porticoes and postermsplentifully supplied with material of this sort

The latest contributionof this kind is to “Martin Chuzzlewit,” and consists in the informationthat a western American “land-shark” has recently swindled people byselling them swamp-lots, attractively depicted on a map and named Eden

In my Pepys I have laid Mr. Lang’s recent letter to the diarist. So on afly leaf of Hawthorne’s Life it is pleasing to see a cut of his little redhouse at Lenox, now destroyed by fire.

IX.

rather modern form of book-spoliation has arisen in the collection ofbook-plates. These are literally derived “ex libris,” and the businesscannot be indulged, as a general thing, without in some sense despoilingbooks. It cannot be denied that it is a fascinating pursuit. Soundoubtedly is the taking of watches or rings or other “articles ofbigotry or virtue,” on the highway

But somehow there is something soessentially personal in a book-plate, that it is hard to understand whyother persons than the owners should become possessed by a passion for it.Many years ago when Burton, the great comedian, was in his prime, he usedto act in a farce called “Toodles”—at all events, that was his name inthe play—and he was afflicted with a wife who had a mania for attendingauctions and buying all kinds of things, useful or useless, provided thatthey only seemed cheap. One day she came home with a door-plate,inscribed, “Thompson”—“Thompson with a p,” as Toodles wrathfullydescribed it; and this was more than Toodles could stand. He could not seewhat possible use there could ever be in that door-plate for the Toodlesfamily. In those same days, there used to be[Pg 67] displayed on the door of amodest house, on the east side of Broadway, in the city of New York,somewhere about Eighth Street, a silver door-plate inscribed, “Mr. Astor.”This appertained to the original John Jacob

In those days I frequentlyremarked it, and thought what a prize it would be to Mrs. Toodles or somecollector of door-plates. Now I can understand why one might acquire ataste for collecting book-plates of distinguished men or famousbook-collectors, just as one collects autographs; but why collect hundredsand thousands of book-plates of undistinguished and even unknown persons,frequently consisting of nothing more than family coats-of-arms, or merefamily names? I must confess that I share to a certain extent in Mr.Lang’s antipathy to this species of collecting, and am disposed to calldown on these collectors Shakespeare’s curse on him who should move hisbones. But I cannot go with Mr. Lang when he calls these well-meaning andby no means mischevious persons some hard names.

n some localities it is quite the vogue to take off the coffin-plate fromthe coffin—all the other silver “trimmings,” too, for that matter—andpreserve it, and even have it framed and hung up in the home of the latelamented. There may be a sense of proprietorship in the mourners, who havebought and paid for it, and see no good reason for burying it, that willjustify this practice. At all events it is a family matter. The coffinplate reminds the desolate survivors of the person[Pg 68]designated, who isshelved forever in the dust. But what would be said of the sense or sanityof one who should go about collecting and framing coffin-plates,cataloguing them, and even exchanging them?

ook-worms penetrate to different distances in books. Some go no furtherthan the title page; others dig into the preface or bore into the table ofcontents; a few begin excavations at the close, to see “how it comes out.”But that Worm is most easily satisfied who never goes beyond the inside ofthe front cover, and passes his time in prying off the book-plates

I think I have heard of persons who collect colophons. These go to work inthe reverse direction, and are even more reprehensible than theaccumulators of book-plates, because they inevitably ruin the book

A book-plate is appropriate, sometimes ornamental, even beautiful, in itsintended place in the proprietor’s book. Out of that, with rareexceptions, it strikes one like the coffin-plate, framed and hanging onthe wall

It gives additional value and attractiveness to a book whichone buys, but it ought to remain there

If one purchases books once owned by A, B and C—undistinguished persons,or even distinguished—containing their autographs, he does not cut themout to form a collection of autographs

If the name is not celebrated,the autograph has no interest or value; if famous, it has still greaterinterest and value by[Pg 69] remaining in the book. So it seems to me it shouldbe in respect to book-plates

Let Mr. Astor’s door-plate stay on hisfront door, and let the energetic Mrs. Toodles content herself in buyingsomething less invididual and more adaptable.

book-plate really is of no value except to the owner, as the man says ofpapers which he has lost. It cannot be utilized to mark the possessions ofanother. In this respect it is of inferior value to the door-plate, forpossibly another Mr. Astor might arise, to whom the orignal door-platemight be sold. A Boston newspaper tells of a peddler of door-plates whocontracted to sell a Salem widow a door-plate; and when she gave him hername to be engraved on it, gave only her surname, objecting to any firstname or initials, observing: “I might get married again, and if myinitials or first name were on the plate, it would be of no use. If theyare left off, the plate could be used by my son.”

Thus much about collecting book-plates. One word may be tolerated aboutthe character of one’s own book-plate. To my taste, mere coats-of-armswith mottoes are not the best form.

