GIFT OF 
 A. P. Morrison 
 
 LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 
BY EUGENE FIELD 
 
 Secono JBoofc of Uales. 
 
 Songs ano tber Deree. 
 
 "Cbe Ibols Gross ano tber Uales. 
 
 "Cbe Ifoouse. 
 
 Ube %ovc Hffairs of a JBibliomaniac. 
 
 B Xittle JSoof? of iprofitable "Calcs. 
 
 B little ffiooft of "Cacstcrn Dersc. 
 
 Scco^ 36ooft of Dcrse. 
 
 Each, i vol., i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 B little 36oofc of profitable Uales. 
 
 Cameo Edition with etched portrait. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Ecbocs from tbe Sabine jfarm. 
 4to, $2.00. 
 
 IClitb Urumpet anb S)rum. 
 
 i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 love Songs of Gbiloboofc. 
 i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 Songs of Cbil&booo. 
 
 Verses by EUGENE FIELD. Music by REGINALD 
 DK KOVEN, and others. Small 4to, $2.00 net. 
 
lote 
 
 OF 
 
 A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
Lobe 
 
 OF 
 
 A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 BY 
 
 EUGENE FIELD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1896 
 
F- 
 
 LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 igli x8qb 
 
 y JLL/A SUTHERLAND FIELD 
 
 GIFT OF 
 A. P. Wom son 
 
Sfntrotwction 
 
 THE determination to found a story or a 
 series of sketches on the delights, adventures, 
 and misadventures connected with biblio 
 mania did not come impulsively to my bro 
 ther. For many years, in short during the 
 greater part of nearly a quarter of a century 
 of journalistic work, he had celebrated in 
 prose and verse, and always in his happiest 
 and most delightful vein, the pleasures of 
 book-hunting. Himself an indefatigable col 
 lector of books, the possessor of a library as 
 valuable as it was interesting, a library con 
 taining volumes obtained only at the cost of 
 great personal sacrifice, he was jn the most 
 active sympathy with the disease called bi 
 bliomania, and knew, as few comparatively 
 poor men have known, the half-pathetic, 
 half-humorous side of that incurable mental 
 infirmity. 
 
 The newspaper column, to which he con- 
 
 M103540 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tributed almost daily for twelve years, com 
 prehended many sly digs and gentle scoffings 
 at those of his unhappy fellow citizens who 
 became notorious, through his instrumen 
 tality, in their devotion to old book-shelves 
 and auction sales. And all the time none 
 was more assiduous than this same good- 
 natured cynic in running down a musty 
 prize, no matter what its cost or what the 
 attending difficulties. "I save others, my 
 self I cannot save," was his humorous cry. 
 In his published writings are many evi 
 dences of my brother s appreciation of what 
 he has somewhere characterized the "sooth 
 ing affliction of bibliomania." Nothing of 
 book-hunting love has been more happily ex 
 pressed than "The Bibliomaniac s Prayer," 
 in which the troubled petitioner fervently 
 asserts: 
 
 " But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee 
 To keep me in temptation s way, 
 I humbly ask that I may be 
 Most notably beset to-day ; 
 Let my temptation be a book, 
 Which I shall purchase, hold and keep, 
 Whereon, when other men shall look, 
 They 11 wail to know I got it cheap." 
 
 \ 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 And again, in " The Bibliomaniac s Bride, " 
 nothing breathes better the spirit of the in 
 curable patient than this : 
 
 " Prose for me when I wished for prose, 
 Verse when to verse inclined, 
 Forever bringing sweet repose 
 To body, heart and mind. 
 Oh, I should bind this priceless prize 
 In bindings full and fine, 
 And keep her where no human eyes 
 Should see her charms, but mine ! " 
 
 In "Dear Old London" the poet wailed 
 that "a splendid Horace cheap for cash" 
 laughed at his poverty, and in " Dibdin s 
 Ghost " he revelled in the delights that await 
 the bibliomaniac in the future state, where 
 there is no admission to the women folk 
 who, "wanting victuals, make a fuss if we 
 buy books instead "; while in " Flail, Trask 
 and.Bisland" is the very essence of biblio 
 mania, the unquenchable thirst for posses 
 sion. And yet, despite these self-accusa 
 tions, bibliophily rather than bibliomania 
 would be the word to characterize his con 
 scientious purpose. If he purchased quaint 
 and rare books it was to own them to the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 full extent, inwardly as well as outwardly. 
 The mania for books kept him continually 
 buying; the love of books supervened to 
 make them a part of himself and his life. 
 
 Toward the close of August of the present 
 year my brother wrote the first chapter of 
 "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." At 
 that time he was in an exhausted physical 
 condition and apparently unfit for any pro 
 tracted literary labor. But the prospect of 
 gratifying a long-cherished ambition, the de 
 light of beginning the story he had planned 
 so hopefully, seemed to give him new 
 strength, and he threw himself into the work 
 with an enthusiasm that was, alas, mislead 
 ing to those who had noted fearfully his 
 declining vigor of body. For years no lit 
 erary occupation had seemed to give him 
 equal pleasure, and in the discussion of the 
 progress of his writing from day to day his 
 eye would brighten, all of his old animation 
 would return, and everything would betray 
 the lively interest he felt in the creature of 
 his imagination in whom he was living over 
 the delights of the book-hunter s chase. It 
 was his ardent wish that this work, for the 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 fulfilment of which he had been so long pre 
 paring, should be, as he playfully expressed 
 it, a monument of apologetic compensation 
 to a class of people he had so humorously 
 maligned, and those who knew him inti 
 mately will recognize in the shortcomings 
 of the bibliomaniac the humble confession 
 of his own weaknesses. 
 
 It is easy to understand from the very 
 nature of the undertaking that it was prac 
 tically limitless; that a bibliomaniac of so 
 many years experience could prattle on in 
 definitely concerning his "love affairs," and 
 at the same time be in no danger of repeti 
 tion. Indeed my brother s plans at the out 
 set were not definitely formed. He would 
 say, when questioned or joked about these 
 amours, that he was in the easy position of 
 Sam Weller when he indited his famous 
 valentine, and could "pull up" at any mo 
 ment. One week he would contend that a 
 book-hunter ought to be good for a year at 
 least, and the next week he would argue as 
 strongly that it was time to send the old 
 man into winter quarters and go to press. 
 But though the approach of cold weather 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 increased his physical indisposition, he was 
 not the less interested in his prescribed hours 
 of labor, howbeit his weakness warned him 
 that he should say to his book, as his much- 
 loved Horace had written : 
 
 " Fuge quo descendere gestis: 
 Non erit emisso reditus tibi." 
 
 Was it strange that his heart should re 
 lent, and that he should write on, unwilling 
 to give the word of dismissal to the book 
 whose preparation had been a work of such 
 love and solace ? 
 
 During the afternoon of Saturday, Novem 
 ber 2, the nineteenth instalment of " The 
 Love Affairs " was written. It was the con 
 clusion of his literary life. The verses sup- 
 posably contributed by Judge Methuen s 
 friend, with which the chapter ends, were 
 the last words written by Eugene Field. 
 He was at that time apparently quite as well 
 as on any day during the fall months, and 
 neither he nor any member of his family 
 had the slightest premonition that death 
 was hovering about the household. The 
 next day, though still feeling indisposed, he 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 was at times up and about, always cheer 
 ful and full of that sweetness and sunshine 
 which, in his last years, seem now to have 
 been the preparation for the life beyond. 
 He spoke of the chapter he had written the 
 day before, and it was then that he outlined 
 his plan of completing the work. One 
 chapter only remained to be written, and it 
 was to chronicle the death of the old biblio 
 maniac, but not until he had unexpectedly 
 fallen heir to a very rare and almost priceless 
 copy of Horace, which acquisition marked 
 the pinnacle of the book-hunter s conquest. 
 True to his love for the Sabine singer, the 
 western poet characterized the immortal 
 odes of twenty centuries gone the greatest 
 happiness of bibliomania. 
 
 In the early morning of November 4 the 
 soul of Eugene Field passed upward. On 
 the table, folded and sealed, were the mem 
 oirs of the old man upon whom the sentence 
 of death had been pronounced. On the 
 bed in the corner of the room, with one 
 arm thrown over his breast, and the smile 
 of peace and rest on his tranquil face, the 
 poet lay. All around him, on the shelves 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and in the cases, were the books he loved so 
 well. Ah, who shall say that on that morn 
 ing his fancy was not verified, and that as 
 the gray light came reverently through the 
 window, those cherished volumes did not 
 bestir themselves, awaiting the cheery voice : 
 Good day to you, my sweet friends. How 
 lovingly they beam upon me, and how 
 glad they are that my rest has been un 
 broken." 
 
 Could they beam upon you less lovingly, 
 great heart, in the chamber warmed by your 
 affection and now sanctified by death ? Were 
 they less glad to know that the repose would 
 be unbroken forevermore, since it came the 
 glorious reward, my brother, of the friend 
 who went gladly to it through his faith, 
 having striven for it through his works ? 
 
 ROSWELL MARTIN FIELD. 
 
 Buena ParK, December, 1895. 
 
 XII 
 
tje Chapters in tljis? 315oofe 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MY FIRST LOVE 3 
 
 THE BIRTH OF A NEW PASSION 15 
 
 THE LUXURY OF READING IN BED 29 
 
 THE MANIA OF COLLECTING SEIZES ME ... 43 
 
 BALDNESS AND INTELLECTUALITY 55 
 
 MY ROMANCE WITH FIAMMETTA ...... 67 
 
 THE DELIGHTS OF FENDER -FISHING 79 
 
 BALLADS AND THEIR MAKERS 93 
 
 BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS, OLD AND NEW . . 107 
 WHEN FANCHONETTE BEWITCHED ME . . . .121 
 DIAGNOSIS OF THE BACILLUS LIBRORUM . . .135 
 THE PLEASURES OF EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION . . .149 
 ON THE ODORS WHICH MY BOOKS EXHALE . . 163 
 ELZEVIRS AND DIVERS OTHER MATTERS . . .175 
 A BOOK THAT BRINGS SOLACE AND CHEER . . 189 
 
 THE MALADY CALLED CATALOGITIS 203 
 
 THE NAPOLEONIC RENAISSANCE 217 
 
 MY WORKSHOP AND OTHERS 229 
 
 OUR DEBT TO MONKISH MEN 243 
 
 xiii 
 
f trjst flctoe 
 * 
 
I 
 
 MY FIRST LOVE 
 
 A this moment, when I am about to 
 begin the most important undertak 
 ing of my life, I recall the sense of abhor 
 rence with which I have at different times 
 read the confessions of men famed for 
 their prowess in the realm of love. These 
 boastings have always shocked me, for I 
 reverence love as the noblest of the pas 
 sions, and it is impossible for me to conceive 
 how one who has truly fallen victim to its 
 benign influence can ever thereafter speak 
 flippantly of it. 
 
