mem:'' 
 mMSk 
 
 A 
 
 A = 
 
 — ^_ (= 
 
 A ^^ 
 
 '-^^ r:) 
 
 A = 
 
 ^^= c/^ 
 
 = 
 
 1— 
 
 = 
 
 == 3D 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ^^■- (T-l 
 
 4 — 
 
 LJ
 
 rrom s phatD Ijy tUias DaldBnsky Fhila.Pa 
 
 Ja^uU /H3U ^^e^.
 
 BOOKS AND 
 BOOKMEN 
 
 BY 
 
 IAN MACLAREN 
 
 ,'! 
 
 
 
 • • • " • • 
 
 • • ••..•••-■ » •' ' ' 
 
 • •-• ••••■. . .... .••• • • 
 
 JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED 
 
 22 BERNERS STREET, W. 
 
 1912
 
 4 % % 
 
 I • * t ■ • 
 
 # • fc - • • 
 
 . - • • • -' • 
 
 ' , • • • • . • • .
 
 •^ 
 
 
 2: 
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 £: They cannot be separated any more 
 than sheep and a shepherd, but I am 
 minded to speak of the bookman 
 rather than of his books, and so it 
 will be best at the outset to define 
 the tribe. 
 
 It does not follow that one is a 
 bookman because he has many books, 
 for he may be a book huckster or his 
 books may be those without which 
 a gentleman's library is not complete. 
 And in the present imperfect arrange- 
 ment of life one may be a bookman 
 and yet have very few books, since 
 he has not the wherewithal to pur- 
 chase them. It is the foolishness 
 of his kind to desire a loved author 
 
 in some becoming dress, and his 
 
 3 

 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 fastidiousness to ignore a friend in 
 a fourpence-halfpenny edition. The 
 bookman, like the poet, and a good 
 many other people, is born and not 
 made, and my grateful memory re- 
 tains an illustration of the difference 
 between a bookowner and a book- 
 man which I think is apropos. As 
 he was to preside at a lecture I was 
 delivering he had in his courtesy 
 invited me to dinner, which was ex- 
 cellent, and as he proposed to take 
 the role that night of a man who 
 had been successful in business, but 
 yet allowed himself in leisure mo- 
 ments to trifle with literature, he 
 desired to create an atmosphere, and 
 so he proposed with a certain im- 
 posing air that we should visit what 
 he called " my library." Across the 
 magnificence of the hall we went in 
 stately procession, he first, with that
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 kind of walk by which a surveyor 
 of taxes could have at once assessed 
 his income, and I, the humblest of 
 the bookman tribe, following in the 
 rear, trembling like a skiff in the 
 wake of an ocean liner. " There," 
 he said, with his thumbs in the arm- 
 holes of his waistcoat, " what do 
 you think of that ? " And that was 
 without question a very large and 
 ornate and costly mahogany book- 
 case with glass doors. Before I saw 
 the doors I had no doubt about my 
 host, but they were a seal upon my 
 faith, for although a bookman is 
 obliged to have one bit of glass in 
 his garden for certain rare plants 
 from Russia and Morocco, to say 
 nothing of the gold and white vellum 
 lily upon which the air must not be 
 allowed to blow, especially when 
 
 charged with gas and rich in dust, 
 
 5
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 yet he hates this conservatory, just 
 as much as he loves its contents. 
 His contentment is to have the 
 flowers laid out in open beds, where 
 he can pluck a blossom at will. As 
 often as one sees the books behind 
 doors, and most of all when the doors 
 are locked, then he knows that the 
 owner is not their lover, who keeps 
 tryst with them in the evening hours 
 when the work of the day is done, 
 but their jailer, who has bought 
 them in the market-place for gold, 
 and holds them in this foreign place 
 by force. It has seemed to me as 
 if certain old friends looked out from 
 their prison with appealing glance, 
 and one has been tempted to break 
 the glass and let, for instance, Elia 
 go free. It would be like the eman- 
 cipation of a slave. Elia was not, 
 
 good luck for him, within this par- 
 
 6
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 ticular prison, and I was brought 
 bcack from every te^mptation to break 
 the laws of property by my chair- 
 man, who was still pursuing his 
 catechism. " What," was question 
 two, " do you think I paid for tliat ? " 
 It was a hopeless catechism, for I 
 had never possessed anything like 
 t licit, and none of my friends had in 
 their homes anything like that, and 
 in my wildest moments I had never 
 asked the price of such a thing as 
 that. As it loomed up before me 
 in its speckless respectability and 
 insolence of solid wealth my English 
 sense of reverence for money awoke, 
 and I confessed that this matter was 
 too high for me ; but even then, 
 casting a glance of deprecation in its 
 direction, I noticed that was almost 
 filled by a single work, and I won- 
 dered what it could be. " Cost £80 
 
 7
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 if it cost a penny, and 1 bought it 
 second-hand in perfect condition for 
 £17, 5s., with the books thrown in — 
 All the Year Round from the begin- 
 ning in half calf ; " and then we re- 
 turned in procession to the drawing- 
 room, where my patron apologised 
 for our absence, and explained that 
 when two bookmen got together 
 over books it was difficult to tear 
 them away. He was an admirable 
 chairman, for he occupied no time 
 with a review of literature in his 
 address, and he slept without being 
 noticed through mine (which is all 
 I ask of a chairman), and so it may 
 seem ungrateful, but in spite of 
 " that " and any books, even Spenser 
 and Chaucer, which that might have 
 contained, this Maecenas of an even- 
 ing was not a bookman. 
 
 It is said, and now I am going to 
 8
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 turn the application of a pleasant anec- 
 dote upside down, that a Colonial 
 squatter having made his pile and 
 bethinking himself of his soul, wrote 
 home to an old friend to send him 
 out some chests of books, as many 
 as he thought fit, and the best that 
 he could find. His friend was so 
 touched by this sign of grace that 
 he spent a month of love over the 
 commission, and was vastly pleased 
 when he sent off, in the best editions 
 and in pleasant binding, the very 
 essence of English literature. It was 
 a disappointment that the only ac- 
 knowledgment of his trouble came 
 on a postcard, to say that the con- 
 signment had arrived in good con- 
 dition. A year afterwards, so runs 
 the story, he received a letter which 
 was brief and to the point. " Have 
 
 been working over the books, and 
 
 9
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 if anything new has been written 
 by WiUiam Shakespeare or John 
 Milton, please send it out." I be- 
 lieve this is mentioned as an instance 
 of barbarism. It cannot be denied 
 that it showed a certain ignorance of 
 the history of literature, which might 
 be excused in a bushman, but it is 
 also proved, which is much more im- 
 portant, that he had the smack of 
 letters in him, for being turned loose 
 without the guide of any training in 
 this wide field, he fixed as by instinct 
 on the two classics of the English 
 tongue. With the help of all our 
 education, and all our reviews, could 
 you and I have done better, and are 
 we not every day, in our approval 
 of unworthy books, doing very much 
 worse? Quiet men coming home 
 from business and reading, for the 
 
 sixth time, some noble English classic, 
 
 10
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 would smile in their modesty if any 
 one should call them bookmen, but 
 in so doing they have a sounder 
 judgment in literature than coteries 
 of clever people who go crazy for a 
 brief time over the tweetling of a 
 minor poet, or the preciosity of some 
 fantastic critic. 
 