They simply denote ownership. Theymight well answer some further purpose, as for example to typify thepeculiar tastes of the proprietor in respect to his books. A portrait ofthe owner is not objectionable, indeed is quite welcome in connection withsome device or motto[Pg 70] pertaining to books and not to mere family descent.But why, although a collector may have a favorite author, like Hawthorneor Thackeray, for example, should he insert his portrait in hisbook-plate, as is often done? Mr. Howells would writhe in his grave if heknew that somebody had stuck Thackeray’s portrait or Scott’s in “SilasLapham,” and those Calvinists who think that the “Scarlet Letter” iswicked, would pronounce damnation on the man who should put the gentleHawthorne’s portrait in a religious book

To be sure, one might have avariety of book-plates, with portraits appropriate to different kinds ofbooks—Napoleon’s for military, Calvin for religious, Walton’s for anglingand a composite portrait of Howells-James for fiction of the photographicschool; but this would involve expense and destroy the intrinsic unitydesirable in the book-plate. So let the portrait, if any, be either thatof the proprietor or a conventional image. If I were to relax and allow asingle exception it would be in favor of dear Charles Lamb’s portrait in“Fraser’s,” representing him as reading a book by candle light. (For themoment this idea pleases me so much that I feel half inclined to eat allmy foregoing words on this point, and adopt it for myself. At any rate, Ihereby preempt the privilege.)

have referred to Mr. Lang’s antipathy to book-plate collectors, andwhile, as I have observed, he goes to extravagant lengths in condemningtheir pursuit, still it may be of[Pg 71] interest to my readers to know justwhat he says about them, and so I reproduce below a ballad on the subject,with (the material for) which he kindly supplied me when I solicited hismild expression of opinion on the subject:

If anybody has any curiosity to know what I consider the most undesirableoccupation of mankind, I will answer candidly—that of an auctioneer ofprivate libraries. It does not seem to have fallen into disrepute likethat of the headsman or hangman, and perhaps it is as unpleasantlyessential as that of the undertaker. But it generally thrives on theunhappiness of those who are compelled to part with their books, on therivalries of the rich, and the strifes of the trade

It was urgedagainst Mr. Cleveland, on his first canvass for the Presidency, that whenhe was sheriff he had hanged a murderer. For my own part, I admired himfor performing that solemn office himself rather than hiring an underlingto do it. But if he had been a book-auctioneer, I might have beenprejudiced against him

Not so ignoble and inhuman perhaps as that of the slave-seller, still thebusiness must breed a sort of callousness which is abhorrent to the genialBook-Worm. How I hate the glib rattle of his tongue, the mouldiness of hisjests and the transparency of his[Pg 74] puffery! I should think he would hatehimself. It must be worse than acting Hamlet or Humpty Dumpty a hundredconsecutive nights

Dante had no punishment for the Book-Worm in hell,if I remember right, but if he deserved any pitiless reprobation, it wouldbe found in compelling him to cry off books to all eternity

Grant thatthe auctioneer is a person of sensibility and acquainted with good books,then his calling must give him many a pang as he observes the ignoranceand carelessness of his audience. It is better and more fitting that heshould know little of his wares. He ought to be well paid for his work,and he is—no man gets so much for mere talk except the lawyer, andperhaps not even he. I do not so much complain of his favoritism. Whenthere is something especially desirable going, I frequently fail to catchhis eye, and my rival gets the prize

But in this he is no worse thanthe Speaker. On the other hand he sometimes loads me up with a thing thatI do not want, and in possession of which I would be unwilling to be founddead, pretending that I winked at him—a species of imposition which it isimpolitic to resent for fear of being entirely ignored. Thesediscretionary favors are regarded as a practical joke and must not bedeclined

But what I do complain of is his commercial stolidity,surpassing that of Charles Surface when he sold the portraits of hisancestors. The “bete noir” of the book trade is

I speak feelingly, but I think it is pardonable. I once went through anauction sale of my own books, and while I lost money on volumes on which Ihad bestowed much thought, labor and expense, I made a profit on Gibbon’s“Decline and Fall” in tree-calf. I do not complain of the loss; what I wasmortified by was the profit. But the auctioneer was not at all abashed; infact he seemed rather pleased, and apparently regarded it as a feather inhis cap. I have always suspected that the shameless purchaser was SilasWegg.

XI.

onsidering his importance in modern civilization, it is singular that solittle has been recorded of the Bookseller in literature. Shakespeare hasa great deal to say of books of various kinds, but not a word, I believe,of the Bookseller. It is true that Ursa Major gave a mitigated growl ofapplause to the booksellers, if I recollect my Boswell right, and hecondescended to write a life of Cave, but bookseller in his view meantpublisher. It is true that Charles Knight wrote a book entitled “Shadowsof the Old Booksellers,” but here too the characters were mainlypublishers, and his account of them is indeed shadowy. The chief thingthat I recall about any of the booksellers thus celebrated is that TomDavies had “a pretty wife,” which is probably the reason why DoctorJohnson thought Tom would better have stuck to the stage. So far as Iknow, the most vivid pen-pictures of booksellers are those depicting thehumble members of the craft, the curb-stone venders

They are much morepicturesque than their more affluent brethren who are used to the luxuryof a roof.

onsieur Uzanne,who has

treated of the elegancies of the Fan, the Muff,and the Umbrella, has more recently given the world a quite unique seriesof studies among the bookstalls and the quays of Paris—“The Book Hunterin Paris”—and this too one finds more entertaining than any account ofQuaritch’s or Putnam’s shop would be

I must bear witness to the honesty and liberality of booksellers. When oneconsiders the hundreds of catalogues from which he has ordered books at aventure, even from across the ocean, and how seldom he has been misled ordisappointed in the[Pg 79]result, one cannot subscribe to a belief in the dogmaof total depravity. I remember some of my booksellers with positiveaffection. They were such self-denying men to consent to part with theirtreasures at any price

And as a rule they are far more careless thanordinary merchants about getting or securing their pay