 Yet there have been, and there still are, 
 many who take a seeming delight in telling 
 you how many conquests they have made, 
 and they not infrequently have the bad taste 
 to explain with wearisome prolixity the 
 ways and the means whereby those con- 
 
 3 
 
- ; THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 quests were wrought; as, forsooth, an un 
 feeling hantsnian is forever boasting of the 
 game he has slaughtered and is forever 
 dilating upon the repulsive details of his 
 butcheries. 
 
 I have always contended that one who 
 is in love (and having once been in love is 
 to be always in love) has, actually, no con 
 fession to make. Love is so guileless, so 
 proper, so pure a passion as to involve none 
 of those things which require or which ad 
 mit of confession. He, therefore, who sur 
 mises that in this exposition of my affaires 
 du coeur there is to be any betrayal of con 
 fidences, or any discussion, suggestion, or 
 hint likely either to shame love or its vo 
 taries or to bring a blush to the cheek of the 
 fastidious he is grievously in error. 
 
 Nor am I going to boast; for I have made 
 no conquests. I am in no sense a hero. 
 For many, very many years I have walked 
 in a pleasant garden, enjoying sweet odors 
 and soothing spectacles; no predetermined 
 itinerary has controlled my course; I have 
 wandered whither I pleased, and very many 
 times I have strayed so far into the tangle- 
 
 4 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 wood and thickets as almost to have lost 
 my way. And now it is my purpose to 
 walk that pleasant garden once more, in 
 viting you to bear me company and to 
 share with me what satisfaction may accrue 
 from an old man s return to old-time places 
 and old-time loves. 
 
 As a child I was serious-minded. I cared 
 little for those sports which usually excite 
 the ardor of youth. To out-of-door games 
 and exercises I had particular aversion. I 
 was born in a southern latitude, but at the 
 age of six years I went to live with my 
 grandmother in New Hampshire, both my 
 parents having fallen victims to the cholera. 
 This change from the balmy temperature of 
 the South to the rigors of the North was not 
 agreeable to me, and I have always held it 
 responsible for that delicate health which 
 has attended me through life. 
 
 My grandmother encouraged my disin 
 clination to play ; she recognized in me that 
 certain seriousness of mind which I remem 
 ber to have heard her say I inherited from 
 her, and she determined to make of me 
 what she had failed to make of any of her 
 5 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 own sons a professional expounder of the 
 only true faith of Congregationalism. For 
 this reason, and for the further reason that 
 at the tender age of seven years I publicly 
 avowed my desire to become a clergyman, 
 an ambition wholly sincere at that time 
 for these reasons was I duly installed as 
 prime favorite in my grandmother s affec 
 tions. 
 
 As distinctly as though it were but yes 
 terday do I recall the time when I met my 
 first love. It was in the front room of the 
 old homestead, and the day was a day in 
 spring. The front room answered those 
 purposes which are served by the so-called 
 parlor of the present time. I remember the 
 low ceiling, the big fireplace, the long, 
 broad mantelpiece, the andirons and fender 
 of brass, the tall clock with its jocund and 
 roseate moon, the bellows that was always 
 wheezy, the wax flowers under a glass 
 globe in the corner, an allegorical picture 
 of Solomon s temple, another picture of lit 
 tle Samuel at prayer, the high, stiff-back 
 chairs, the foot-stool with its gayly embroid 
 ered top, the mirror in its gilt-and-black 
 6 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 frame all these things I remember well, 
 and with feelings of tender reverence, and 
 yet that day 1 now recall was well-nigh 
 threescore and ten years ago! 
 
 Best of all I remember the case in which 
 my grandmother kept her books, a mahog 
 any structure, massive and dark, with doors 
 composed of diamond-shaped figures of 
 glass cunningly set in a framework of lead. 
 I was in my seventh year then, and I had 
 learned to read I know not when. The 
 back and current numbers of the "Well- 
 Spring " had fallen prey to my insatiable 
 appetite for literature. With the story of 
 the small boy who stole a pin, repented of 
 and confessed that crime, and then became 
 a good and great man, 1 was as familiar as 
 if I myself had invented that ingenious and 
 instructive tale; I could lisp the moral num 
 bers of Watts and the didactic hymns of 
 Wesley, and the annual reports of the Amer 
 ican Tract Society had already revealed to 
 me the sphere of usefulness in which my 
 grandmother hoped I would ultimately fig 
 ure with discretion and zeal. And yet my 
 heart was free; wholly untouched of that 
 
 7 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 gentle yet deathless passion which was to 
 become my delight, my inspiration, and my 
 solace, it awaited the coming of its first love. 
 
 Upon one of those shelves yonder it is 
 the third shelf from the top, fourth compart 
 ment to the right is that old copy of the 
 New England Primer, "a curious little, thin, 
 square book in faded blue board covers. A 
 good many times I have wondered whether 
 I ought not to have the precious little thing 
 sumptuously attired in the finest style known 
 to my binder; indeed, I have often been 
 tempted to exchange the homely blue board 
 covers for flexible levant, for it occurred to 
 me that in this way I could testify to my re 
 gard for the treasured volume. I spoke of 
 this one day to my friend Judge Methuen, 
 for I have great respect for his judgment. 
 
 "It would be a desecration," said he, "to 
 deprive the book of its original binding. 
 What! Would you tear off and cast away 
 the covers which have felt the caressing 
 pressure of the hands of those whose mem 
 ory you revere ? The most sacred of senti 
 ments should forbid that act of vandalism ! " 
 
 Ineverthinkorspeakofthe "New England 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Primer " that 1 do not recall Captivity Waite, 
 for it was Captivity who introduced me to 
 the Primer that day in the springtime of 
 sixty-three years ago. She was of my age, 
 a bright, pretty girl a very pretty, an ex 
 ceptionally pretty girl, as girls go. We be 
 longed to the same Sunday-school class. 1 
 remember that upon this particular day she 
 brought me a russet apple. It was she who 
 discovered the Primer in the mahogany case, 
 and what was not our joy as we turned over 
 the tiny pages together and feasted our eyes 
 upon the vivid pictures and perused the ab 
 sorbingly interesting text! What wonder 
 that together we wept tears of sympathy 
 at the harrowing recital of the fate of John 
 Rogers ! 
 
 Even at this remote date I cannot recall 
 that experience with Captivity, involving 
 as it did the wood-cut representing the un 
 fortunate Rogers standing in an impossible 
 bonfire and being consumed thereby in the 
 presence of his wife and their numerous 
 progeny, strung along in a pitiful line across 
 the picture for artistic effect even now, I 
 say, I cannot contemplate that experience 
 9 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 and that wood-cut without feeling lumpy in 
 my throat and moist about my eyes. 
 
 How lasting are the impressions made 
 upon the youthful mind ! Through the many 
 busy years that have elapsed since first I 
 tasted the thrilling sweets of that miniature 
 Primer I have not forgotten that "young 
 Obadias, David, Josias, all were pious " ; that 
 "Zaccheus he did climb the Tree our Lord 
 to see"; and that " Vashti for Pride was set 
 aside"; and still with many a sympathetic 
 shudder and tingle do I recall Captivity s 
 overpowering sense of horror, and mine, as 
 we lingered long over the portraitures of 
 Timothy flying from Sin, of Xerxes laid out 
 in funeral garb, and of proud Koran s troop 
 partly submerged. 
 
 My Book and Heart 
 Must never part. 
 
 So runs one of the couplets in this little 
 Primer-book, and right truly can I say that 
 from the springtime day sixty-odd years ago, 
 when first my heart went out in love to this 
 little book, no change of scene or of custom, 
 
 10 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 no allurement of fashion, no demand of ma 
 ture years, has abated that love. And herein 
 is exemplified the advantage which the love 
 of books has over the other kinds of love. 
 Women are by nature fickle, and so are men ; 
 their friendships are liable to dissipation at 
 the merest provocation or the slightest pre 
 text. 
 
 Not so, however, with books, for books 
 cannot change. A thousand years hence 
 they are what you find them to-day, speak 
 ing the same words, holding forth the same 
 cheer, the same promise, the same comfort; 
 always constant, laughing with those who 
 laugh and weeping with those who weep. 
 
 Captivity Waite was an exception to the 
 rule governing her sex. In all candor I must 
 say that she approached closely to a realization 
 of the ideals of a book a sixteenmo, if you 
 please, fair to look upon, of clear, clean type, 
 well ordered and well edited, amply mar 
 gined, neatly bound; a human book whose 
 text, as represented by her disposition and 
 her mind, corresponded felicitously with the 
 comeliness of her exterior. This child was 
 the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Waite, whose family was carried off by In 
 dians in 1677. Benjamin followed the party 
 to Canada, and after many months of search 
 found and ransomed the captives. 
 
 The historian has properly said that the 
 names of Benjamin Waite and his companion 
 in their perilous journey through the wilder 
 ness to Canada should be memorable in 
 all the sad or happy homes of this Connecti 
 cut valley forever. " The child who was my 
 friend in youth, and to whom I may allude 
 occasionally hereafter in my narrative, bore 
 the name of one of the survivors of this In 
 dian outrage, a name to be revered as a re 
 membrancer of sacrifice and heroism. 
 
 12 
 
* 
 of a |5cto 
 
 * 
 
II 
 
 THE BIRTH OF A NEW PASSION 
 
 WHEN I was thirteen years old I went 
 to visit my Uncle Cephas. My 
 grandmother would not have parted with 
 me even for that fortnight had she not ac 
 tually been compelled to. It happened that 
 she was called to a meeting of the American 
 Tract Society, and it was her intention to 
 pay a visit to her cousin, Royall Eastman, 
 after she had discharged the first and im 
 perative duty she owed the society. Mrs. 
 Deacon Ranney was to have taken me and 
 provided for my temporal and spiritual 
 wants during grandmother s absence, but 
 at the last moment the deacon came down 
 with one of his spells of quinsy, and no other 
 alternative remained but to pack me off to 
 Nashua, where my Uncle Cephas lived. 
 This involved considerable expense, for 
 15 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 the stage fare was three shillings each way ; 
 it came particularly hard on grandmother, 
 inasmuch as she had just paid her road tax 
 and had not yet received her semi-annual 
 dividends on her Fitchburg Railway stock. 
 Indifferent, however, to every sense of ex 
 travagance and to all other considerations 
 except those of personal pride, I rode away 
 atop of the stage-coach, full of exultation. 
 As we rattled past the Waite house I waved 
 my cap to Captivity and indulged in the 
 pleasing hope that she would be lonesome 
 without me. Much of the satisfaction of 
 going away arises from the thought that 
 those you leave behind are likely to be 
 wretchedly miserable during your absence. 
 My Uncle Cephas lived in a house so very 
 different from my grandmother s that it took 
 me some time to get used to the place. 
 Uncle Cephas was a lawyer, and his style of 
 living was not at all like grandmother s; he 
 was to have been a minister, but at twelve 
 years of age he attended the county fair, and 
 that incident seemed to change the whole 
 bent of his life. At twenty-one he married 
 Samantha Talbott, and that was another 
 16 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 blow to grandmother, who always declared 
 that the Talbotts were a shiftless lot. How 
 ever, I was agreeably impressed with Uncle 
 Cephas and Aunt Manthy, for they wel 
 comed me very cordially and turned me 
 over to my little cousins, Mary and Henry, 
 and bade us three make merry to the best 
 of our ability. These first favorable impres 
 sions of my uncle s family were confirmed 
 when I discovered that for supper we had 
 hot biscuit and dried beef warmed up in 
 cream gravy, a diet which, with all due re- 
 spiect to grandmother, I considered much 
 more desirable than dry bread and dried- 
 apple sauce. 
 