 There are those who buy their 
 right to citizenship in the common- 
 wealth of bookmen, but this bush- 
 man was free-born, and the sign of 
 the free-born is, that without critics 
 to aid him, or the training of a 
 University, he knows the difference 
 between books which are so much 
 printed stuff and a good book which 
 is "the Precious life-blood of a Master 
 Spirit." The bookman will of course 
 upon occasion trifle with various 
 kinds of reading, and there is one 
 
 member of the brotherhood who has a 
 
 11
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 devouring thirst for detective stories, 
 
 and has always been very grateful 
 
 to the creator of Sherlock Holmes. 
 
 It is the merest pedantry for a man 
 
 to defend himself with a shamed face 
 
 for his light reading : it is enough 
 
 that he should be able to distinguish 
 
 between the books which come and 
 
 go and those which remain. So far 
 
 as I remember, The Mystery of a 
 
 Hansom Cab and John Inglesant 
 
 came out somewhat about the same 
 
 time, and there were those of us who 
 
 read them both ; but while we thought 
 
 the Hansom Cab a very ingenious 
 
 plot which helped us to forget the 
 
 tedium of a railway journey, I do 
 
 not know that there is a copy on our 
 
 shelves. Certainly it is not lying 
 
 between The Ordeal of Richard Fev- 
 
 erel and The Mayor of Casterbridge. 
 
 But some of us venture to think that 
 
 12
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 in that admirable historical romance 
 which moves with such firm foot 
 through both the troubled England 
 and the mysterious Italy of the seven- 
 teenth century, Mr. Shorthouse won a 
 certain place in English literature. 
 
 When people are raving between 
 the soup and fish about some popular 
 novel which to-morrow will be for- 
 gotten, but which doubtless, like the 
 moths which make beautiful the 
 summer-time, has its purpose in 
 the world of speech, it gives one 
 bookman whom I know the keenest 
 pleasure to ask his fair companion 
 whether she has read Mark Ruther- 
 ford. He is proudly conscious at 
 the time that he is a witness to 
 perfection in a gay world which 
 is content with excitement, and he 
 would be more than human if he 
 
 had not in him a touch of the 
 
 13
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 literary Pharisee. She has not read 
 Mark Rutherford, and he does not 
 advise her to seek it at the circulating 
 library, because it will not be there, 
 and if she got it she would never 
 read more than ten pages. Twenty 
 thousand people will greedily read 
 Twice Murdered and Once Hung 
 and no doubt they have their reward, 
 while only twenty people read Mark 
 Rutherjord ; but then the multitude 
 do not return to Twice Murdered, 
 while the twenty turn again and again 
 to Mark Rutherford for its strong 
 thinking and its pure sinewy English 
 style. And the children of the twenty 
 thousand will not know Twice Mur- 
 dered, but the children of the twenty, 
 with others added to them, will know 
 and love Mark Rutherford. Mr. 
 Augustine Birrell makes it, I think, 
 
 a point of friendship that a man 
 
 14
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 should love George Borrow, whom 
 
 I think to appreciate is an excellent 
 
 but an acquired taste ; there are 
 
 others who would propose Mark 
 
 Rutherford and the Revelation in 
 
 Tanner s Lane as a sound test for 
 
 a bookman's palate. But . . . de 
 
 gustibus . . . ! 
 
 It is the chief office of the critic, 
 
 while encouraging all honest work 
 
 which either can instruct or amuse, 
 
 to distinguish between the books 
 
 which must be content to pass and 
 
 the books which must remain because 
 
 they have an immortality of necessity. 
 
 According to the weightiest of French 
 
 critics of our time the author of such 
 
 a book is one " who has enriched the 
 
 human mind, who has really added 
 
 to its treasures, who has got it to 
 
 take a step further . . . who has 
 
 spoken to all in a style of his own, 
 
 15
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 yet a style which finds itself the 
 style of everybody, in a style that 
 is at once new and antique, and is 
 the contemporary of all the ages." 
 Without doubt Sainte-Beuve has 
 here touched the classical quality 
 in literature as with a needle, for 
 that book is a classic to be placed 
 beside Homer and Virgil and Dante 
 and Shakespeare — among the im- 
 mortals — which has wisdom which 
 we cannot find elsewhere, and whose 
 form has risen above the limitation 
 of any single age. While ordinary 
 books are houses which serve for 
 a generation or two at most, this 
 kind of book is the Cathedral which 
 towers above the building at its base 
 and can be seen from afar, in which 
 many generations shall find their 
 peace and inspiration. While other 
 books are like the humble craft which 
 
 16
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 ply from place to place along the 
 coast, this book is as a stately mer- 
 chantman which compasses the great 
 waters and returns with a golden 
 argosy. 
 
 The subject of the book does not 
 enter into the matter, and on sub- 
 jects the bookman is very catholic, 
 and has an orthodox horror of all 
 sects. He does not require Mr. 
 Froude's delightful apology to win 
 the PiJg7ims Pr'ogress a place on his 
 shelf, because, although the bookman 
 may be far removed from Puritanism, 
 yet he knows that Bunyan had the 
 secret of English style, and although 
 he may be as far from Romanism, 
 yet he must needs have his A'Kempis 
 (especially in Pickering's edition of 
 1828), and when he places the two 
 books side by side in the department 
 of religion, he has a standing regret 
 
 17 K
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 that there is no Pilgrijiis Progress 
 
 also in Pickering. 
 