To be sure it israther ignoble for the painter of a picture, or the chiseller of a statue,or the vender of a fine book, to affect the acuteness of tradesmen in thematter of compensation. The excellent bookseller takes it for granted, ifhe stoops to think about it, that if a man orders a Caxton or a Grolier hewill pay for it, at his convenience. It was this unthinking liberalitywhich led a New York bookseller to give credit to a distinguishedperson—afterwards a candidate for the Presidency—to a considerableamount, and to let the account stand until it was outlawed, and hissensibilities were greviously shocked, when being compelled to sue for hisdue, his debtor pleaded the statute of limitations! His faith was notrestored even when the acute buyer left a great sum of money by his willto found a public library, and the legacy failed through informality.

have only one complaint to make against booksellers. They should teachtheir clerks to recognize The Book-Worm at a glance

It is veryannoying, when I go browsing around a book-shop, to have an attendant comeup and ask me, who have bought books for thirty years, if he can “show meanything”—just as if I[Pg 80] wanted to see anything in particular—or if“anybody is waiting on me”—when all I desire is to be let alone. Somebooksellers, I am convinced, have this art of recognition, for they let mealone, and I make it a rule always to buy something of them, but neverwhen their employees are so annoyingly attentive. I do not object to beingwatched; it is only the implication that I need any assistance thatoffends me. It is easy to recognize the Book-Worm at a glance by the carewith which he handles the rare books and the indifference with which hepasses the standard authors in holiday bindings.

nce I had a bookseller who had a talent for drawing, which he used toexercise occasionally on the exterior of an express package of books. Oneof these wrappings I have preserved, exhibiting a pen-and-ink drawing of awar-ship firing a big gun at a few small birds. Perhaps this wassatirically intended to denote the pains and time he had expended on sosmall a sale. But I will now immortalize him

The most striking picture of a bookseller that I recall in all literatureis one drawn by M. Uzanne, in the charming book mentioned above, which Iwill endeavor to transmute and transmit under the title of

oubtless the occupation of bookseller is generally regarded as a verypleasant as well as a refined one. But there is another side, in theestimation of a true Book-Worm, and it is not agreeable to him tocontemplate the life of

XII.

here is one species of the Book-Worm which is more pitiable than theBookseller, and that is the Public Librarian, especially of a circulatinglibrary. He is condemned to live among great collections of books andexhibit them to the curious public, and to be debarred from anyproprietorship in them, even temporary. But the greater part this does notgrieve a true Book-Worm, for he would scorn ownership of a vast majorityof the books which he shows, but on the comparatively rare occasions whenhe is called on to produce a real book (in the sense of Bibliomania), hemust be saddened by the reflection that it is not his own, and that theinspection of it is demanded of him as a matter of right

I have oftenobserved the ill concealed reluctance with which the librarian complieswith such a request; how he looks at the demandant with a degree ofsurprise, and then produces the key of the repository where the treasureis kept under guard, and heaving a sigh delivers the volume with agrudging hand. It was this characteristic which led me in my youth, beforeI had been inducted into the delights of Bibliomania and had learned toappreciate the feelings of a librarian,[Pg 85] to define him as one whoconceives it to be his duty to prevent the public from seeing the books. Iowe a good old librarian an apology for having said this of him, andhereby offer my excuses to one whose honorable name is recorded in theBook of Life

Much is to be forgiven to the man who loves books, and yetis doomed to deal out books that perish in the using, which no human beingwould ever read a second time nor “be found dead with.” These are the truetests of a good book, especially the last. Shelley died with a littleÆschylus on his person, which the cruel waves spared, and when Tennysonfell asleep it was with a Shakespeare, open at “Cymbeline.” One may beexcused for reading a good deal that he never would re-read, but not forowning it, nor for owning a good deal which he would feel ashamed to havefor his last earthly companion. But now for my tribute to

XIII.

e now come to the sordid but serious consideration whether books are a“good investment” in the financial sense

The mind of every trueBook-Worm should revolt from this question, for none except a bookselleris pardonable for buying books with the design of selling them.Booksellers are a necessary evil, as purveyors for the Book-Worm

Iregard them as the old woman regarded the thirty-nine articles of faith;when inquired of by her bishop what she thought of them, she said, “Idon’t know as I’ve anything against them.” So I don’t know that I haveanything against booksellers, although I must concede that they generallyhave something against me. As no well regulated man ever grudges expenseon the house that forms his home, or on its adornment, and rarely cares oreven reflects whether he can get his money back, so it is with the truebibliomaniac

He never intends to part with his books any more than withhis homestead. Then again the use and enjoyment of books ought to countfor something like interest on the capital invested. Many times, directlyor indirectly, the use of a library is worth even more than the intereston the outlay. It is singular how expenditure[Pg 89] in books is regarded as anextravagance by the business world. One may spend the price of a finelibrary in fast or showy horses, or in travel, or in gluttony, or in stockspeculations eventuating on the wrong side of his ledger, and themoney-grubbing community think none the worse of him

But let him expendannually a few thousands in books, and these sons of Mammon pull longfaces, wag their shallow heads, and sneeringly observe, “screw loosesomewhere,” “never get half what he has paid for them,” “too much of aBook-Worm to be a sharp business man.” A man who boldly bets on stocks inWall Street is a gallant fellow, forsooth, and excites the admiration ofthe business community (especially of those who thrive on his losses) evenwhen he “comes out at the little end of the horn.” As Ruskin observes, wefrequently hear of a bibliomaniac, never of a horse-maniac