 Aha, old Crusoe! I see thee now in yon 
 der case smiling out upon me as cheerily as 
 thou didst smile those many years ago when 
 to a little boy thou broughtest the message 
 of Romance! And I do love thee still, and 
 I shall always love thee, not only for thy 
 benefaction in those ancient days, but also 
 for the light and the cheer which thy genius 
 brings to all ages and conditions of humanity. 
 
 My Uncle Cephas s library was stored with 
 a large variety of pleasing literature. I did 
 
 17 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 not observe a glut of theological publications, 
 and I will admit that I felt somewhat ag 
 grieved personally when, in answer to my 
 inquiry, I was told that there was no "New 
 England Primer " in the collection. But this 
 feeling was soon dissipated by the absorbing 
 interest I took in De Foe s masterpiece, a 
 work unparalleled in the realm of fiction. 
 
 I shall not say that "Robinson Crusoe" 
 supplanted the Primer in my affections; this 
 would not be true. I prefer to say what is 
 the truth; it was my second love. Here 
 again we behold another advantage which 
 the lover of books has over the lover of wo 
 men. If he be a genuine lover he can and 
 should love any number of books, and this 
 polybibliophily is not to the disparagement 
 of any one of that number. But it is held by 
 the expounders of our civil and our moral 
 laws that he who loveth one woman to the 
 exclusion of all other women speaketh by 
 that action the best and highest praise both 
 of his own sex and of hers. 
 
 I thank God continually that it hath been 
 my lot in life to found an empire in my heart 
 no cramped and wizened borough wherein 
 18 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 one jealous mistress hath exercised her petty 
 tyranny, but an expansive and ever-widen 
 ing continent divided and subdivided into do 
 minions, jurisdictions, caliphates, chiefdoms, 
 seneschalships, and prefectures, wherein 
 tetrarchs, burgraves, maharajahs, palatines, 
 seigniors, caziques, nabobs, emirs, nizams, 
 and nawabs hold sway, each over his special 
 and particular realm, and all bound together 
 in harmonious cooperation by the conciliat 
 ing spirit of polybibliophily! 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood; for I am 
 not a woman-hater. I do not regret the ac 
 quaintances nay, the friendships I have 
 formed with individuals of the other sex. 
 As a philosopher it has behooved me to study 
 womankind, else I should not have appreci 
 ated the worth of these other better loves. 
 Moreover, I take pleasure in my age in as 
 sociating this precious volume or that with 
 one woman or another whose friendship 
 came into my life at the time when I was 
 reading and loved that book. 
 
 The other day I found my nephew Wil 
 liam swinging in the hammock on the porch 
 with his girl friend Celia; I saw that the 
 19 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 young people were reading Ovid. "My 
 children," said I, "count this day a happy 
 one. In the years of after life neither of you 
 will speak or think of Ovid and his tender 
 verses without recalling at the same moment 
 how of a gracious afternoon in distant time 
 you sat side by side contemplating the in 
 effably precious promises of maturity and 
 love." 
 
 I am not sure that I do not approve that 
 article in Judge Methuen s creed which in 
 sists that in this life of ours woman serves a 
 probationary period for sins of omission or 
 of commission in a previous existence, and 
 that woman s next step upward toward the 
 final eternity of bliss is a period of longer or 
 of shorter duration, in which her soul enters 
 into a book to be petted, fondled, beloved 
 and cherished by some good man like the 
 Judge, or like myself, for that matter. 
 
 This theory is not an unpleasant one; I re 
 gard it as much more acceptable than those 
 so-called scientific demonstrations which 
 would make us suppose that we are de 
 scended from tree-climbing and bug-eating 
 simians. However, it is far from my pur- 
 
 20 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 pose to enter upon any argument of these 
 questions at this time, for Judge Methuen 
 himself is going to write a book upon the 
 subject, and the edition is to be limited to 
 two numbered and signed copies upon Jap 
 anese vellum, of which I am to have one 
 and the Judge the other. 
 
 The impression I made upon Uncle Ce 
 phas must have been favorable, for when 
 my next birthday rolled around there came 
 with it a book from Uncle Cephas my 
 third love, Grimm s "Household Stories." 
 With the perusal of this monumental work 
 was born that passion for fairy tales and folk 
 lore which increased rather than diminished 
 with my maturer years. Even at the pres 
 ent time I delight in a good fairy story, and 
 I am grateful to Lang and to Jacobs for the 
 benefit they have conferred upon me and 
 the rest of English-reading humanity through 
 the medium of the fairy books and the folk 
 tales they have translated and compiled. 
 Baring-Gould and Lady Wilde have done 
 noble work in the same realm ; the writings 
 of the former have interested me particularly, 
 for together with profound learning in di- 
 
 21 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 rections which are specially pleasing to me, 
 Baring-Gould has a distinct literary touch 
 which invests his work with a grace inde 
 finable but delicious and persuasive. 
 
 I am so great a lover of and believer in 
 fairy tales that I once organized a society for 
 the dissemination of fairy literature, and at 
 the first meeting of this society we resolved 
 to demand of the board of education to drop 
 mathematics from the curriculum in the pub 
 lic schools and to substitute therefor a four 
 years course in fairy literature, to be fol 
 lowed, if the pupil desired, by a post-grad 
 uate course in demonology and folk-lore. 
 We hired and fitted up large rooms, and the 
 cause seemed to be flourishing until the 
 second month s rent fell due. It was then 
 discovered that the treasury was empty; and 
 with this discovery the society ended its 
 existence, without having accomplished any 
 tangible result other than the purchase of a 
 number of sofas and chairs, for which Judge 
 Methuen and I had to pay. 
 
 Still, I am of the opinion (and Judge Me 
 thuen indorses it) that we need in this coun 
 try of ours just that influence which the 
 
 22 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 fairy tale exerts. We are becoming too prac 
 tical; the lust for material gain is throttling 
 every other consideration. Our babes and 
 sucklings are no longer regaled with the 
 soothing tales of giants, ogres, witches, and 
 fairies; their hungry, receptive minds are 
 filled with stones about the pursuit and 
 slaughter of unoffending animals, of war and 
 of murder, and of those questionable practices 
 whereby a hero is enriched and others are 
 impoverished. Before he is out of his swad- 
 dling-cloth the modern youngster is con 
 vinced that the one noble purpose in life is 
 to get, get, get, and keep on getting of 
 worldly material. The fairy tale is tabooed 
 because, as the sordid parent alleges, it 
 makes youth unpractical. 
 
 One consequence of this deplorable con 
 dition is, as I have noticed (and as Judge 
 Methuen has, too), that the human eye is 
 diminishing in size and fulness, and is los 
 ing its lustre. By as much as you take the 
 God-given grace of fancy from man, by so 
 much do you impoverish his eyes. The eye 
 is so beautiful and serves so very many no 
 ble purposes, and is, too, so ready in the 
 23 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 expression of tenderness, of pity, of love, of 
 solicitude, of compassion, of dignity, of every 
 gentle mood and noble inspiration, that in 
 that metaphor which contemplates the eter 
 nal vigilance of the Almighty we recognize 
 the best poetic expression of the highest 
 human wisdom. 
 
 My nephew Timothy has three children, 
 two boys and a girl. The elder boy and 
 the girl have small black eyes; they are as 
 devoid of fancy as a napkin is of red corpus 
 cles; they put their pennies into a tin bank, 
 and they have won all the marbles and jack- 
 stones in the neighborhood. They do not 
 believe in Santa Glaus or in fairies or in 
 witches; they know that two nickels make 
 a dime, and their golden rule is to do others 
 as others would do them. The other boy (he 
 has been christened Matthew, after me) has a 
 pair of large, round, deep-blue eyes, expres 
 sive of all those emotions which a keen, 
 active fancy begets. 
 
 Matthew can never get his fill of fairy tales, 
 
 and how the dear little fellow loves Santa 
 
 Glaus! He sees things at night; he will not 
 
 go to bed in the dark; he hears and under- 
 
 24 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 stands what the birds and crickets say, and 
 what the night wind sings, and what the 
 rustling leaves tell. Wherever Matthew goes 
 he sees beautiful pictures and hears sweet 
 music; to his impressionable soul all nature 
 speaks its wisdom and its poetry. God! 
 how I love that boy! And he shall never 
 starve ! A goodly share of what I have shall 
 go to him ! But this clause in my will, which 
 the Judge recently drew for me, will, I war 
 rant me, give the dear child the greatest 
 happiness: 
 
 " Item. To my beloved grandnephew and 
 namesake, Matthew, I do bequeath and give 
 (in addition to the lands devised and the 
 stocks, bonds and moneys willed to him, a* 
 hereinabove specified) the two mahogany book 
 cases numbered 1 1 and 13, and the contents 
 thereof, being volumes of fairy and folk tales 
 of all nations, and dictionaries and other 
 treatises upon demonology, witchcraft, my 
 thology, magic and kindred subjects, to be 
 his, bis heirs, and his assigns, forever. 
 
fjc Humirp of ftcabing in 
 
Ill 
 
 THE LUXURY OF READING IN BED 
 
 I AST night, having written what you have 
 Lrf just read about the benefits of fairy lit 
 erature, I bethought me to renew my ac 
 quaintance with some of those tales which 
 so often have delighted and solaced me. So 
 I piled at least twenty chosen volumes on 
 the table at the head of my bed, and I dare 
 say it was nigh daylight when I fell asleep. 
 I began my entertainment with several pages 
 from Keightley s "Fairy Mythology," and 
 followed it up with random bits from Crof- 
 ton Croker s "Traditions of the South of Ire 
 land," Mrs. Carey s "Legends of the French 
 Provinces," Andrew Lang s Green, Blue 
 and Red fairy books, Laboulaye s "Last 
 Fairy Tales," Hauff s "The Inn in the Spes- 
 sart," Julia Goddard s "Golden Weather 
 cock," Frere s "Eastern Fairy Legends," 
 29 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Asbjornsen s "Folk Tales," Susan Pindar s 
 Midsummer Fays, " Nisbit Bain s Cossack 
 Fairy Tales," etc., etc. 
 
 I fell asleep with a copy of Villamaria s 
 fairy stories in my hands, and I had a delight 
 ful dream wherein, under the protection and 
 guidance of my fairy godmother, I undertook 
 the rescue of a beautiful princess who had 
 been enchanted by a cruel witch and was 
 kept in prison by the witch s son, a hideous 
 ogre with seven heads, whose companions 
 were four equally hideous dragons. 
 