 Without a complete Milton he 
 
 could not be content. He would 
 
 like to have Masson's Life too in 
 
 6 vols, (with index), and he is apt 
 
 to consider the great Puritan's prose 
 
 still finer than his poetry, and will 
 
 often take down the Areopagitica 
 
 that he may breathe the air of high 
 
 latitudes ; but he has a corner in 
 
 his heart for that evil living and 
 
 mendacious bravo, but most perfect 
 
 artist, Benvenuto Cellini. While he 
 
 counts Gibbon's Rome, I mean the 
 
 Smith and Milman edition in 8 vols., 
 
 blue cloth, the very model of histories, 
 
 yet he revels in those books which 
 
 are the material for historians, the 
 
 scattered stones out of which he 
 
 builds his house, such as the diaries 
 
 of John Evelyn and our gossip Pepys, 
 
 18
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 and that scandalous book, Grammont'' s 
 Memoirs, and that most credulous 
 but interesting of Scots annalists, 
 Robert Wodrow. 
 
 According to the bookman, but 
 not, I am sorry to say, in popular 
 judgment, the most toothsome kind 
 of literature is the Essay, and you 
 will find close to his hand a dainty 
 volume of Lamb open perhaps at 
 that charming paper on " Imperfect 
 Sympathies," and though the book- 
 man be a Scot yet his palate is 
 pleasantly tickled by Lamb's descrip- 
 tion of his national character — Lamb 
 and the Scots did not am-ee through 
 an incompatibility of humour — and 
 near by he keeps his Hazlitt, whom 
 he sometimes considers the most 
 virile writer of the century : nor 
 would he be quite happy unless he 
 
 could find in the dark The Autocrat 
 
 19
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 of the Breakfast Table, He is much 
 
 indebted to a London publisher for a 
 
 very careful edition of the Spectator, 
 
 and still more to that good bookman, 
 
 Mr. Austin Dobson, for his admirable 
 
 introduction. As the bookman's 
 
 father was also a bookman, for the 
 
 blessing descendeth unto the third 
 
 and fourth generation, he was early 
 
 taught to love De Quincey, and 
 
 although, being a truthful man, he 
 
 cannot swear he has read every 
 
 page in all the fifteen volumes — rox- 
 
 burghe calf — yet he knows his way 
 
 about in that whimsical, discursive, 
 
 but ever satisfying writer, who will 
 
 write on anything, or any person, 
 
 always with freshness and in good 
 
 English, from the character of Judas 
 
 Iscariot and " Murder as a Fine Art " 
 
 to the Lake Poets — there never was 
 
 a Lake school — and the Essenes. 
 
 20
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 He has much to say on Homer, 
 
 and a good deal also on "Flogging 
 
 in Schools " ; he can hardly let go 
 
 Immanuel Kant, but if he does it 
 
 is to give his views, which are not 
 
 favourable, of Wilhelm Meister ; he 
 
 is not above considering the art of 
 
 cooking potatoes or the question 
 
 of whether human beings once had 
 
 tails, and in his theological moods he 
 
 will expound St. John's Epistles, or 
 
 the principles of Christianity. The 
 
 bookman, in fact, is a quite illogical 
 
 and irresponsible being, who dare not 
 
 claim that he searches for accurate 
 
 information in his books as for fine 
 
 gold, and he has been known to say 
 
 that that department of books of 
 
 various kinds which come under the 
 
 head of " what's what," and *' why's 
 
 why," and "where's where," are not 
 
 literature. He does not care, and 
 
 21
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 that may be foolish, whether he 
 agrees with the writer, and there are 
 times when he does not inquire too 
 curiously whether the writer be re- 
 spectable, which is very wrong, but 
 he is pleased if this man who died a 
 year ago or three hundred years has 
 seen something with his own eyes 
 and can tell him what he saw in words 
 that still have in them the breath 
 of life, and he will go with cheer- 
 ful inconsequence from Chaucer, the 
 jolliest of all book companions, and 
 Rabelais — although that brilliant sa- 
 tirist had pages which the bookman 
 avoids, because they make his gorge 
 rise — to Don Quixote. If he carries 
 a Horace, Pickering's little gem, 
 in his waistcoat pocket, and some- 
 times pictures that genial Roman 
 club-man in the Savile, he has none 
 the less an appetite for Marcus Au-
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 relius. The bookman has a series of 
 love affairs before he is captured and 
 settles down, say, with his favourite 
 novel, and even after he is a middle- 
 aged married man he must confess to 
 one or two book friendships which are 
 perilous to his inflammable heart. 
 
 In the days of calf love every boy 
 has first tasted the sweetness of litera- 
 ture in two of the best novels ever 
 written, as well as two of the best 
 pieces of good English. One is Robin- 
 son Crusoe and the other the Pilgrim'' s 
 Progress. Both were written by 
 masters of our tongue, and they re- 
 main until this day the purest and 
 most appetising introduction to the 
 book passion. They created two 
 worlds of adventure with minute vivid 
 details and constant surprises — the 
 foot on the sand, for instance, in 
 
 Cf^usoe, and the valley of the shadow 
 
 23
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 with the hobgobhn in Pilgrims Pro- 
 gress — and one will have a tenderness 
 for these two first loves even until 
 the end. Afterwards one went afield 
 and sometimes got into queer com- 
 pany, not bad but simply a little 
 common. There was an endless series 
 of Red Indian stories in my school- 
 days, wherein trappers could track the 
 enemy by a broken blade of grass, 
 and the enemy escaped by coming 
 down the river under a log, and the 
 price was sixpence each. We used 
 to pass the tuck-shop at school for 
 three days on end in order that 
 we might possess Leaping Deer^ the 
 Shawnee Spy. We toadied shame- 
 fully to the owner of Butts Eye Joe^ 
 who, we understood, had been the 
 sole protection of a frontier state. 
 Again and again have I tried to find 
 
 one of those early friends, and in 
 
 24
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 many places have I inquired, but my 
 humble companions have disappeared 
 and left no signs, like country chil- 
 dren one played with in holiday 
 times. 
 