It is saidthere is a private stable in Syracuse, New York, which has cost severalhundred thousand dollars. The owner is regarded as perfectly sane and thebuilding is viewed with great pride by the public, but if the owner hadexpended as much on a private library his neighbors would have thought hima lunatic. If a man in business wants to excite the suspicion of the sleekgentlemen who sit around the discount board with him, or yell likelunatics at the stock exchange with him, or talk with him about the tariffor free silver, or any other subject on which no two men ever agree unlessit is for their interest, let it leak out that he has put a few thousanddollars[Pg 90] into a Mazarine Bible, or a Caxton, or a first folio Shakespeareor some other rare book

No matter if he can afford it, most of hisassociates regard him as they do a Bedlamite who goes about collectingstraws. Fortunate is he if his wife does not privately call on the familyattorney and advise with him about putting a committee over the poor man.

ut if we must regard book-buying in a money sense, and were to admit thatbooks never sell for as much as they cost, it is no worse in respect tobooks than in respect to any other species of personal property. Whatchattel is there for which the buyer can get as much as he paid, even thenext day? When it is proposed to transform the seller himself into thebuyer of the same article, we find that the bull of yesterday is convertedinto the bear of to-day. Circumstances alter cases. I have bought a goodmany books and “objects of bigotry and virtue,” and have sold some, andthe nearest I ever came to getting as much as I paid was in the case of arare print, the seller of which, after the lapse of several years,solicited me to let him have it again, at exactly what I paid for it, inorder that he might sell it to some one else at an advance. I declined hisoffer with profuse thanks, and keep the picture as a curiosity

So I should say, as a rule, that books are not a good financial investmentin the business sense, and speaking of most books and most buyers

Givea man the same experience in buying books that renders[Pg 91] him expert inbuying other personal property, the mere gross objects of trade, and lethim set out with the purpose of accumulating a library that shall be aremunerative financial investment, and he may succeed, indeed, has oftensucceeded, certainly to the extent of getting back his outlay withinterest, and sometimes making a handsome profit. But this needsexperience

Just as one must build at least two houses before he canexactly suit himself, so he must collect two libraries before he can getone that will prove a fair investment in the vulgar sense of trade.

dare say that one will frequently pay more for a fine microscope ortelescope than he can ever obtain for it if he desires or is pressed tosell it, but who would or should stop to think of that? The power ofprying into the mysteries of the earth and the wonders of the heavensshould raise one’s thoughts above such petty considerations. So it shouldbe in buying that which enables one to converse with Shakespeare or Miltonor scan the works of Raphael or Durer. When the pioneer on the westernplains purchases an expensive rifle he does not inquire whether he cansell it for what it costs; his purpose is to defend his house againstIndians and other wild beasts. So the true book-buyer buys books to fightweariness, disgust, sorrow and despair; to loose himself from the worldand forget time and all its limitations and besetments. In this view theynever cost too much. And[Pg 92] so when asked if book-collecting pays, I retortby asking, does piety pay? “Honesty is the best policy” is the meanest ofmaxims. Honesty ought to be a principle and not a policy; andbook-collecting ought to be a means of education, refinement andenjoyment, and not a mode of financial investment.

XIV.

his is not a case of “Snakes in Iceland,” for the Book-Worm has faults.One of his faults is his proneness to regard books as mere merchandise andnot as vehicles of intellectual profit, that is to say, to be read. Toomany collectors buy books simply for their rarity and with too littleregard to the value of their contents

The Circassian slave-dealer doesnot care whether his girls can talk sense or not, and too many men buybooks with a similar disregard to their capacity for instructing orentertaining. It seems to me that a man who buys books which he does notread, and especially such as he cannot read, merely on account of theirvalue as merchandise, degrades the noble passion of bibliomania to thelevel of a trade

When I go through such a library I think of whatChrist said to the traders in the Temple. Another fault is his lack ofindependence and his tendency to imitate the recognized leaders. He is tooprone to buy certain books simply because another has them, and thus evenrare collections are apt to fall into a tiresome routine

The collectorwho has a hobby and independence to ride it is admirable. Let him addicthimself to some particular subject or era or “ana,” and try to exhaust it,and before he is conscious he will have accumulated a collection preciousfor its[Pg 94] very singularity. It strikes me that the best example of thisidea that I have ever heard of is the attempt, in which two collectors inthis country are engaged, to acquire the first or at least one specimen ofevery one of the five hundred fifteenth century printers. If this shouldever succeed, the great libraries of all the world would be eager for it,and the undertaking is sufficiently arduous to last a lifetime.

ometimes out of this fault, sometimes independently of it, arises thefault by which book collecting degenerates into mere rivalry—the vulgardesire of display and ambition for a larger or rarer or costlieraccumulation than one’s neighbor has

The determination not to beoutdone does not lend dignity or worth to the pursuit which wouldotherwise be commendable. During the late civil war in this country thechaplain of a regiment informed his colonel, who was not a godly person,that there was a hopeful revival of religion going on in a neighboring andrival regiment, and that forty men had been converted and baptized.“Dashed if I will submit to that,” said the swearing colonel: “Adjutant,detail fifty men for baptism instantly!” So Mr. Roe, hearing that Mr. Doehas acquired a Caxton or other rarity of a certain height, and absolutelyflawless except that the corners of the last leaf have been skillfullymended and that six leaves are slightly foxed, cannot rest[Pg 95] night or dayfor envy, but is like the troubled sea until he can find a copy asixteenth of an inch taller, the corners of whose leaves are in theirpristine integrity, and over whose brilliant surface the smudge of the foxhas not been cast, and then how high is his exaltation! Not that he caresanything for the book intrinsically, but he glories in having beatenDoe