 This undertaking in which I was engaged 
 involved a period of five years, but time is 
 of precious little consideration to one when 
 he is dreaming of exploits achieved in behalf 
 of a beautiful princess. My fairy godmother 
 (she wore a mob-cap and was hunchbacked) 
 took good care of me, and conducted me 
 safely through all my encounters with de 
 mons, giants, dragons, witches, serpents, 
 hippogriffins, ogres, etc. ; and I had just res 
 cued the princess and broken the spell which 
 bound her, and we were about to "live in 
 peace to the end of our lives," when I awoke 
 to find it was all a dream, and that the gas- 
 30 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 light over my bed had been blazing away 
 during the entire period of my five-year war 
 for the delectable maiden. 
 
 This incident gives me an opportunity to 
 say that observation has convinced me that 
 all good and true book-lovers practise the 
 pleasing and improving avocation of reading 
 in bed. Indeed, 1 fully believe with Judge 
 Methuen that no book can be appreciated 
 until it has been slept with and dreamed 
 over. You recall, perhaps, that eloquent 
 passage in his noble defence of the poet Ar- 
 chias, wherein Cicero (not Kikero) refers to 
 his own pursuit of literary studies: " Haec 
 studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem ob- 
 lectant; secundas res ornant, adversis per- 
 fugium ac solatium pnebent; delectant domi, 
 non impediunt foris; pernoftant nobiscum, 
 peregrinantur, rusticantur! " 
 
 By the gods! you spoke truly, friend Ci 
 cero; for it is indeed so, that these pursuits 
 nourish our earlier and delight our later 
 years, dignifying the minor details of life and 
 affording a perennial refuge and solace; at 
 home they please us and in no vocation else 
 where do they embarrass us; they are with 
 3 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 us by night, they go with us upon our trav 
 els, and even upon our retirement into the 
 country do they accompany us! 
 
 I have italicized pernoctant because it is 
 that word which demonstrates beyond all 
 possibility of doubt that Cicero made a prac 
 tice of reading in bed. Why, I can almost 
 see him now, propped up in his couch, un 
 rolling scroll after scroll of his favorite litera 
 ture, and enjoying it mightily, too, which 
 enjoyment is interrupted now and then by 
 the occasion which the noble reader takes to 
 mutter maledictions upon the slave who has 
 let the lamp run low of oil or has neglected 
 to trim the wick. 
 
 " Peregrinantur ? " Indeed, they do share 
 our peregrinations, these literary pursuits do. 
 If Thomas Hearne (of blessed memory!) were 
 alive to-day he would tell us that he used 
 always to take a book along with him when 
 ever he went walking, and was wont to read 
 it as he strolled along. On several occasions 
 (as he tells us in his diary) he became so ab 
 sorbed in his reading that he missed his way 
 and darkness came upon him before he 
 knew it. 
 
 32 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 I have always wondered why book-lovers 
 have not had more to say of Hearne, for as 
 suredly he was as glorious a collector as 
 ever felt the divine fire glow within him. 
 His character is exemplified in this prayer, 
 which is preserved among other papers of 
 his in the Bodleian Library : 
 
 " O most gracious and merciful Lord God, 
 wonderful is Thy providence. I return all 
 possible thanks to Thee for the care Thou 
 hast always taken of me. I continually meet 
 with most signal instances of this Thy prov 
 idence, and one act yesterday, when I un 
 expectedly met with three old MSS., for 
 which, in a particular manner, I return my 
 thanks, beseeching Thee to continue the 
 same protection to me, a poor, helpless 
 sinner," etc. 
 
 Another prayer of Hearne s, illustrative of 
 his faith in dependence upon Divine coun 
 sel, was made at the time Hearne was im 
 portuned by Dr. Bray, commissary to my 
 Lord Bishop of London, "to go to Mary- 
 Land" in the character of a missionary. 
 "O Lord God, Heavenly Father, look down 
 upon me with pity," cries this pious soul, 
 33 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 and be pleased to be my guide, now I 
 am importuned to leave the place where I 
 have been educated in the university. And 
 of Thy great goodness I humbly desire Thee 
 to signify to me what is most proper for 
 me to do in this affair." 
 
 Another famous man who made a prac 
 tice of reading books as he walked the 
 highways was Dr. Johnson, and it is re 
 corded that he presented a curious spectacle 
 indeed, for his shortsightedness compelled 
 him to hold the volume close to his nose, 
 and he shuffled along, rather than walked, 
 stepping high over shadows and stumbling 
 over sticks and stones. 
 
 But, perhaps, the most interesting story 
 illustrative of the practice of carrying one s 
 reading around with one is that which is 
 told of Professor Porson, the Greek scholar. 
 This human monument of learning hap 
 pened to be travelling in the same coach 
 with a coxcomb who sought to air his pre 
 tended learning by quotations from the an 
 cients. At last old Porson asked : 
 
 "Pri thee, sir, whence comes that quo 
 tation?" 
 
 34 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 From Sophocles, " quoth the vain fellow. 
 
 " Be so kind as to find it for me ? " asked 
 Porson, producing a copy of Sophocles from 
 his pocket. 
 
 Then the coxcomb, not at all abashed, 
 said that he meant not Sophocles, but Euri 
 pides. Whereupon Porson drew from an 
 other pocket a copy of Euripides and chal 
 lenged the upstart to find the quotation in 
 question. Full of confusion, the fellow 
 thrust his head out of the window of the 
 coach and cried to the driver: 
 
 "In heaven s name, put me down at 
 once; for there is an old gentleman in 
 here that hath the Bodleian Library in his 
 pocket! " 
 
 Porson himself was a veritable slave to 
 the habit of reading in bed. He would lie 
 down with his books piled around him, 
 then light his pipe and start in upon some 
 favorite volume. A jug of liquor was in 
 variably at hand, for Porson was a famous 
 drinker. It is related that on one occasion 
 he fell into a boosy slumber, his pipe dropped 
 out of his mouth and set fire to the bed 
 clothes. -But for the arrival of succor the 
 
 35 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 tipsy scholar would surely have been cre 
 mated. 
 
 Another very slovenly fellow was De 
 Quincey, and he was devoted to reading in 
 bed. But De Quincey was a very vandal 
 when it came to the care and use of books. 
 He never returned volumes he borrowed, 
 and he never hesitated to mutilate a rare 
 book in order to save himself the labor and 
 trouble of writing out a quotation. 
 
 But perhaps the person who did most to 
 bring reading in bed into evil repute was 
 Mrs. Charles Elstob, ward and sister of the 
 Canon of Canterbury (circa 1700). In his 
 "Dissertation on Letter-Founders," Rowe 
 Mores describes this woman as the " inde- 
 fessa comes " of her brother s studies, a fe 
 male student in Oxford. She was, says 
 Mores, a northern lady of an ancient family 
 and a genteel fortune, "but she pursued 
 too much the drug called learning, and in 
 that pursuit failed of being careful of any 
 one thing necessary. In her latter years 
 she was tutoress in the family of the Duke 
 of Portland, where we visited her in her 
 sleeping-room at Bulstrode, surrounded 
 36 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 with books and dirtiness, the usual appen 
 dages of folk of learning! " 
 
 There is another word which Cicero uses 
 for I have still somewhat more to say of 
 that passage from the oration "pro Archia 
 poeta" the word " rusticantur," which in 
 dicates that civilization twenty centuries 
 ago made a practice of taking books out into 
 the country for summer reading. "These 
 literary pursuits rusticate with us," says 
 Cicero, and thus he presents to us a pen- 
 picture of the Roman patrician stretched 
 upon the cool grass under the trees, perus 
 ing the latest popular romance, while, for 
 sooth, in yonder hammock his dignified 
 spouse swings slowly to and fro, conning 
 the pages and the colored plates of the cur 
 rent fashion journal. Surely in the telltale 
 word "rusticantur" you and I and the rest 
 of human nature find a worthy precedent 
 and much encouragement for our practice 
 of loading up with plenty of good reading 
 before we start for the scene of our annual 
 summering. 
 
 As for myself, I never go away from home 
 that I do not take a trunkful of books with 
 
 37 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 me, for experience has taught me that there 
 is no companionship better than that of 
 these friends, who, however much all things 
 else may vary, always give the same re 
 sponse to my demand upon their solace 
 and their cheer. My sister, Miss Susan, has 
 often inveighed against this practice of mine, 
 and it was only yesterday that she informed 
 me that I was the most exasperating man 
 in the world. 
 
 However, as Miss Susan s experience with 
 men during the sixty-seven hot summers 
 and sixty-eight hard winters of her life has 
 been somewhat limited, 1 think I should 
 bear her criticism without a murmur. Miss 
 Susan is really one of the kindest creatures 
 in all the world. It is her misfortune that 
 she has had all her life an insane passion for 
 collecting crockery, old pewter, old brass, 
 old glass, old furniture and other trumpery 
 of that character; a passion with which I 
 have little sympathy. I do not know that 
 Miss Susan is prouder of her collection of 
 all this folderol than she is of the fact that 
 she is a spinster. 
 
 This latter peculiarity asserts itself upon 
 38 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 every occasion possible. I recall an unpleas 
 ant scene in the omnibus last winter, when 
 the obsequious conductor, taking advantage 
 of my sister s white hair and furrowed cheeks, 
 addressed that estimable lady as " Madam." 
 I d have you know that my sister gave the 
 fellow to understand very shortly and in 
 very vigorous English (emphasized with her 
 blue silk umbrella) that she was Miss Susan, 
 and that she did not intend to be Madamed 
 by anybody, under any condition. 
 
 39 
 
lje attania of CoHrcthiff 
 
IV 
 
 THE MANIA OF COLLECTING 
 SEIZES ME 
 
 APTIVITY Waite never approved of my 
 fondness for fairy literature. She shared 
 the enthusiasm which I expressed whenever 
 " Robinson Crusoe" was mentioned; there 
 was just enough seriousness in De Foe s ro 
 mance, just enough piety to appeal for sym 
 pathy to one of Captivity Waite s religious 
 turn of mind. When it came to fiction in 
 volving witches, ogres, and flubdubs, that 
 was too much for Captivity, and the spirit of 
 the little Puritan revolted. 
 
 Yet I have the documentary evidence to 
 prove that Captivity s ancestors (both pater 
 nal and maternal) were, in the palmy colonial 
 times, as abject slaves to superstition as could 
 well be imagined. The Waites of Salem 
 were famous persecutors of witches, and 
 43 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Sinai Higginbotham (Captivity s great-great 
 grandfather on her mother s side of the fa 
 mily) was Cotton Mather s boon companion, 
 and rode around the gallows with that zeal 
 ous theologian on that memorable occasion 
 when five young women were hanged at 
 Danvers upon the charge of having tor 
 mented little children with their damnable 
 arts of witchcraft. Human thought is like a 
 monstrous pendulum: it keeps swinging 
 from one extreme to the other. Within the 
 compass of five generations we find the 
 Puritan first an uncompromising believer in 
 demonology and magic, and then a scoffer at 
 everything involving the play of fancy. 
 
 I felt harshly toward Captivity Waite for a 
 time, but I harbor her no ill-will now; on 
 the contrary, I recall with very tender feel 
 ings the distant time when our sympathies 
 were the same and when we journeyed the 
 pathway of early youth in a companionship 
 sanctified by the innocence and the loyalty 
 and the truth of childhood. Indeed, I am 
 not sure that that early friendship did not 
 make a lasting impression upon my life; I 
 have thought of Captivity Waite a great 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 many times, and I have not unfrequently 
 wondered what might have been but for 
 that book of fairy tales which my Uncle 
 Cephas sent me. 
 