 It appears, however, that I have 
 not been the only lover of the trapper 
 stories, nor the only one who has 
 missed his friends, for I received a 
 letter not lonof ago from a bookman 
 telling me that he had seen my com- 
 plaint somewhere, and sending me 
 the Frontier Angel on loan strictly 
 that I might have an hour's sinless 
 enjoyment. He also said he was on 
 the track of Bill Bidden, another 
 famous trapper, and hoped to send 
 me word that Bill was found, whose 
 original value was sixpence, but for 
 whom this bookman was now pre- 
 pared to pay gold. One, of course, 
 
 does not mean that the Indian and 
 
 25
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 trapper stories had the same claim to 
 be Hterature as the Pilgrims Pro- 
 gress, for, be it said with reverence, 
 there was not much distinction in the 
 style, or art in the narrative, but they 
 were romances, and their subjects 
 suited boys, who are barbarians, and 
 there are moments when we are bar- 
 barians again, and above all things 
 these tales bring back the days of 
 long ago. It was later that one fell 
 under tlie power of two more mature 
 and exacting charmers, Mayne Reid's 
 IRifie Rangers and Dumas' Monte 
 Christo. The Rangers has vanished 
 with many another possession of the 
 past, but I still retain in a grateful 
 memory the scene where Rube, the 
 Indian fighter, who is supposed to 
 have perished in a prairie fire and is 
 being mourned by the hero, emerges 
 with much humour from the inside 
 
 of a buffalo which was lying dead 
 
 26
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 upon the plain, and rails at the idea 
 that he could be wiped out so easily. 
 Whether imagination has been at 
 work or not 1 do not know, but that 
 is how my memory has it now, and 
 to this day I count that resurrection 
 a piece of most fetching work. 
 
 Rambling through a bookshop a 
 few months ago I lighted on a copy 
 of Monte Christ o and bought it 
 greedily, for there was a railway 
 journey before me. It is a critical 
 experiment to meet a love of early 
 days after the years have come and 
 gone. This stout and very conven- 
 tional woman — the mother of thirteen 
 children — could she have been the 
 black-eyed, slim girl to whom you 
 and a dozen other lads lost their 
 hearts ? On the whole, one would 
 rather have cherished the former por- 
 trait and not have seen the original 
 
 in her last estate. It was therefore 
 
 27
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 with a flutter of delight that one 
 found in this case the old charm as 
 fresh as ever — meaning, of course, the 
 prison escape with its amazing inge- 
 nuity and breathless interest. 
 
 When one had lost his bashfulness 
 and could associate with grown-up 
 books, then he was admitted to the 
 company of Scott, and Thackeary, 
 and Dickens, who were and are, as 
 far as one can see, to be the leaders 
 of society. My fond recollection 
 goes back to an evening in the early 
 sixties when a father read to his boy 
 the first three chapters of the Pick- 
 wick Pape7\s from the green- coloured 
 parts, and it is a bitter regret that in 
 some clearance of books that precious 
 Pickwick was allowed to go, as is 
 supposed, with a lot of pamphlets on 
 Church and State, to the great gain 
 
 of an unscrupulous dealer. 
 
 28
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 The editions of Scott are now in- 
 numerable, each more tempting than 
 the other ; but affection turns back 
 to the old red and white, in forty-eight 
 volumes, wherein one first fell under 
 the magician's spell. Thackeray, for 
 some reason I cannot recall, unless it 
 were a prejudice in our home, I did 
 not read in youth, but since then I 
 have never escaped from the fascina- 
 tion of Vanity Fair and The New- 
 comes, and another about which I am 
 to speak. What giants there were 
 in the old days, when an average 
 Englishman, tried by some business 
 worry, would say, "Never mind, 
 Thackeray's new book will be out 
 to-morrow." They stand, these three 
 sets, Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens, 
 the very heart of one's library of 
 fiction. Wearied by sex novels, 
 
 problem novels, theological novels, 
 
 29
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 and all the other novels with a pur- 
 pose, one returns to the shelf and 
 takes down a volume from this circle, 
 not because one has not read it, but 
 because one has read it thirty times 
 and wishes for sheer pleasure's sake 
 to read it again. Just as a tired man 
 throws off his dress coat and slips on 
 an old study jacket, so one lays down 
 the latest thoughtful, or intense, or 
 something worse pseudo work of 
 fiction, and is at ease with an old 
 gossip who is ever wise and cheery, 
 who never preaches and yet gives 
 one a fillip of goodness. Among the 
 masters one must give a foremost 
 place to Balzac, who strikes one as 
 the master of the art in French 
 literature. It is amazing that in his 
 own day he was not appreciated at 
 his full value, and that it was really 
 
 left to time to discover and vindicate 
 
 SO 
 
 &
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 his position. He is the true founder 
 of the reahstic school in everything 
 wherein that school deserves respect, 
 and has been loyal to art. He is also 
 certain to maintain his hold and be 
 an example to writers after many 
 modern realists have been utterly 
 and justly forgotten. 
 
 Two books from the shelf of fiction 
 are taken down and read once a year 
 by a certain bookman from beginning 
 to end, and in this matter he is now 
 in the position of a INIohammedan 
 converted to Christianity, who is ad- 
 vised by the missionary to choose 
 one of his two wives to have and to 
 hold as a lawful spouse. When one 
 has given his heart to Henrij Esmond 
 and the Heart of 31idlothia}i he is in 
 a strait, and begins to doubt the 
 expediency of literary monogamy. 
 
 Of course, if it go by technique and 
 
 31
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 finish, then Esmond has it, which 
 from first to last in conception and 
 execution is an altogether lovely 
 book ; and if it go by heroes — 
 Esmond and Butler — then again 
 there is no comparison, for the grand- 
 son of Cromwell's trooper was a very 
 wearisome, pedantic, grey - coloured 
 Puritan in whom one cannot affect 
 the slightest interest. How poorly 
 he compares with Henry Esmond, 
 who was slow and diffident, but a 
 very brave, chivalrous, single-hearted, 
 modest gentleman, such as Thackeray 
 loved to describe. Were it not heresy 
 to our Lady Castlewood, whom all 
 must love and serve, it also comes to 
 one that Henry and Beatrix would 
 have made a complete pair if she had 
 put some assurance in him and he had 
 installed some principle into her, and 
 