Now if any speaks to him of Doe’s remarkable copy, he can draw outhis own and create a surprise in the bosom of Doe’s adherent. The laurelsof Miltiades no longer deprive him of rest. He has overcome in thistrivial and childish strife concerning size and condition, and he holdsthe champion’s belt for the present. He not only feels big himself but hehas succeeded in making Doe feel small, which is still better. I don’tknow whether there will be any book-collecting in Mr. Bellamy’s Utopia,but if there is, it will not be disfigured by such meanness, butcollectors will go about striving to induce others to accept theirsuperior copies and everything will be as lovely as in Heine’s heaven,where geese fly around ready cooked, and if one treads on your corn itconveys a sensation of exquisite delight.

t has been several times remarked by moralists that human nature isselfish. One of course does not expect another to relinquish to him hisplace in a “queue” at a box-office or his turn at a barber’s shop, but inthe noble and elegant pursuit of book-collecting it would be well toemulate the politeness of the French at[Pg 96] Fontenoy, and hat in hand offerour antagonist the first shot

But I believe the only place where theBook-Worm ever does that is the auction room.

he modern Book-Worm is not the simple and absent-minded creature who wentby this name a century ago or more. He is no mere antiquarian, Dryasdustor Dominie Sampson, but he is a sharp merchant, or a relentless broker, ora professional railroad wrecker, or a keen lawyer, or a busy physician, ora great manufacturer—a wide awake man of affairs, quite devoid of theconventional innocency and credulity which formerly made the name ofBook-Worm suggestive of a necessity for a guardian or a committee inlunacy

No longer does he inquire, as Becatello inquired of Alphonso,King of Naples, which had done the better—Poggius, who sold a Livy,fairly writ in his own hand, to buy a country home near Florence, or he,who to buy a Livy had sold a piece of land? No longer is the scale turnedin the negotiation of a treaty between princes by the weight of a rarebook, as when Cosimo dei Medici persuaded King Alphonso[Pg 97] of Naples to apeace by sending him a codex of Livy. No longer does the Book-Worm sit inhis modest book-room, absorbed in his adored volumes, heedless of thewaning lamp and the setting star, of hunger and thirst, unmindful of thescent of the clover wafted in at the window, deaf to the hum of the beesand the low of the kine, blind to the glow of sunsets and the soft contourof the blue hills, and the billowy swaying of the wheat field before thegentle breath of the south

No longer can it be said that

he modern Book-Worm deals in sums of six figures; he keeps an agent “onthe other side;” he cables his demands and his decisions; his nameflutters the dovecotes in the auction-room; to him is proffered the firstchance at a rarity worth a King’s ransom; too busy to potter in personwith such a trifle as the purchase of a Mazarine Bible, he hires others todo the hunting and he merely receives the game; the tiger skin and theelephant’s tusk are laid at his feet to order, but he misses all the joyand ardor of the hunt. How different is all this from Sir ThomasUrquhart’s account of his own library, of which he says: “There were notthree works therein which were not of mine own purchase, and all of themtogether, in the order wherein I had ranked them, compiled like to acomplete nosegay of flowers, which in my travels I had gathered out of thegardens of sixteen several kingdoms.”

Another fault of the Book-Worm is the affectation[Pg 99] of collecting books onsubjects in which he takes no practical interest, simply because it is thefashion or the books are intrinsically beautiful. Many a man has a finecollection on Angling, for example, who hardly knows how to put a worm ona hook, much less attach a fly

I fear I am one of these hypocriticalcreatures, for this is

XV.

oor collectors are not only not at a disadvantage in enjoyment, but theyhave a positive advantage over affluent rivals. If I were rich, probably Ishould not throw my money away just to experience this superiority, but itnevertheless exists. I do not envy, but I commiserate my brother collectorwho has plenty of money. He who only has to draw his check to obtain hisdesire fails to reach the keenest bliss of the pursuit. If diamonds wereas common as cobble stones there would be no delight in picking them up

To constitute a bibliomaniac in the true sense, the love of books mustcombine with a certain limitation of means for the gratification of theappetite

The consciousness of some extravagance must be always presentin his mind; there must be a sense of sacrifice in the attainment; in arich man the disease cannot exist; he cannot enter the kingdom of theBibliomaniac’s heaven. There is the same difference of sensation betweenthe acquirement of books by a wealthy man and by him of slender purse,that there is between the taking of fish in a net and the successfulresult of a long angling pursuit after one especially fat and evasivetrout. When a prince kills[Pg 103] his preserved game, with keepers to raise itfor him and to hand him guns ready loaded, so that all he has to do is tosquint and pull the trigger, this is not hunting; it is mere vulgarbutchery

What knows he of the joys of the tramper in the forest, whostalks the deer, or scares up smaller game, singly, and has to work hardfor his bag? We read in Dibdin’s sumptuous pages of the celebrated contestbetween the Duke of Devonshire and the Marquis of Blandford for thepossession of the Valdarfar Decameron; we read with admiration, but wealso read of the immortal battle of Elia with the little squab-keeper ofthe old book-stall in Ninety-four alley, over the ownership of a raggedduodecimo for a sixpence; we read with affection

So we read LeighHunt’s confession that when he “cut open a new catalogue of old books, andput crosses against dozens of volumes in the list, out of the pureimagination of buying them, the possibility being out of the question.”