 She was a very pretty child, and she lost 
 none of her comeliness and none of her 
 sweetness of character as she approached 
 maturity. I was impressed with this upon 
 my return from college. She, too, had pur 
 sued those studies deemed necessary to the 
 acquirement of a good education; she had 
 taken a four years course at South Holyoke 
 and had finished at Mrs. Willard s seminary 
 at Troy. " You will now," said her father, 
 and he voiced the New England sentiment 
 regarding young womanhood; "you will 
 now return to the quiet of your home and 
 under the direction of your mother study the 
 performance of those weightier duties which 
 qualify your sex for a realization of the sol 
 emn responsibilities of human life." 
 
 Three or four years ago a fine-looking 
 young fellow walked in upon me with a 
 letter of introduction from his mother. He 
 was Captivity Waite s son! Captivity is a 
 widow now, and she is still living in her 
 45 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 native State, within twenty miles of the spot 
 where she was born. Colonel Parker, her 
 husband, left her a good property when he 
 died, and she is famous for her chanties. 
 She has founded a village library, and she 
 has written me on several occasions for ad 
 vice upon proposed purchases of books. 
 
 I don t mind telling you that I had a good 
 deal of malicious pleasure in sending her not 
 long ago a reminder of old times in these 
 words: " My valued friend," I wrote, " I see 
 by the catalogue recently published that your 
 village library contains, among other volumes 
 representing the modern school of fiction, 
 eleven copies of Trilby and six copies of 
 The Heavenly Twins. I also note an ab 
 sence of certain works whose influence upon 
 my earlier life was such that I make bold to 
 send copies of the same to your care in the 
 hope that you will kindly present them to the 
 library with my most cordial compliments. 
 These are a copy each of the New England 
 Primer and Grimm s Household Stories. 
 
 At the age of twenty-three, having been 
 graduated from college and having read the 
 poems of Villon, the confessions of Rousseau, 
 46 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 and Boswell s life of Johnson, I was con 
 vinced that I had comprehended the sum of 
 human wisdom and knew all there was 
 worth knowing. If at the present time 
 for I am seventy-two I knew as much as I 
 thought I knew at twenty-three I should 
 undoubtedly be a prodigy of learning and 
 wisdom. 
 
 I started out to be a philosopher. My 
 grandmother s death during my second year 
 at college possessed me of a considerable 
 sum of money and severed every tie and 
 sentimental obligation which had previously 
 held me to my grandmother s wish that I 
 become a minister of the gospel. When I 
 became convinced that I knew everything I 
 conceived a desire to see something, for I had 
 traveled none and I had met but few people. 
 
 Upon the advice of my Uncle Cephas, I 
 made a journey to Europe, and devoted two 
 years to seeing sights and to acquainting 
 myself with the people and the customs 
 abroad. Nine months of this time I spent 
 in Paris, which was then an irregular and 
 unkempt city, but withal quite as evil as at 
 present. I took apartments in the Latin 
 
 47 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Quarter, and, being of a generous nature, I 
 devoted a large share of my income to the 
 support of certain artists and students whose 
 talents and time were expended almost ex 
 clusively in the pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 While thus serving as a visible means of 
 support to this horde of parasites, I fell in with 
 the man who has since then been my intimate 
 friend. Judge Methuen was a visitor in Paris, 
 and we became boon companions. It was 
 he who rescued me from the parasites and 
 revived the flames of honorable ambition, 
 which had well-nigh been extinguished by the 
 wretched influence of Villon and Rousseau. 
 The] udge was a year my senior, and a wealthy 
 father provided him with the means for gra 
 tifying his wholesome and refined tastes. 
 We two went together to London, and it was 
 during our sojourn in that capital that I began 
 my career as a collector of books. It is sim 
 ply justice to my benefactor to say that to my 
 dear friend Methuen I am indebted for the in 
 spiration which started me upon a course so 
 full of sweet surprises and precious rewards. 
 
 There are very many kinds of book col 
 lectors, but I think all may be grouped in 
 48 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 three classes, viz. : Those who collect from 
 vanity; those who collect for the benefits of 
 learning; those who collect through a ven 
 eration and love for books. It is not unfre- 
 quent that men who begin to collect books 
 merely to gratify their personal vanity find 
 themselves presently so much in love with 
 the pursuit that they become collectors in 
 the better sense. 
 
 Just as a man who takes pleasure in the 
 conquest of feminine hearts invariably finds 
 himself at last ensnared by the very passion 
 which he has been using simply for the gra 
 tification of his vanity, I am inclined to think 
 that the element of vanity enters, to a de 
 gree, into every phase of book collecting; 
 vanity is, I take it, one of the essentials to 
 a well-balanced character not a prodigi 
 ous vanity, but a prudent, well-governed 
 one. But for vanity there would be no com 
 petition in the world ; without competition 
 there would be no progress. 
 
 In these later days I often hear this man 
 or that sneered at because, forsooth, he col 
 lects books without knowing what the books 
 are about, But for my part, I say that that 
 49 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 man bids fair to be all right; he has made a 
 proper start in the right direction, and the 
 likelihood is that, other things being equal, 
 he will eventually become a lover, as well as 
 a buyer, of books. Indeed, I care not what 
 the beginning is, so long as it be a beginning. 
 There are different ways of reaching the goal. 
 Some folk go horseback via the royal road, but 
 very many others are compelled to adopt 
 the more tedious processes, involving rocky 
 pathways and torn shoon and sore feet. 
 
 So subtile and so infectious is this grand 
 passion that one is hardly aware of its pres 
 ence before it has complete possession of 
 him; and I have known instances of men 
 who, after having associated one evening 
 with Judge Methuen and me, have waked 
 up the next morning filled with the incur 
 able enthusiasm of bibliomania. But the 
 development of the passion is not always 
 marked by exhibitions of violence; some 
 times, like the measles, it is slow and obsti 
 nate about " coming out," and in such cases 
 applications should be resorted to for the 
 purpose of diverting the malady from the 
 vitals; otherwise serious results may ensue. 
 50 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Indeed, my learned friend Dr. O Rell has 
 met with several cases (as he informs me) 
 in which suppressed bibliomania has resulted 
 fatally. Many of these cases have been re 
 ported in that excellent publication, the 
 Journal of the American Medical Associa 
 tion," which periodical, by the way, is edited 
 by ex-Surgeon-General Hamilton, a famous 
 collector of the literature of ornament and 
 dress. 
 
 To make short of a long story, the medi 
 cal faculty is nearly a unit upon the propo 
 sition that wherever suppressed bibliomania 
 is suspected immediate steps should be taken 
 to bring out the disease. It is true that an 
 Ohio physician, named Woodbury, has writ 
 ten much in defence of the theory that bib 
 liomania can be aborted; but a very large 
 majority of his profession are of the opinion 
 that the actual malady must needs run a 
 regular course, and they insist that the cases 
 quoted as cured by Woodbury were not 
 genuine, but were bastard or false phases, 
 of the same class as the chickenpox and the 
 German measles. 
 
 My mania exhibited itself first in an affec- 
 51 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 tation for old books; it mattered not what 
 the book itself was so long as it bore an 
 ancient date upon its title-page or in its co 
 lophon 1 pined to possess it. This was not 
 only a vanity, but a very silly one. In a 
 month s time 1 had got together a large num 
 ber of these old tomes, many of them folios, 
 and nearly all badly worm-eaten, and sadly 
 shaken. 
 
 One day I entered a shop kept by a man 
 named Stibbs, and asked if I could procure 
 any volumes of sixteenth-century print. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Stibbs, "we have a 
 cellarful of them, and we sell them by the 
 ton or by the cord." 
 
 That very day I dispersed my hoard of an 
 tiques, retaining only my Prynne s "Histrio- 
 Mastix" and my Opera Quinti Horatii Flacci 
 (8vo, Aldus, Venetiis, 1501). And then I 
 became interested in British balladry a no 
 ble subject, for which I have always had a 
 veneration and love, as the well-kept and 
 profusely annotated volumes in cases 3, 6, 
 and 9 in the front room are ready to prove 
 to you at any time you choose to visit my 
 quiet, pleasant home. 
 52 
 
* 
 
V 
 
 BALDNESS AND INTELLECTUALITY 
 
 ONE of Judge Methuen s pet theories is 
 that the soul in the human body lies 
 near the center of gravity ; this is, I believe, 
 one of the tenets of the Buddhist faith, and 
 for a long time I eschewed it as one might 
 shun a vile thing, for I feared lest I should 
 become identified even remotely with any 
 faith or sect other than Congregationalism. 
 
 Yet 1 noticed that in moments of fear or 
 of joy or of the sense of any other emotion 
 I invariably experienced a feeling of goneness 
 in the pit of my stomach, as if, forsooth, the 
 center of my physical system were also the 
 center of my nervous and intellectual system, 
 the point at which were focused all those 
 devious lines of communication by means 
 of which sensation is instantaneously trans 
 mitted from one part of the body to another. 
 55 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 I mentioned this circumstance to Judge 
 Methuen, and it seemed to please him. " My 
 friend," said he, "you have a particularly 
 sensitive soul; I beg of you to exercise the 
 greatest prudence in your treatment of it. 
 It is the best type of the bibliomaniac soul, 
 for the quickness of its apprehensions be 
 tokens that it is alert and keen and capable 
 of instantaneous impressions and enthusi 
 asms. What you have just told me con 
 vinces me that you are by nature qualified 
 for rare exploits in the science and art of 
 book-collecting. You will presently be 
 come bald perhaps as bald as Thomas 
 Hobbes was for a vigilant and active soul 
 invariably compels baldness, so close are 
 the relations between the soul and the brain, 
 and so destructive are the growth and op 
 erations of the soul to those vestigial fea 
 tures which humanity has inherited from 
 those grosser animals, our prehistoric an 
 cestors." 
 
 You see by this that Judge Methuen recog 
 nized baldness as prima-facie evidence of in 
 tellectuality and spirituality. He has collected 
 much literature upon the subject, and has 
 56 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 promised the Academy of Science to prepare 
 and read for the instruction of that learned 
 body an essay demonstrating that absence 
 of hair from the cranium (particularly from 
 the superior regions of the frontal and parie 
 tal divisions) proves a departure from the 
 instincts and practices of brute humanity, 
 and indicates surely the growth of the un 
 derstanding. 
 
 It occurred to the Judge long ago to pre 
 pare a list of the names of the famous bald 
 men in the history of human society, and 
 this list has grown until it includes the names 
 of thousands, representing every profession 
 and vocation. Homer, Socrates, Confucius, 
 Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Pliny, Maecenas, 
 Julius Caesar, Horace, Shakespeare, Bacon, 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, Dante, Pope, Cowper, 
 Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Israel Putnam, John 
 Quincy Adams, Patrick Henry these ge 
 niuses all were bald. But the baldest of all 
 was the philosopher Hobbes, of whom the 
 revered John Aubrey has recorded that " he 
 was very bald, yet within dore he used to 
 study and sitt bare-headed, and said he never 
 took cold in his head, but that the greatest 
 57 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 trouble was to keepe off the flies from pitch 
 ing on the baldness." 
 