 Henry Esmond might have married 
 
 32
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 his young kinswoman had he been 
 more masterful and self-confident. 
 Thackeray takes us to a larger and 
 gayer scene than Scott's Edinburgh 
 of narrow streets and gloomy jails 
 and working people and old-world 
 theology, but yet it may be after all 
 Scott is stronger. No bit of history, 
 for instance, in Esmond takes such a 
 grip of the imagination as the story 
 of the Porteous mob. After a single 
 reading one carries that night scene 
 etched for ever in his memory. The 
 sullen, ruthless crowd of dour Scots, 
 the grey rugged houses lit up by the 
 glare of the torches, the irresistible 
 storming of the Tolbooth, the abject 
 helplessness of Porteous in the hands 
 of his enemies, the austere and judi- 
 cial self-restraint of the people, who 
 did their work as those who were 
 
 serving justice, their care to provide 
 
 33 c
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 a minister for the criminars last de- 
 votions, and their quiet dispersal after 
 the execution — all this remains unto 
 to-day the most powerful descrip- 
 tion of lynch law in fiction. The 
 very strength of old Edinburgh and 
 of the Scots-folk is in the Heart of 
 3Iidlothian. The rivalry, however, 
 between these two books must be 
 decided by the heroine, and it seems 
 dangerous to the lover of Scott to let 
 Thackeray's fine lady stand side by 
 side with our plain peasant girl, yet 
 soul for soul which was greater, 
 Rachel of Castlewood or Jeanie 
 Deans ? Lady Castlewood must be 
 taken at the chief moment in Esmond, 
 when she says to Esmond : " To-day, 
 Henry, in the anthem when they 
 sang, ' When the Lord turned the 
 captivity of Zion we were like them 
 
 that dream' — I thought, yes, like 
 
 34
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 them that dream, and then it went, 
 ' They that sow in tears shall reap in 
 joy ; and he that goeth forth and 
 weepeth, shall doubtless come again 
 with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves 
 with him.' I looked up from the 
 book and saw you ; I was not sur- 
 prised when I saw you, I knew you 
 would come, my dear, and I saw the 
 gold sunshine round your head." 
 
 That she said as she laughed and 
 sobbed, crying out wildly, " Bringing 
 your sheaves with you, your sheaves 
 with you." And this again, as 
 Esmond thinks of her, is surely 
 beaten gold. " Gracious God, who 
 was he, weak and friendless creature, 
 that such a love should be poured 
 out upon him ; not in vain, not in 
 vain has he lived that such a treasure 
 be given him ? What is ambition 
 
 compared to that but selfish vanity ? 
 
 35
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 To be rich, to be famous : what do 
 these profit a year hence when other 
 names sound louder than yours, when 
 you he hidden away under the 
 ground along with the idle titles 
 engraven on your coffin ? Only true 
 love lives after you, follows your 
 memory with secret blessing or pre- 
 cedes you and intercedes for you. 
 ' Non omnis moriar ' — if dying I yet 
 live in a tender heart or two, nor 
 am lost and hopeless living, if a 
 sainted departed soul still loves and 
 prays for me." This seems to me 
 the second finest passage in English 
 fiction, and the finest is when Jeanie 
 Deans went to London and pleaded 
 with the Queen for the life of her 
 condemned sister, for is there any 
 plea in all literature so eloquent in 
 pathos and so true to human nature 
 
 as this, when the Scottish peasant 
 
 36
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 girl poured forth her heart : " AVhen 
 the hour of trouble comes to the 
 mind or to the body — and seldom 
 may it visit your ladyship — and when 
 the hour of death that comes to high 
 and low — lang and late may it be 
 yours — oh, my lady, then it is na' 
 what we hae dune for oursels but 
 what we hae dune for ithers that 
 we think on maist pleasantly. And 
 the thouglit that ye hae intervened 
 to spare the puir thing's life will be 
 sweeter in that hour, come when it 
 may, than if a word of your mouth 
 could hang the haill Porteous mob 
 at the tail of ae tow." Jeanie Deans 
 is the strongest woman in the gallery 
 of Scott, and an embodiment of all 
 that is sober, and strong, and con- 
 scientious, and passionate in Scotch 
 nature. 
 
 The bookman has indeed no trouble 
 37 
 
 S^76CJ37
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 arranging his gossips in his mind, 
 where they hold good fellowship, 
 but he is careful to keep them apart 
 upon his bookshelves, and when he 
 comes home after an absence and 
 finds his study has been tidied, which 
 in the feminine mind means putting 
 things in order, and to the bookman 
 general anarchy (it was the real reason 
 Eve was put out of Eden), when he 
 comes home, I say, and finds that 
 happy but indecorous rascal Boc- 
 caccio, holding his very sides for 
 laughter, between Lecky's History 
 of European Morals and Law's 
 Serious Call, both admirable books, 
 then the bookman is much exhilar- 
 ated. Because of the mischief that 
 is in him he will not relieve those 
 two excellent men of that disgrace- 
 ful Italian's company for a little 
 
 space, but if he finds that the domes- 
 
 38
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 tic sprite has thrust a Puritan be- 
 tween two Anglican theologians he 
 effects a separation without delay, for 
 a religious controversy with its din 
 and clatter is more than he can bear. 
 The bookman is indeed perpetually 
 engaged in his form of spring clean- 
 ing, which is rearranging his books, 
 and is always hoping to square the 
 circle, in both collecting the books 
 of one department together, and also 
 having his books in equal sizes. 
 After a brief glance at a folio and 
 an octavo side by side he gives up 
 that attempt, but although he may 
 have to be content to see his large 
 Augustine, Benedictine edition, in 
 the same row with Bayle's Dic- 
 tionary, he does not like it and com- 
 forts himself by thrusting in between, 
 as a kind of mediator, Spotswood's 
 
 Histoj'y of the Church of Scotland 
 
 39
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 with Burnett's Memoirs oftJie Dukes 
 of Hamilton, that edition which has 
 the rare portrait of Charles I. by 
 Faithorne. He will be all his life 
 rearranging, and so comes to under- 
 stand how it is that women spend 
 forenoons of delight in box rooms or 
 store closets, and are happiest when 
 everything is turned upside down. 
 It is a slow business, rearrangement, 
 for one cannot flit a book bound after 
 the taste of Grolier, with graceful 
 interlacement and wealth of small 
 ornaments, without going to the 
 window and lingering for a moment 
 over the glorious art, and one cannot 
 handle a Compleat Angler without 
 tasting again some favourite passage. 
 It is days before five shelves are re- 
 constructed, days of unmixed dehght, 
 a perpetual whirl of gaiety, as if one 
 
 had been at a conversazione, where 
 
 40
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 all kinds of famous people whom you 
 had known afar had been gathered 
 together and you had spoken to each 
 as if he had been the friend of your 
 boyhood. It is in fact a time of 
 reminiscences, when the two of you, 
 the other being Sir Thomas Browne, 
 or Goldsmith, or Scott, or Thackeray, 
 go over passages together which con- 
 tain the sweetest recollections of the 
 past. When the bookman reads the 
 various suggestions for a holiday 
 which are encouraged in the daily 
 newspapers for commercial purposes 
 about the month of July, he is vastly 
 amused by their futility, and often 
 thinks of pointing out the only holi- 
 day which is perfectly satisfying. 
 It is to have a week without letters 
 and without visitors, with no work 
 to do, and no hours, either for rising 
 
 up or lying down, and to spend the 
 
 41
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 week in a library, his own, of course, 
 by preference, opening out by a level 
 window into an old-fashioned garden 
 where the roses are in full bloom, 
 and to wander as he pleases from 
 flower to flower where the spirit of 
 the books and the fragrance of the 
 roses mingle in one delight. 
 