Poverty hath her victories no less renowned than wealth. To haunt thebook-stores, there to see a long-desired work in luxurious and temptingstyle, reluctantly to abandon it for the present on account of the price;to go home and dream about it, to wonder, for a year, and perchancelonger, whether it will ever again greet your eyes; to conjecture what actof desperation you might in heat of passion commit toward some moreaffluent man in whose possession you should thereafter find it; to see itturn up again in another book-shop, its charms slightly faded, but[Pg 104] yetmellowed by age, like those of your first love, met in later life—withthis difference, however, that whereas you crave those of the book morethan ever, you are generally quite satisfied with yourself for not having,through the greenness of youth, yielded untimely to those of the lady; toask with assumed indifference the price, and learn with ill-dissembled joythat it is now within your means; to say you’ll take it; to place itbeneath your arm, and pay for it (or more generally order it “charged”);to go forth from that room with feelings akin to those of Ulysses when hebrought away the Palladium from Troy; to keep a watchful eye on the parcelin the railway coach on your way home, or to gloat over the treasures ofits pages, and wonder if the other passengers have any suspicion of yourgood fortune; and finally to place the volume on your shelf, andthenceforth to call it your own—this is indeed a pleasure denied to theaffluent, so keen as to be akin to pain, and only marred by the pallingwhich always follows possession and the presentation of your book-seller’saccount three months afterwards.

XVI.

here was a time when I loved to see my books arranged with a view touniformity of height and harmony of color without respect to subjects.That time I regard as my vealy period

That was the time when we admired“Somnambula,” and when the housewife used to have all the pictures hung onthe same level, and to buy vases in pairs exactly alike and put them oneither side of the parlor clock, which was generally surmounted by aprancing Saracen or a weaving Penelope. Granting that a collection is notextensive enough to demand a strict arrangement by subjects, I like to seea little artistic confusion—high and low together here and there, like ademocratic community; now and then some giants laid down on their sides torest; the shelves not uniformly filled out as if the owner never expectedto buy any more, and alongside a dainty Angler a book in red or blue clothwith a white label—just as childred in velvet and furs sit next anewsboy, or a little girl in calico with a pigtail at Sunday School, or asbeggars and princes kneel side by side on the cathedral pavement. It isgood to have these “swell” books rub up against the commoners, whichthough not so elegant are frequently a great deal brighter. At a country[Pg 106]funeral I once heard the undertaker say to the bearers, “size yourselvesoff.” There is no necessity or artistic gain in such a ceremony in alibrary, and a departure from stiff uniformity is quite agreeable

ThenI do not care to have the book cases all of the same height, nor even ofthe same kind of wood, nor to have them all “dwarfs,” with bric-a-brac onthe top. I would rather have more books on top

In short, it is pleasantto have the collection remind one in a way of Topsy—not that it was“born,” but “growed” and is expected to grow more

There is a modernnotion of considering a library as a room rather than as a collection ofbooks, and of making the front drawing-room the library, which isheretical in the eyes of a true Book-Worm.

This is probably an inventionof the women of the house to prevent any additions to the books withouttheir knowledge, and to discourage book-buying. We have surrendered toomuch to our wives in this; they demand book cases as furniture and toserve as shelves, without any regard to the interior contents or whetherthere are any, except for the color of the bindings and the regularity ofthe rows. All of us have thus seen “libraries” without books worthy thename, and book-cases sometimes with exquisite silk curtains, carefully andclosely drawn, arousing the suspicion that there were no[Pg 107] books behindthem

My ideal library is a room given up to books, all by itself, atthe top or in the rear of the house, where “company” cannot break throughand say to me, “I know you are a great man to buy books—have you seenthat beautiful limited holiday edition of Ben Hur, with illustrations?”

XVII.

r. Blades regards as “Enemies of Books” fire, water, gas, heat, dust andneglect, ignorance and bigotry, the worm, beetles, bugs and rats,book-binders, collectors, servants and children

He does not includewomen, borrowers, or thieves. Perhaps he considers them rather as enemiesof the book-owners

The worm is not always to be considered an enemy toauthors, although he may be to books. James Payn, in speaking of therecent discovery, in the British Museum, of a copy on papyrus of thehumorous poems of the obscure Greek poet, Herodles, says: “The humorouspoems of Herodles possess, however, the immense advantage of being‘seriously mutilated by worms’; wherever therefore an hiatus occurs, thecharitable and cultured mind will be enabled to conclude that (as in thecase of a second descent upon a ball supper) the ‘best things’ have beenalready devoured.” It was doubtless to guard against thieves that theancient books were chained up in the monasteries, but the practice waseffectual also against borrowers. De Bury, in his “Philobiblon” has achapter entitled “A Provident Arrangement by which his Books may be lentto Strangers,” in which the utmost leniency is to lend duplicate booksupon ample security. Not to adopt the harsh judgment[Pg 109] of an ancientauthor, who says, “to lend a book is to lose it, and borrowing but ahypocritical pretense for stealing,” we may conclude, in a word, that tolend a book is like the Presidency of the United States, to be neitherdesired nor refused. Collectors are not so much exposed to the ravages ofthieves as book-sellers are, and a book-thief ought to be regarded withleniency for his good taste and his reliance on the existence of culturein others. After all, it is one’s own fault if he lends a book