 In all the portraits and pictures of Bona 
 parte which I have seen, a conspicuous feature 
 is that curl or lock of hair which depends 
 upon the emperor s forehead, and gives to 
 the face a pleasant degree of picturesque dis 
 tinction. Yet this was a vanity, and really 
 a laughable one; for early in life Bonaparte 
 began to get bald, and this so troubled him 
 that he sought to overcome the change it 
 made in his appearance by growing a long 
 strand of hair upon his occiput and bringing 
 it forward a goodly distance in such artful 
 v/ise that it right ingeniously served the pur 
 poses of that Hyperion curl which had been 
 the pride of his youth, but which had fallen 
 early before the ravages of time. 
 
 As for myself, I do not know that I ever 
 shared that derisive opinion in which the un 
 thinking are wont to hold baldness. Nay, 
 on the contrary, I have always had especial 
 reverence for this mark of intellectuality, and 
 I agree with my friend Judge Methuen that 
 the tragic episode recorded in the second 
 chapter of II. Kings should serve the honora- 
 
 58 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 ble purpose of indicating to humanity that 
 bald heads are favored with the approval and 
 the protection of Divinity. 
 
 In my own case I have imputed my early 
 baldness to growth in intellectuality and 
 spirituality induced by my fondness for and 
 devotion to books. Miss Susan, my sister, 
 lays it to other causes, first among which 
 she declares to be my unnatural practice of 
 reading in bed, and the second my habit of 
 eating welsh-rarebits late of nights. Over 
 my bed I have a gas-jet so properly shaded 
 that the rays of light are concentrated and 
 reflected downward upon the volume which 
 I am reading. 
 
 Miss Susan insists that much of this light 
 and its attendant heat falls upon my head, 
 compelling there a dryness of the scalp 
 whereby the follicles have been deprived of 
 their natural nourishment and have conse 
 quently died. She furthermore maintains 
 that the welsh-rarebits of which I partake 
 invariably at the eleventh hour every night 
 breed poisonous vapors and subtle megrims 
 within my stomach, which humors, rising 
 by their natural courses to my brain, do 
 59 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 therein produce a fever that from within burn- 
 eth up the fluids necessary to a healthy con 
 dition of the capillary growth upon the super- 
 adjacent and exterior cranial integument. 
 
 Now, this very declaration of Miss Susan s 
 gives me a potent argument in defence of 
 my practices, for, being bald, would not a 
 neglect of those means whereby warmth is 
 engendered where it is needed result in 
 colds, quinsies, asthmas, and a thousand 
 other banes ? The same benignant Provi 
 dence which, according to Laurence Sterne, 
 tempereth the wind to the shorn lamb, pro- 
 videth defence and protection for the bald. 
 Had I not loved books, the soul in my mid 
 riff had not done away with those capillary 
 vestiges of my simian ancestry which origi 
 nally flourished upon my scalp; had I not 
 become bald, the delights and profits of 
 reading in bed might never have fallen to 
 my lot. 
 
 And indeed baldness has its compensa 
 tions; when 1 look about me and see the 
 time, the energy, and the money that are 
 continually expended upon the nurture and 
 tending of the hair, I am thankful that my lot 
 60 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 is what it is. For now my money is applied 
 to the buying of books, and my time and 
 energy are devoted to the reading of them. 
 To thy vain employments, thou becurled 
 and pomaded Absalom! Sweeter tlian thy 
 unguents and cosmetics and Sabean per 
 fumes is the smell of those old books of mine, 
 which from the years and from the ship s hold 
 and from constant companionship with sages 
 and philosophers have acquired a fragrance 
 that exalteth the soul and quickeneth the 
 intellectuals! Let me paraphrase my dear 
 Chaucer and tell thee, thou waster of sub 
 stances, that 
 
 For me was lever ban at my beddes bed 
 A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red, 
 Of Aristotle and his philosophic, 
 Than robes rich, or fidel, or sautrie ; 
 But all be that I ben a philosopher 
 Yet have I but litel gold in cofre ! 
 
 Books, books, books give me ever more 
 books, for they are the caskets wherein we 
 find the immortal expressions of humanity 
 words, the only things that live forever! 
 I bow reverently to the bust in yonder corner 
 whenever I recall what Sir John Herschel 
 61 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 (God rest his dear soul!) said and wrote: 
 "Were 1 to pay for a taste that should stand 
 me in stead under every variety of circum 
 stances and be a source of happiness and 
 cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield 
 against its ills, however things might go 
 amiss and the world frown upon me, it 
 would be a taste for reading. Give a man 
 this taste and a means of gratifying it, and 
 you can hardly fail of making him a happy 
 man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands 
 a most perverse selection of books. You 
 place him in contact with the best society in 
 every period of history with the wisest, 
 the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and 
 the purest characters who have adorned 
 humanity. You make him a denizen of all 
 nations, a contemporary of all ages. The 
 world has been created for him." 
 
 For one phrase particularly do all good 
 men, methinks, bless burly, bearish, phrase- 
 making old Tom Carlyle. "Of all things," 
 quoth he, " which men do or make here be 
 low by far the most momentous, wonderful, 
 and worthy are the things we call books." 
 And Judge Methuen s favorite quotation is 
 62 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 from Babington Macaulay to this effect: "I 
 would rather be a poor man in a garret with 
 plenty of books than a king who did not 
 love reading." 
 
 Kings, indeed ! What a sorry lot are they ! 
 Said George III. to Nicol, his bookseller: " I 
 would give this right hand if the same atten 
 tion had been paid to my education which I 
 pay to that of the prince." Louis XIV. 
 was as illiterate as the lowliest hedger and 
 ditcher. He could hardly write his name; 
 at first, as Samuel Pegge tells us, he formed 
 it out of six straight strokes and a line of 
 beauty, thus: II I I I I S which he 
 afterward perfected as best he could, and 
 the result was LOUIS. 
 
 Still I find it hard to inveigh against kings 
 when I recall the goodness of Alexander to 
 Aristotle, for without Alexander we should 
 hardly have known of Aristotle. His royal 
 patron provided the philosopher with every 
 advantage for the acquisition of learning, 
 dispatching couriers to all parts of the earth 
 to gather books and manuscripts and every 
 variety of curious thing likely to swell the 
 store of Aristotle s knowledge. 
 
 63 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Yet set them up in a line and survey them 
 these wearers of crowns and these wield- 
 ers of scepters and how pitiable are they 
 in the paucity and vanity of their accomplish 
 ments! What knew they of the true happi 
 ness of human life ? They and their cour 
 tiers are dust and forgotten. 
 
 Judge Methuen and I shall in due time pass 
 away, but our courtiers they who have 
 ever contributed to our delight and solace 
 our Horace, our Cervantes, our Shakespeare, 
 and the rest of the innumerable train these 
 shall never die. And inspired and sustained 
 by this immortal companionship we blithely 
 walk the pathway illumined by its glory, 
 and we sing, in season and out, the song 
 ever dear to us and ever dear to thee, I hope, 
 O gentle reader: 
 
 Oh, for a booke and a shady nooke, 
 
 Eyther in doore or out, 
 With the greene leaves whispering overhead, 
 
 Or the streete cryes all about; 
 Where I maie reade all at my ease 
 
 Both of the newe and old, 
 For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke 
 
 Is better to me than golde! 
 
 64 
 
Romance toitf) j?iammctta 
 V 
 
VI 
 MY ROMANCE WITH FIAMMETTA 
 
 MY bookseller and I came nigh to blows 
 some months ago over an edition of 
 Boccaccio, which my bookseller tried to sell 
 me. This was a copy in the original, pub 
 lished at Antwerp in 1603, prettily rubricated, 
 and elaborately adorned with some forty or 
 fifty copperplates illustrative of the text. I 
 dare say the volume was cheap enough at 
 thirty dollars, but I did not want it. 
 
 My reason for not wanting it gave rise to 
 that discussion between my bookseller and 
 myself, which became very heated before it 
 ended. I said very frankly that I did not 
 care for the book in the original, because I 
 had several translations done by the most 
 competent hands. Thereupon my booksel 
 ler ventured that aged and hackneyed argu 
 ment which has for centuries done the book 
 67 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 trade such effective service namely, that 
 in every translation, no matter how good 
 that translation may be, there is certain to 
 be lost a share of the flavor and spirit of the 
 meaning. 
 
 " Fiddledeedee! " said I. " Do you sup 
 pose that these translators who have devoted 
 their lives to the study and practice of the 
 art are not competent to interpret the differ 
 ent shades and colors of meaning better than 
 the mere dabbler in foreign tongues ? And 
 then, again, is not human life too short for 
 the lover of books to spend his precious 
 time digging out the recondite allusions of 
 authors, lexicon in hand ? My dear sir, it is 
 a wickedly false economy to expend time and 
 money for that which one can get done much 
 better and at a much smaller expenditure by 
 another hand." 
 
 From my encounter with my bookseller 
 I went straight home and took down my 
 favorite copy of the "Decameron" and 
 thumbed it over very tenderly ; for you must 
 know th-at I am particularly attached to that 
 little volume. I can hardly realize that nearly 
 half a century has elapsed since Yseult Har- 
 68 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 dynge and I parted. She was such a crea 
 ture as the great novelist himself would 
 have chosen for a heroine; she had the 
 beauty and the wit of those Florentine ladies 
 who flourished in the fourteenth century, 
 and whose graces of body and mind have 
 been immortalized by Boccaccio. Her eyes, 
 as I particularly recall, were specially fine, 
 reflecting from their dark depths every ex 
 pression of her varying moods. 
 
 Why I called her Fiammetta I cannot say, 
 for I do not remember; perhaps from a boy 
 ish fancy, merely. At that time Boccaccio 
 and I were famous friends; we were to 
 gether constantly, and his companionship 
 had such an influence upon me that for the 
 nonce I lived and walked and had my being 
 in that distant, romantic period when all 
 men were gallants and all women were 
 grandes dames and all birds were nightin 
 gales. 
 
 I bought myself an old Florentine sword 
 at Noseda s in the Strand and hung it on 
 the wall in my modest apartments; under 
 it I placed Boccaccio s portrait and Fiamrnet- 
 ta s, and I was wont to drink toasts to these 
 69 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 beloved counterfeit presentments in flagons 
 (mind you, genuine antique flagons) of Ital 
 ian wine. Twice I took Fiammetta boating 
 upon the Thames and once to view the 
 Lord Mayor s pageant; her mother was with 
 us on both occasions, but she might as well 
 have been at the bottom of the sea, for she 
 was a stupid old soul, wholly incapable of 
 sharing or appreciating the poetic enthusi 
 asms of romantic youth. 
 