 Times there are when he would 
 like to hold a meeting of bookmen, 
 each of whom should be a mighty 
 hunter, and he would dare to invite 
 Cosmo Medici, who was as keen 
 about books as he was about com- 
 merce, and according to Gibbon used 
 to import Indian spices and Greek 
 books by the same vessel, and that 
 admirable Bishop of Durham who was 
 as joyful on reaching Paris as the 
 Jewish pilgrim was when he went 
 to Sion, because of the books that 
 
 were there. " O Blessed God of 
 
 42
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 Gods, what ii rush of the glow of 
 Pleasure rejoiced our hearts, as often 
 as we visited Paris, the Paradise of 
 the World ! There we long to re- 
 main, where on account of the great- 
 ness of our love the days ever appear 
 to us to be few. There are delight- 
 ful libraries in cells redolent with 
 aromatics, there flourishing green- 
 houses of all sorts of volumes, there 
 academic meads, trembling with the 
 earthquake of Athenian Peripatetics 
 pacing up and down, there the pro- 
 montory of Parnassus and the Porti- 
 coes of the Stoics." The Duke of 
 Roxburghe and Earl Spencer, two 
 gallant sportsmen whose spoils have 
 enriched the land ; Monkbarns also, 
 though we will not let him bring 
 any antiquities with him, jagged or 
 otherwise ; and Charles Lamb, whom 
 
 we shall coax into telling over again 
 
 43
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 how he started out at ten o'clock on 
 Saturday night and roused up old 
 Barker in Covent Garden, and came 
 home in triumph with "that folio 
 Beaumont and Fletcher," going forth 
 almost in tears lest the book should 
 be gone, and coming home rejoicing, 
 carrying his sheaf with him. Be- 
 sides, whether Bodley and Dibdin like 
 it or not, we must have a Royalty, 
 for there were Queens who collected, 
 and also on occasions stole books, 
 and though she be not the greatest 
 of the Queenly bookwomen and did 
 not steal, we shall invite Mary Queen 
 of Scots, while she is living in Holy- 
 rood, and has her library beside her. 
 Mary had a fine collection of books 
 well chosen and beautifully bound, 
 and as I look now at the catalogue 
 it seems to me a library more learned 
 
 than is likely to be found even in the 
 
 44
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 study of an advanced young woman 
 of to-day. A Book of Devotion 
 which was said to have belonged to 
 her and afterwards to a Pope, glori- 
 ously bound, I was once allowed to 
 look upon, but did not buy, because 
 the price was marked in plain figures 
 at a thousand guineas. It would be 
 something to sit in a corner and liear 
 Monkbarns and Charles Lamb com- 
 paring notes, and to watch for the 
 moment when Lamb would with- 
 draw all he had said against the 
 Scots people, or Earl Spencer de- 
 scribing with delight to the Duke of 
 Roxburghe the battle of Sale. But 
 1 will sfuarantee that the whole com- 
 pany of bookworms would end in 
 paying tribute to that intelligent and 
 very fascinating young woman from 
 Holyrood, who still turns men's 
 
 heads across the stretch of centuries. 
 
 45
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 For even a bookman has got a 
 
 heart. 
 
 Like most diseases the mania for 
 
 books is hereditary, and if the father 
 
 is touched with it the son can hardly 
 
 escape, and it is not even necessary 
 
 that the son should have known his 
 
 father. For Sainte-Beuve's father 
 
 died when he was an infant and his 
 
 mother had no book tastes, but his 
 
 father left him his books with many 
 
 comments on the margins, and the 
 
 book microbe was conveyed by the 
 
 pages. " I was born," said the great 
 
 critic in the Consolations, " I was 
 
 born in a time of mourning ; my 
 
 cradle rested on a coffin . . . my 
 
 father left me his soul, mind, and 
 
 taste written on every margin of his 
 
 books." When a boy grows up 
 
 beside his father and his father is in 
 
 the last stages of the book disease, 
 
 46
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 there is hardly any power which can 
 save that son, unless the mother be 
 robustly illiterate, in which case the 
 crossing of the blood may make him 
 impervious. For a father of this 
 kind will unconsciously inoculate his 
 boy, allowing him to play beside him 
 in the bookroom, where the air is 
 charged with germs (against which 
 there is no disinfectant, I believe, 
 except commercial conversation), and 
 when the child is weary of his toys 
 will give him an old book of travels, 
 with quaint pictures which never de- 
 part from the memory. By and by, 
 so thoughtless is this invalid father, 
 who has suffered enough, surely, 
 himself from this disease, that he will 
 allow his boy to open parcels of 
 books, reeking with infection, and 
 explain to him the rarity of a certain 
 
 first edition, or show him the thick- 
 
 47
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 ness of the paper and the glory of 
 the black-letter in an ancient book. 
 Afterwards, when the boy himself 
 has taken ill and begun on his own 
 account to prowl through the smaller 
 bookstalls, his father will listen 
 greedily to the stories he has to 
 tell in the evening, and will chuckle 
 aloud when one day the poor victim 
 of this deadly illness comes home 
 with a newspaper of the time of 
 Charles II., which he has bought for 
 threepence. It is only a question of 
 time when that lad, being now on an 
 allowance of his own, will be going 
 about in a suit of disgracefully shabby 
 tweeds, that he may purchase a 
 Theophrastus of fine print and bind- 
 ing upon which he has long had his 
 eye, and will be taking milk and 
 bread for his lunch in the city, be- 
 cause he has a foolish ambition to 
 