Oneshould as soon think of lending one of his children, unless he hasduplicate or triplicate daughters. It would be difficult to foretell whatwould happen to a man who should propose to borrow a rare book. Perhapsdeath by freezing would be the safest prediction. Although Grolier stamped“et amicorum” on his books, that did not mean that he would lend them, butonly that his friends were free of them at his house. It is amusing tonote, in Mr. Castle’s monograph on Book-Plates, how many of them indicatea stern purpose not to lend books. Mr. Gosse regards book-plates as aprecaution not only against thieves, but against borrowers. He observes ofthe man who does not adopt a book-plate: “Such a man is liable to greattemptations. He is brought face to face with that enemy of his species,the borrower, and does not speak with him in the gate. If he had abook-plate he would say, ‘Oh! certainly I will lend you this volume, if ithas not my book-plate in it; of course one makes it a rule never to lenda[Pg 110] book that has.’ He would say this and feign to look inside the volume,knowing right well that this safeguard against the borrower is therealready.” One may make a gift of a book to a friend, but there is as muchdifference between giving a book and lending one as there is betweenindorsing a note and giving the money. I have considerable respect for andsympathy with a good honest book-thief. He holds out no false hopes andmakes no false pretences. But the borrower who does not return addshypocrisy and false pretences to other crime. He ought to be committed tothe State prison for life, and put at keeping the books of theinstitution. In a buried temple in Cnidos, in 1857, Mr. Newton found rollsof lead hung up, on which were inscribed spells devoting enemies to theinfernal gods for sundry specified offenses, among which was the failureto return a borrowed garment

On which Agnes Repplier says: “Would thatit were given to me now to inscribe, and by inscribing doom, all those whohave borrowed and failed to return our books; would that by scribblingsome strong language on a piece of lead we could avenge the lamentablegaps on our shelves, and send the ghosts of the wrong-doers howlingdismally into the eternal shades of Tartarus.”

have spoken of a certain amount of sympathy as due from a magnanimousbook-owner toward a pilferer of such wares. This is always on thecondition that he steals to add to his own hoard and not for merepecuniary[Pg 111] gain. The following is suggested as a Christian mode of dealingwith

[Pg 112]

t greatly rejoices me to observe that Mr. Blades does not include tobaccoamong the enemies of books. In one sense tobacco may be ranked as abook-enemy, for self-denial in this regard may furnish a man with a goodlibrary in a few years. I have known a very pretty collection made out ofthe ordinary smoke-offerings of twenty years. Undoubtedly there arelibraries so fine that smoking in them would be discountenanced, but mineis not impervious to the pipe or cigar, and I entertain the pleasing fancythat tobacco-smoke is good for books, disinfects them, and keeps them freefrom the destroying worm. As I do not myself smoke, I like to see myfriends taking their ease in my book-room, with the “smoke of theirtorment ascending” above my modest volumes. I know how they feel, withoutincurring the expense, and so to them I indite and dedicate

n the early history of New England, when the town of Deerfield was burnedby the Indians, Captain Dunstan, who was the father of a large family,deeming discretion the better part of valor, made up his mind to run forit and to take one child (as a sample, probably), that being all he couldsafely carry on his horse

But on looking about him, he could notdetermine which child to take, and so observing to his wife, “All ornone,” he set her and the baby on the horse, and brought up the rear onfoot with his gun, and fended off the redskins and brought the wholefamily into safety. Such is the tale, and in the old primer there was apicture of the scene—although I do not[Pg 116] understand that it was taken fromthe life, and the story reflects small credit on the character of theaborigines for enterprise.

have often conjectured which of my books I would save in case of fire inmy library, and whether I should care to rescue any if I could not bringoff all. Perhaps the problem would work itself out as follows:

t has been hereinbefore intimated that women may be classed among theenemies of books. There is at least one time of the year when everyBook-Worm thinks so, and that is the dread period ofhouse-cleaning—sometimes in the spring, sometimes in the autumn, andsometimes, in the case of excessively finical housewives, in both

Thatis the time looked forward to by him with apprehension and looked backupon with horror, because the poor fellow knows what comes of

uch are my reflections when I consider a fire in my own little library.But when I regard the great and growing mass of books with which the earthgroans, and reflect how few of them are necessary or original, and howlittle the greater part of them would be missed, I sometimes am led tobelieve that a general conflagration of them might in the long run be a[Pg 119]blessing to mankind, by the stimulation of thought and the deliverance ofauthors from the influence of tradition and the habit of imitation. When Iam in this mood I incline to think that much is

XVIII.

s a rule I do not care for any constant human companion in my library,but I do not object to a cat or a small dog

That picture of Montaigne,drawn by himself, amusing his cat with a garter, or that other one ofDoctor Johnson feeding oysters to his cat Hodge, is a very pleasing one.In my library hangs Durer’s picture of St. Jerome in his cell, busy withhis writing, and a dog and a lion quietly dozing together in theforeground. As I am no saint I have never been able to keep a lion in mylibrary for any great length of time, but I have maintained a dog there

Lamb even contended that his books were the better for being dog’s-eared,but I do not go so far as that. Nor do I pretend that his presence willprevent the books from becoming foxed. Here is a portrait of

here is one other speaking companion that I would tolerate in my library,and that is a clock. I have a number of clocks in mine, and if it were notfor their unanimous[Pg 123] and warning voice I might forget to go to bed.Perhaps my reader would like to hear an account of

[Pg 125]

mong the silent companions in my study are the effigies of the fourgreatest geniuses of modern times in the realms of literature, art, musicand war—a print of Shakespeare; one of Michael Angelo’s corrugated facewith its broken nose; a bust of Beethoven, resembling a pouting lion; anda print of Napoleon at St. Helena, representing him dressed in a whiteduck suit, with a broad-brimmed straw hat, and sitting looking seaward,with those unfathomable eyes, a newspaper lying in his lap