 Had Fiammetta been a book ah, unfortu 
 nate lady! had she but been a book she 
 might still be mine, for me to care for lov 
 ingly and to hide from profane eyes and to 
 attire in crushed levant and gold and to 
 cherish as a best-beloved companion in mine 
 age! Had she been a book she could not 
 have been guilty of the folly of wedding 
 with a yeoman of Lincolnshire ah me, 
 what rude awakenings too often dispel the 
 pleasing dreams of youth! 
 
 When I revisited England in the sixties, 
 I was tempted to make an excursion into 
 Lincolnshire for the purpose of renewing 
 my acquaintance with Fiammetta. Before, 
 however, I had achieved that object this 
 70 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 thought occurred to me: "You are upon a 
 fool s errand ; turn back, or you will destroy 
 forever one of the sweetest of your boy 
 hood illusions! You seek Fiammetta in the 
 delusive hope of finding her in the person 
 of Mrs. Henry Boggs; there is but one Fiam 
 metta, and she is the memory abiding in 
 your heart. Spare yourself the misery of 
 discovering in the hearty, fleshy Lincoln 
 shire hussif the decay of the promises of 
 years ago; be content to do reverence to 
 the ideal Fiammetta who has built her little 
 shrine in your sympathetic heart!" 
 
 Now this was strange counsel, yet it had 
 so great weight with me that I was per 
 suaded by it, and after lying a night at the 
 Swan-and-Quiver Tavern I went back to 
 London, and never again had a desire to 
 visit Lincolnshire. 
 
 But Fiammetta is still a pleasing memory 
 ay, and more than a memory to me, for 
 whenever I take down that precious book 
 and open it, what a host of friends do troop 
 forth! Cavaliers, princesses, courtiers, da- 
 moiselles, monks, nuns, equerries, pages, 
 maidens humanity of every class and con- 
 
 7 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 dition, and all instinct with the color of the 
 master magician, Boccaccio ! 
 
 And before them all cometh a maiden with 
 dark, glorious eyes, and she beareth gar 
 lands of roses; the moonlight falleth like 
 a benediction upon the Florentine garden 
 slope, and the night wind seeketh its cradle 
 in the laurel tree, and fain would sleep to 
 the song of the nightingale. 
 
 As for Judge Methuen, he loves his Boc 
 caccio quite as much as I do mine, and be 
 ing somewhat of a versifier he has made a 
 little poem on the subject, a copy of which 
 1 have secured surreptitiously and do now 
 offer for your delectation : 
 
 One day upon a topmost shelf 
 
 I found a precious prize indeed, 
 Which father used to read himself, 
 
 But did not want us boys to read; 
 A brown old book of certain age 
 
 (As type and binding seemed to show), 
 While on the spotted title-page 
 
 Appeared the name " Boccaccio." 
 
 I d never heard that name before, 
 
 But in due season it became 
 To him who fondly brooded o er 
 
 Those pages a beloved name! 
 72 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Adown the centuries I walked 
 Mid pastoral scenes and royal show; 
 
 With seigneurs and their dames I talked 
 The crony of Boccaccio ! 
 
 Those courtly knights and sprightly maids, 
 
 Who really seemed disposed to shine 
 In gallantries and escapades, 
 
 Anon became great friends of mine. 
 Yet was there sentiment with fun, 
 
 And oftentimes my tears would flow 
 At some quaint tale of valor done, 
 
 As told by my Boccaccio. 
 
 In boyish dreams I saw again 
 
 Bucolic belles and dames of court, 
 The princely youths and monkish men 
 
 Arrayed for sacrifice or sport. 
 Again I heard the nightingale 
 
 Sing as she sang those years ago 
 In his embowered Italian vale 
 
 To my revered Boccaccio. 
 
 And still I love that brown old book 
 
 I found upon the topmost shelf 
 I love it so I let none look 
 
 Upon the treasure but myself ! 
 And yet I have a strapping boy 
 
 Who (I have every cause to know) 
 Would to its full extent enjoy 
 
 The friendship of Boccaccio! 
 
 73 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 But boys are, oh! so different now 
 
 From- what they were when I was one! 
 I fear my boy would not know how 
 
 To take that old raconteur s fun! 
 In your companionship, O friend, 
 
 I think it wise alone to go 
 Plucking the gracious fruits that bend 
 
 Wheree er you lead, Boccaccio. 
 
 So rest you there upon the shelf, 
 
 Clad in your garb of faded brown ; 
 Perhaps, sometime, my boy himself 
 
 Shall find you out and take you down. 
 Then may he feel the joy once more 
 
 That thrilled me, filled me years ago 
 When reverently I brooded o er 
 
 The glories of Boccaccio! 
 
 Out upon the vile brood of imitators, I 
 say! Get ye gone, ye Bandellos and ye 
 Straparolas and ye other charlatans who 
 would fain possess yourselves of the empire 
 which the genius of Boccaccio bequeathed 
 to humanity. There is but one master, and 
 to him we render grateful homage. He 
 leads us down through the cloisters of time, 
 and at his touch the dead become reanimate, 
 and all the sweetness and the valor of anti 
 quity recur; heroism, love, sacrifice, tears, 
 
 74 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 laughter, wisdom, wit, philosophy, charity, 
 and understanding are his auxiliaries; human 
 ity is his inspiration, humanity his theme, 
 humanity his audience, humanity his debtor. 
 
 Now it is of Tancred s daughter he tells, 
 and now of Rossiglione s wife; anon of the 
 cozening gardener he speaks and anon of 
 Alibech ; of what befell Gillette de Narbonne, 
 of Iphigenia and Cymon, of Saladin, of Cal- 
 andrino, of Dianora and Ansaldo we hear; 
 and what subject soever he touches he 
 quickens it into life, and he so subtly invests 
 it with that indefinable quality of his genius 
 as to attract thereunto not only our sympa 
 thies but also our enthusiasm. 
 
 Yes, truly, he should be read with under 
 standing ; what author should not ? I would 
 no more think of putting my Boccaccio into 
 the hands of a dullard than I would think 
 of leaving a bright and beautiful woman at 
 the mercy of a blind mute. 
 
 I have hinted at the horror of the fate 
 which befell Yseult Hardynge in the seclu 
 sion of Mr. Henry Boggs s Lincolnshire es 
 tate. Mr. Henry Boggs knew nothing of 
 romance, and he cared less; he was wholly 
 
 75 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 incapable of appreciating a woman with 
 dark, glorious eyes and an expanding soul; 
 I 11 warrant me that he would at any time 
 gladly have traded a " Decameron" for a 
 copy of "The Gentleman Poulterer," or for 
 a year s subscription to that grewsome 
 monument to human imbecility, London 
 "Punch." 
 Ah, Yseult! hadst thou but been a book! 
 
 7 6 
 
Ctje SDriifitytg of f ctiDo:#f i$$in$ 
 
 V 
 
VII 
 THE DELIGHTS OF FENDER-FISHING 
 
 I SHOULD like to have met Izaak Walton. 
 He is one of the few authors whom I 
 know I should like to have met. For he 
 was a wise man, and he had understand 
 ing. I should like to have gone angling 
 with him, for I doubt not that like myself 
 he was more of an angler theoretically than 
 practically. My bookseller is a famous fish 
 erman, as, indeed, booksellers generally are, 
 since the methods employed by fishermen 
 to deceive and to catch their finny prey are 
 very similar to those employed by book 
 sellers to attract and to entrap buyers. 
 
 As for myself, I regard angling as one of 
 the best of avocations, and although I have 
 pursued it but little, I concede that doubt 
 less had I practised it oftener I should have 
 been a better man. How truly has Dame 
 
 79 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Juliana Berners said that "at the least the 
 angler hath his wholesome walk and merry 
 at his ease, and a sweet air of the sweet 
 savqur of the mead flowers that maketh 
 him hungry ; he heareth the melodious 
 harmony of fowls ; he seeth the young 
 swans, herons, ducks, cotes, and many other 
 fowls with their broods, which meseemeth 
 better than all the noise of hounds, the blasts 
 of horns, and the cry of fowls that hunters, 
 falconers, and fowlers can make. And if 
 the angler take fish surely then is there no 
 man merrier than he is in his spirit! " 
 
 My bookseller cannot understand how it 
 is that, being so enthusiastic a fisherman 
 theoretically, I should at the same time in 
 dulge so seldom in the practice of fishing, 
 as if, forsooth, a man should be expected to 
 engage continually and actively in every art 
 and practice of which he may happen to ap 
 prove. My young friend Edward Ayer has 
 a noble collection of books relating to the 
 history of American aboriginals and to the 
 wars waged between those Indians and 
 the settlers in this country ; my other young 
 friend Luther Mills has gathered together a 
 80 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 multitude of books treating of the Napoleonic 
 wars; yet neither Ayer nor Mills hath ever 
 slain a man or fought a battle, albeit both 
 find delectation in recitals of warlike prow 
 ess and personal valor. I love the night and 
 all the poetic influences of that quiet time, 
 but I do not sit up all night in order to hear 
 the nightingale or to contemplate the as 
 tounding glories of the heavens. 
 
 For similar reasons, much as I appreciate 
 and marvel at the beauties of early morning, 
 I do not make a practice of early rising, and 
 sensible as I am to the charms of the bab 
 bling brook and of the crystal lake, I am not 
 addicted to the practice of wading about in 
 either to the danger either to my own health 
 or to the health of the finny denizens in 
 those places. 
 
 The best anglers in the world are those 
 who do not catch fish ; the mere slaughter 
 of fish is simply brutal, and it was with a 
 view to keeping her excellent treatise out of 
 the hands of the idle and the inappreciative 
 that Dame Berners incorporated that treatise 
 in a compendious book whose cost was so 
 large that only "gentyll and noble men" 
 81 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 could possess it. What mind has he who 
 loveth fishing merely for the killing it in 
 volves what mind has such a one to the 
 beauty of the ever-changing panorama which 
 nature unfolds to the appreciative eye, or 
 what communion has he with those sweet 
 and uplifting influences in which the mea 
 dows, the hillsides, the glades, the dells, the 
 forests, and the marshes abound ? 
 
 Out upon these vandals, I say out upon 
 the barbarians who would rob angling of its 
 poesy, and reduce it to the level of the butch 
 er s trade! It becomes a base and vicious 
 avocation, does angling, when it ceases to 
 be what Sir Henry Wotton loved to call it 
 "an -employment for his idle time, which 
 was then not idly spent; a rest to his mind, 
 a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, 
 a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator 
 of passions, a procurer of contentedness, and 
 a begetter of habits of peace and patience in 
 those that professed and practised it! " 
 
 There was another man I should like to 
 have met Sir Henry Wotton; for he was 
 an ideal angler. Christopher North, too 
 (" an excellent angler and now with God " !) 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 how I should love to have explored the 
 Yarrow with him, for he was a man of 
 vast soul, vast learning, and vast wit. 
 
 Would you believe it, my dear Shep 
 herd," said he, " that my piscatory passions 
 are almost dead within me, and I like now 
 to saunter along the banks and braes, eying 
 the younkers angling, or to lay me down on 
 some sunny spot, and with my face up to 
 heaven, watch the slow-changing clouds! " 
 
 There was the angling genius with whom 
 I would fain go angling! 
 
 Angling," says our revered St. Izaak, 
 angling is somewhat like poetry men 
 are to be born so." 
 