 48
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 acquire by a year's saving the Kelm- 
 scott edition of the Golden Legend. 
 A change of air might cure him, as 
 for instance twenty years' residence 
 on an American ranch, but even 
 then on his return the disease might 
 break out again : indeed the chances 
 are strong that he is really incurable. 
 Last vi^eek I saw such a case — the 
 bookman of the second generation in 
 a certain shop where such unfortu- 
 nates collect. For an hour he had 
 been there browsing along the shelves, 
 his hat tilted back upon his head 
 that he might hold the books the 
 nearer to his eyes, and an umbrella 
 under his left arm, projecting awk- 
 wardly, which he had not laid down, 
 because he did not intend to stay 
 more than two minutes, and knew 
 indeed, as the father of a family, that 
 
 he ought not to be there at all. He 
 
 49 D
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 often drops in, for this is not one 
 of those stores where a tradesman 
 hurries forward to ask what you 
 want and offers you the last novel 
 which has captivated the juicy British 
 palate ; the bookman regards such 
 a place with the same feeling that 
 a physician has to a patent drug 
 store. The dealer in this place so 
 loved his books that he almost pre- 
 ferred a customer who knew them 
 above one who bought them, and 
 honestly felt a pang when a choice 
 book was sold. Never can I forget 
 what the great Quaritch said to me 
 when he was showing me the inner 
 shrine of his treasure-house, and I 
 felt it honest to explain that I could 
 only look, lest he should think me 
 an impostor. " I would sooner show 
 such books to a man that loved them 
 though he couldn't buy them, than 
 
 a man who gave me my price and 
 
 50
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 didn't know what he had got." 
 With this sHght anecdote I would 
 in passing pay the tribute of book- 
 men to the chief hunter of big game 
 in our day. 
 
 When the bookman is a family 
 man, and I have sometimes doubts 
 whether he ought not to be a celibate 
 like missionaries of religion and other 
 persons called to special devotion, he 
 has of course to battle against his 
 temptation, and his struggles are 
 very pathetic. The parallel between 
 dipsomania and bibliomania is very 
 close and suggestive, and I have often 
 thought that more should be made 
 of it. It is the wife who in both 
 cases is usually the sufferer and good 
 angel, and under her happy influence 
 the bookman will sometimes take the 
 pledge, and for him, it is needless 
 to say, there is only one cure. He 
 
 cannot be a moderate drinker, for 
 
 51
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 there is no possibility of moderation, 
 and if he is to be saved he must 
 become a total abstainer. He must 
 sign the pledge, and the pledge must 
 be made of a solemn character with 
 witnesses, say his poor afflicted wife 
 and some intelligent self-made Philis- 
 tine. Perhaps it might run like this : 
 " I, A. B., do hereby promise that I 
 will never buy a classical book in any 
 tongue, or any book in a rare edition ; 
 that I will never spend money on 
 books in tree- calf or tooled morocco ; 
 that I shall never enter a real old 
 bookshop, but should it be necessary 
 shall purchase my books at a dry 
 goods store, and there shall never buy 
 anything but the cheapest religious 
 literature, or occasionally a popular 
 story for my wife, and to this promise 
 I solemnly set my hand." With the 
 ruin of his family before his eyes, 
 
 or at least, let us say, the disgraceful 
 
 52
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 condition of the dining-room carpet, 
 he intends to keep his word, and for 
 a whole fortnight will not allow him- 
 self to enter the street of his favour- 
 ite bookshop. Next week, however, 
 business, so he says at least, takes 
 him down the street, but he re- 
 members the danger, and makes a 
 brave effort to pass a public-house. 
 The mischief of the thing, however, 
 is that there is another public-house 
 in the street and passing it whets the 
 latent appetite, and when he is making 
 a brave dash past his own, some poor 
 inebriate, coming out reluctantly, 
 holds the door open, and the smell 
 is too much for his new-born virtue. 
 He will go in just for a moment to 
 pass the time of day with his friend 
 the publican and see his last brand 
 of books, but not to buy — I mean to 
 drink — and then he comes across 
 
 a little volume, the smallest and 
 
 53
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 slimmest of volumes, a mere trifle of a 
 thing, and not dear, but a thing which 
 does not often turn up, and which 
 would just round off his collection at 
 a particular point. It is only a mere 
 taste, not downright drinking ; but 
 ah me, it sets him on fire again, and I 
 who had seen him go in and then by 
 a providence have met his wife com- 
 ing out from buying that carpet, told 
 her where her husband was, and saw 
 her go to fetch him. Among the 
 touching incidents of life, none comes 
 nearer me than to see the bookman's 
 wife pleading with him to remember 
 his (once) prosperous home and his 
 (almost) starving children. And in- 
 deed if there be any other as entirely 
 affecting in this province, it is the 
 triumphant cunning with which the 
 bookman will smuggle a suspicious 
 brown paper parcel into his study at 
 
 an hour when his wife is out, or the 
 
 54
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 effrontery with which he will declare 
 
 when caught, that the books have 
 
 been sent unbeknown to him, and he 
 
 supposes merely for his examination. 
 
 For, like drink, this fearsome disease 
 
 eats into the very fibre of character, 
 
 so that its victim will practise tricks 
 
 to obtain books in advance of a rival 
 
 collector, and will tell the most 
 
 mendacious stories about what he 
 
 paid for them. 
 
 Should he desire a book, and it be 
 
 not a king's ransom, there is no 
 
 sacrifice he will not make to obtain 
 
 it. His modest glass of Burgundy 
 
 he will cheerfully surrender, and if he 
 
 ever travelled by any higher class, 
 
 which is not likely, he will now go 
 
 third, and his topcoat he will make to 
 
 last another year, and I do not say he 
 
 will not smoke, but a cigar will now 
 
 leave him unmoved. Yes, and if he 
 
 gets a chance to do an extra piece of 
 
 55
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 writing, between 12 and 2 a.m., he 
 will clutch at the opportunity, and 
 all that he saves, he will calculate 
 shilling by shilling, and the book he 
 purchases with the complete price — 
 that is the price to which he has 
 brought down the seller after two 
 days' negotiations — anxious yet joy- 
 ful days — will be all the dearer to 
 him for his self-denial. He has also 
 anodynes for his conscience when he 
 seems to be wronging his afflicted 
 family, for is he not gathering the 
 best of legacies for his sons, some- 
 thing which will make their houses 
 rich for ever, or if things come to the 
 worst cannot his collection be sold 
 and all he has expended be restored 
 with usury, which in passing I may 
 say is a vain dream ? But at any rate, 
 if other men spend money on dinners 
 and on sport, on carved furniture 
 
 and gay clothing, may he not also 
 
 56
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 have one luxury in life ? His con- 
 science, however, does give painful 
 twinges, and he will leave the Pines 
 Horace, which he has been handling 
 delicately for three weeks, in hopeless 
 admiration of its marvellous typo- 
 graphy, and be outside the door 
 before a happy thought strikes him, 
 and he returns to buy it, after thirty 
 minutes' bargaining, with perfect 
 confidence and a sense of personal 
 generosity. What gave him this 
 relief and now suffuses his very soul 
 with charity ? It was a date which 
 for the moment he had forgotten and 
 which has occurred most fortunately. 
 To-morrow will be the birthday of a 
 man whom he has known all his days 
 and more intimately than any other 
 person, and although he has not so 
 high an idea of the man as the world 
 is good enough to hold, and although 
 he has often quarrelled with him and 
 