Unhappyfaces all except the first—his cheerful, probably because he has effectedan arrangement with an otherwise idle person, named Bacon, to do all hiswork for him. But there is another portrait, at which I look oftener, theoriginal of which probably takes more interest in me, but is unknown toevery visitor to my study. I myself have not seen her in half a century

I call it simply

here is one other work of art which adorns my library—a medallion by adear friend of mine, an eminent sculptor, the story of which I will putinto his mouth. He calls the face

have reserved my queerest library companion till the last. It is not abook, although it is good for nothing but to read. It is not an autograph,although it is simply the name of an individual

It is my office signwhich I have cherished, as a memento of busier days. Some singularreflections are roused when I gaze at

f course my chief occupation in my library is reading and writing. To besure, I do a good deal of thinking there. But there is another occupationwhich I practice to a great extent, which does not involve reading orwriting at all, nor thinking to any considerable degree. That is playingsolitaire. I play only one kind of this and that I have played for manyyears

It requires two packs of cards, and requires building on the acesand kings, and so I have them tacked down on a lap-board to save pickingout and laying down every time

This particular game is called “St.Elba,” probably because Napoleon did not play it, and it can be “won” oncein about sixty trials. I do not care for card-playing with others, but Ihave certain reasons for liking

XIX.

o many peaceful men of the legal robe the companionship of books isinexpressibly dear. What a privilege it is to summon the greatest and mostcharming spirits of the past from their graves, and find them alwayswilling to talk to us! How delightful to go to our well-knownbook-shelves, lay hands on our favorite authors—even in the dark, so welldo we know them—take any volume, open it at any page, and in a fewminutes lose all sense and remembrance of the real world, with its strife,its bitterness, its disappointments, its hollowness, its unfaithfulness,its selfishness, in the pictures of an ideal world!

The real world, do wesay? Which is the real world, that of history or that of fiction? In thisage of historic doubt and iconoclasm, are not the heroes of our favoriteromances much more real than those of history? Captain Ed’ard Cuttle,mariner, is much more real to us than Captain Joseph Cook; Cooper’s TwoAdmirals than the great Nelson; Leather-Stocking than the yellow-hairedCuster; Henry Esmond than any of the Pretenders; Hester Prynne and BeckySharp than Catherine of Russia or Aspasia or Lucrezia; Sidney Carton thanPhilip Sidney. Even the kings and heroes who have lived in history livemore vividly for us in romance. We know the crooked[Pg 133] Richard and thecrafty Louis XI. most familiarly, if not most accurately, throughShakespeare and Scott; and where in history do we get so haunting apicture of the great Napoleon and Waterloo as in Victor Hugo’s wondrousbut inaccurate chapter? Happy is the man who has for his associates David,Solomon, Job, Paul, and John, in spite of the assaults of modern criticismupon the Scriptures! No one can shake our faith in Don Quixote, althoughthe accounts of the Knight “without fear and without reproach” are soshort and vague. There is no doubt about the travels of Christian,although those of Stanley may be questioned. The Vicar of Wakefield is amuch more actual personage than Peter who preached the Crusades. Sir Rogerde Coverley and his squire life are much more probable to us than SirWilliam Temple in his gardens

There is no character in romance who hasnot or might not have lived, but we are thrown into grave doubts of thesaintly Washington and the devilish Napoleon depicted three quarters of acentury ago. We cast history aside in scepticism and disgust; we cling toromance with faith and delight

“The things that are seen are temporal;the things that are not seen are eternal.” So let the writer hereof sing asong in praise of

SO HERE ENDETH “IN THE TRACK OF THEBOOK-WORM.”

PRINTED BY ME, ELBERTHUBBARD, AT THE ROYCROFT SHOP

INEAST AURORA, N. Y., U. S. A., AND COMPLETEDTHIS TWENTY-SIXTH DAY OF

JUNE, MDCCCXCVII.

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1.	Objects of Collection	9
2.	Who Have Collected	11
3.	Diverse Tastes	18
4.	The Size of Books	21
5.	Binding	25
6.	Paper	32
7.	Women as Collectors	36
8.	The Illustrator	47
9.	Book-Plates	66
10.	The Book-Auctioneer	73
11.	The Book-Seller	77
12.	The Public Librarian	84
13.	Does Book Collecting Pay	88
14.	The Book-Worm’s Faults	93
15.	Poverty as a Means of Enjoyment	103
16.	The Arrangement of Books	105
17.	Enemies of Books	108
18.	Library Companions	121
19.	The Friendship of Books	132

1.	How a Bibliomaniac Binds his Books	26
2.	The Bibliomaniac’s Assignment of Binders	28
3.	The Failing Books	33
4.	Suiting Paper to Subject	34
5.	The Sentimental Chambermaid	37
6.	A Woman’s Idea of a Library	42
7.	The Shy Portraits	54
8.	The Snatchers	71
9.	The Stolid Auctioneer	75
10.	The Prophetic Book	80
11.	The Book-Seller	82
12.	The Public Librarian	85
13.	The Book-Worm does not care for Nature	97
14.	How I go A-Fishing	99
15.	The Book-Thief	111
16.	The Smoke Traveler	112
17.	The Fire in the Library	116
18.	Cleaning the Library	117
19.	Ode to Omar	119
20.	My Dog	121
21.	My Clocks	123
22.	A Portrait	125
23.	My Schoolmate	126
24.	My Shingle	129
25.	Solitaire	130
26.	My Friends the Books	133