 57
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 called him shocking names — which 
 tomcats would be ashamed of — yet 
 he has at the bottom a sneaking 
 fondness for the fellow, and some- 
 times hopes he is not quite so bad 
 after all. One thing is certain, the 
 rascal loves a good book and likes to 
 have it when he can, and perhaps it 
 will make him a better man to show 
 that he has been remembered and 
 that one person at least believes in 
 him, and so the bookman orders that 
 delightful treasure to be sent to his 
 own address in order that next day 
 he may present it — as a birthday 
 present — to himself. 
 
 Concerning tastes in pleasure there 
 can be no final judgment, but for 
 the bookman it may be said, beyond 
 any other sportsman, he has the 
 most constant satisfaction, for to 
 him there is no close season, except 
 
 the spring cleaning which he furi- 
 
 58
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 ously resents, and only allows once 
 in five years, and his autumn holi- 
 day, when he takes some six handy 
 volumes with him. For him there 
 are no hindrances of weather, for if 
 the day be sunshine he taketh his plea- 
 sure in a garden, and if the day be sleet 
 of March the fireside is the dearer, 
 while there is a certain volume — 
 Payne's binding, red morocco, a 
 favourite colour of his — and the 
 bookman reads Don Qiticcotc with 
 the more relish because the snow- 
 drift is beating on the window. 
 During the hours of the day when 
 he is visiting patients, who tell their 
 symptoms at intolerable length, or 
 dictating letters about corn, or com- 
 posing sermons, which will not al- 
 ways run, the bookman is thinking 
 of the quiet hour which will lengthen 
 into one hundred and eighty minutes, 
 
 when he shall have his reward, the 
 
 59
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 kindliest for which a man can work 
 or hope to get. He will spend the 
 time in the good company of people 
 who will not quarrel with him, nor 
 will he quarrel with them. Some 
 of them of high estate and some ex- 
 tremely low ; some of them learned 
 persons and some of them simple, 
 country men. For while the book- 
 man counteth it his chief honour 
 and singular privilege to hold con- 
 verse with Virgil and Dante, with 
 Shakespeare and Bacon, and such- 
 like nobility, yet is he very happy 
 with Bailie Nicol Jarvie and Dandie 
 Dinmont, with Mr. Micawber and 
 Mrs. Gamp ; he is proud when Diana 
 Vernon comes to his room, and he 
 has a chair for Colonel Newcome ; 
 he likes to hear Coleridge preach, 
 who, as Lamb said, " never did any- 
 thing else," and is much flattered 
 
 when Browning tries to explain what 
 
 60
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 he meant in Paracelsus. It repays 
 one for much worry when AViUiam 
 Blake not only reads his Songs of 
 Innocence but also shows his own 
 illustrations, and he turns to his life 
 of Michael Angelo with the better 
 understanding after he has read what 
 Michael Angelo wrote to Vittoria 
 Colonna. He that hath such friends, 
 grave or gay, needeth not to care 
 whether he be rich or poor, whether 
 he know great folk or they pass him 
 by, for he is independent of society 
 and all its whims, and almost indepen- 
 dent of circumstances. His friends 
 of this circle will never play him false 
 nor ever take the pet. If he does 
 not wish their company they are 
 silent, and then when he turns to 
 them again there is no difference in 
 the welcome, for they maintain an 
 equal mind and are ever in good 
 
 humour. As he comes in tired and 
 
 61
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 possibly upset by smaller people they 
 receive him in a kindly fashion, and 
 in the firelight their familiar faces 
 make his heart glad. Once I stood 
 in Emerson's room, and I saw the 
 last words that he wrote, the pad on 
 which he wrote them, and the pen 
 with which they were written, and 
 the words are these : " The Book is 
 a sure friend, always ready at your 
 first leisure, opens to the very page 
 you desire, and shuts at your first 
 fatigue." 
 
 As the bookman grows old and 
 many of his pleasures cease, he thanks 
 God for one which grows the richer 
 for the years and never fades. He 
 pities those who have not this retreat 
 from the weariness of life, nor this 
 quiet place in which to sit when the 
 sun is setting. By the mellow wis- 
 dom of his books and the immortal 
 
 hope of the greater writers, he is kept 
 
 62
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 from peevishness and discontent, from 
 bigotry and despair. Certain books 
 grow dearer to him with the years, 
 so that their pages are worn brown 
 and thin, and he hopes with a 
 Birmingham book-lover, Dr. Showell 
 Rogers, whose dream has been ful- 
 filled, that Heaven, having a place 
 for each true man, may be " a book- 
 man's paradise, where early black- 
 lettered tomes, rare and stately, first 
 folios of Shakespeare, tall copies of 
 the right editions of the Elzevirs, 
 and vellumed volumes galore, un- 
 cropped, uncut, and unfoxed in all 
 their verdant pureness, fresh as when 
 they left the presses of the Aldi, are 
 to be had for the asking." Between 
 this man at least and his books there 
 will be no separation this side the 
 grave, but his gratitude to them and 
 his devotion will ever grow and their 
 
 ministries to him be ever dearer, 
 
 63
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN 
 
 especially that Book of books which 
 has been the surest guide of the 
 human soul. " While I live," says 
 one who both wrote and loved books 
 and was numbered among our finest 
 critics, "while I live and think, nothing 
 can deprive me of my value for such 
 treasures. I can help the appre- 
 ciation of them while I last and love 
 them till I die, and perhaps if for- 
 tune turns her face once more in 
 kindness upon me before I go, I may 
 chance, some quiet day, to lay my 
 overheating temples on a book, and 
 so have the death I most envy." 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 Edinburgh & London
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 ^m 
 
 \^^ 
 
 
 Form L-9-20m-8,'37 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 IBRARY FACILITY 
 
 z 
 
 1003 
 
 W33b