 Doubtless there are poets who are not 
 anglers, but doubtless there never was an 
 angler who was not also a poet. Christo 
 pher North was a famous fisherman ; he be 
 gan his career as such when he was a child 
 of three years. With his thread line and 
 bent-pin hook the wee tot set out to make 
 his first cast in "a wee burnie" he had dis 
 covered near his home. He caught his fish, 
 too, and for the rest of the day he carried 
 the miserable little specimen about on a 
 83 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 plate, exhibiting it triumphantly. With that 
 first experience began a life which I am fain 
 to regard as one glorious song in praise of 
 the beauty and the beneficence of nature. 
 
 My bookseller once took me angling with 
 him in a Wisconsin lake which was the 
 property of a club of anglers to which my 
 friend belonged. As we were to be absent 
 several days I carried along a box of books, 
 for I esteem appropriate reading to be a 
 most important adjunct to an angling ex 
 pedition. My bookseller had with him 
 enough machinery to stock a whaling ex 
 pedition, and I could not help wondering 
 what my old Walton would think, could he 
 drop down into our company with his mod 
 est equipment of hooks, flies, and gentles. 
 
 The lake whither we went was a large 
 and beautiful expanse, girt by a landscape 
 which to my fancy was the embodiment of 
 poetic delicacy and suggestion. I began to 
 inquire about the chub, dace, and trouts, but 
 my bookseller lost no time in telling me 
 that the lake had been rid of all cheap fry, 
 and had been stocked with game fish, such 
 as bass and pike. 
 
 84 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 I did not at all relish this covert sneer at 
 traditions which I have always reverenced, 
 and the better acquainted I became with my 
 bookseller s modern art of angling the less 
 I liked it. I have little love for that kind of 
 angling which does not admit of a simultane 
 ous enjoyment of the surrounding beauties 
 of nature. My bookseller enjoined silence 
 upon me, but I did not heed the injunction, 
 for I must, indeed, have been a mere wooden 
 effigy to hold my peace amid that pictur 
 esque environment of hill, valley, wood, 
 meadow, and arching sky of clear blue. 
 
 It was fortunate for me that I had my 
 "Noctes Ambrosianae" along, for when I 
 had exhausted my praise of the surrounding 
 glories of nature, my bookseller would not 
 converse with me; so I opened my book 
 and read to him that famous passage be 
 tween Kit North and the Ettrick Shepherd, 
 wherein the shepherd discourses boastfully 
 of his prowess as a piscator of sawmon. 
 
 As the sun approached midheaven and 
 
 its heat became insupportable, I raised my 
 
 umbrella; to this sensible proceeding my 
 
 bookseller objected in fact, there was 
 
 85 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 hardly any reasonable suggestion I had to 
 make for beguiling the time that my book 
 seller did not protest against it, and when 
 finally 1 produced my Newcastle Fisher s 
 Garlands" from my basket, and began to 
 troll those spirited lines beginning 
 
 Away wi carking care and gloom 
 That make life s pathway weedy O! 
 A cheerful glass makes flowers to bloom 
 And lightsome hours fly speedy O! 
 
 he gathered in his rod and tackle, and de 
 clared that it was no use trying to catch 
 fish while Bedlam ran riot. 
 
 As for me, I had a delightful time of it; I 
 caught no fish, to be sure: but what of 
 that? I could have caught fish had I so 
 desired, but, as I have already intimated to 
 you and as I have always maintained and 
 always shall, the mere catching of fish is 
 the least of the many enjoyments compre 
 hended in the broad, gracious art of angling. 
 
 Even my bookseller was compelled to 
 admit ultimately that I was a worthy dis 
 ciple of Walton, for when we had returned 
 to the club house and had partaken of our 
 supper I regaled the company with many a 
 86 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 cheery tale and merry song which I had 
 gathered from my books. Indeed, before I 
 returned to the city I was elected an honor 
 ary member of the club by acclamation 
 not for the number of fish I had expiscated 
 (for I did not catch one), but for that mas 
 tery of the science of angling and the litera 
 ture and the traditions and the religion and 
 the philosophy thereof which, by the grace 
 of the companionship of books, I had 
 achieved. 
 
 It is said that, with his feet over the fender, 
 Macaulay could discourse learnedly of French 
 poetry, art, and philosophy. Yet he never 
 visited Paris that he did not experience the 
 most exasperating difficulties in making 
 himself understood by the French customs 
 officers. 
 
 In like manner I am a fender-fisherman. 
 With my shins toasting before a roaring fire, 
 and with Judge Methuen at my side, I love 
 to exploit the joys and the glories of ang 
 ling. The Judge is a brother of the angle, " 
 as all will allow who have heard him tell 
 Father Prout s story of the bishop and the 
 turbots or heard him sing 
 87 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 With angle rod and lightsome heart, 
 Our conscience clear, we gay depart 
 To pebbly brooks and purling streams, 
 And ne er a care to vex our dreams. 
 
 And how could the lot of the fender-fisher 
 man be happier? No colds, quinsies or 
 asthmas follow his incursions into the realms 
 of fancy where in cool streams and peaceful 
 lakes a legion of chubs and trouts and saw- 
 mon await him; in fancy he can hie away 
 to the far-off Yarrow and once more share 
 the benefits of the companionship of Kit 
 North, the Shepherd, and that noble Edin 
 burgh band; in fancy he can trudge the 
 banks of the Blackwater with the sage of 
 Watergrasshill ; in fancy he can hear the 
 music of the Tyne and feel the wind sweep 
 cool and fresh o er Coquetdale; in fancy, too, 
 he knows the friendships which only he 
 can know the friendships of the immortals 
 whose spirits hover where human love and 
 sympathy attract them. 
 
 How well I love ye, O my precious books 
 my Prout, my Wilson, my Phillips, my 
 Berners, my Doubleday, my Roxby, my 
 Chatto, my Thompson, my Crawhall! For 
 
 88 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 ye are full of joyousness and cheer, and your 
 songs uplift me and make me young and 
 strong again. 
 
 And thou, homely little brown thing with 
 worn leaves, yet more precious to me than 
 all jewels of the earth come, let me take 
 thee from thy shelf and hold thee lovingly 
 in my hands and press thee tenderly to this 
 aged and slow-pulsing heart of mine! Dost 
 thou remember how I found thee halfa century 
 ago all tumbled in a lot of paltry trash ? Did 
 I not joyously possess thee for a sixpence, 
 and have I not cherished thee full sweetly 
 all these years ? My Walton, soon must we 
 part forever; when I am gone say unto him 
 who next shall have thee to his own that 
 with his latest breath an old man blessed 
 thee! 
 
-f 
 
 a ant) tijeiv 
 * 
 
VIII 
 BALLADS AND THEIR MAKERS 
 
 ONE of the most interesting spots in all 
 London to me is Bunhill Fields ceme 
 tery, for herein are the graves of many whose 
 memory I revere. I had heard that Joseph 
 Ritson was buried here, and while my sister, 
 Miss Susan, lingered at the grave of her fa 
 vorite poet, I took occasion to spy around 
 among the tombstones in the hope of dis 
 covering the last resting-place of the curious 
 old antiquary whose labors in the field of 
 balladry have placed me under so great a debt 
 of gratitude to him. 
 
 But after I had searched in vain for some 
 what more than an hour one of the keepers 
 of the place told me that in compliance with 
 Ritson s earnest desire while living, that anti 
 quary s grave was immediately after the in 
 terment of the body levelled down and left to 
 93 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 the care of nature, with no stone to designate 
 its location. So at the present time no one 
 knows just where old Ritson s grave is, only 
 that within that vast enclosure where so 
 many thousand souls sleep their last sleep 
 the dust of the famous ballad-lover lies fast 
 asleep in the bosom of mother earth. 
 
 I have never been able to awaken in Miss 
 Susan any enthusiasm for balladry. My 
 worthy sister is of a serious turn of mind, 
 and I have heard her say a thousand times 
 that convivial songs (which is her name for 
 balladry) are inspirations, if not actually 
 compositions, of the devil. In her younger 
 days Miss Susan performed upon the melo- 
 deon with much discretion, and at one time 
 I indulged the delusive hope that eventually 
 she would not disdain to join me in the vocal 
 performance of the best ditties of D Urfey 
 and his ilk. 
 
 If I do say it myself, I had a very pretty 
 voice thirty or forty years ago, and even at 
 the present time I can deliver the ballad of 
 King Cophetua and the beggar maid with 
 amazing spirit when I have my friend Judge 
 Methuen at my side and a bowl of steaming 
 
 94 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 punch between us. But my education of 
 Miss Susan ended without being finished. 
 We two learned to perform the ballad of Sir 
 Patrick Spens very acceptably, but Miss Su 
 san abandoned the copartnership when I 
 insisted that we proceed to the sprightly 
 ditty beginning, 
 
 Life s short hours too fast are hasting 
 Sweet amours cannot be lasting. 
 
 My physician, Dr. O Rell, has often told 
 me that he who has a well-assorted ballad 
 library should never be lonely, for the limi 
 tations of balladry are so broad that within 
 them are to be found performances adapted 
 to every mood to which humanity is liable. 
 And, indeed, my experience confirms the 
 truth of my physician s theory. It were hard 
 for me to tell what delight I have had upon 
 a hot and gusty day in a perusal of the his 
 tory of Robin Hood, for there is such ac 
 tuality in those simple rhymes as to dispel 
 the troublesome environments of the present 
 and transport me to better times and pleas- 
 anter scenes. 
 
 Aha! how many times have I walked with 
 
 95 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 brave Robin in Sherwood forest ! How many 
 times have Little John and I couched under 
 the greenwood tree and shared with Friar 
 Tuck the haunch of juicy venison and the 
 pottle of brown October brew ! And Will 
 Scarlet and I have been famous friends these 
 many a year, and if Allen-a-Dale were here 
 he would tell you that I have trolled full 
 many a ballad with him in praise of Maid 
 Marian s peerless beauty. 
 
 Who says that Sherwood is no more and 
 that Robin and his merry men are gone for 
 ever ! Why, only yesternight I walked with 
 them in that gracious forest and laughed de 
 fiance at the doughty sheriff and his craven 
 menials. The moonlight twinkled and sifted 
 through the boscage, and the wind was 
 fresh and cool. Right merrily we sang, and 
 I doubt not we should have sung the whole 
 night through had not my sister, Miss Susan, 
 come tapping at my door, saying that I had 
 waked her parrot and would do well to 
 cease my uproar and go to sleep. 
 
 Judge Methuen has a copy of Bishop Per 
 cy s " Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" 
 that he prizes highly. It is the first edition 
 96 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 of this noble work, and was originally pre 
 sented by Percy to Dr. Birch of the British 
 Museum. The Judge found these three vol 
 umes exposed for sale in a London book 
 stall, and he comprehended them without 
 delay a great bargain, you will admit, 
 when I tell you that they cost the Judge but 
 three shillings! How came these precious 
 volumes into that book stall I shall not pre 
 sume to say. 
 
 Strange indeed are the vicissitudes which 
 befall books, stranger even than the happen 
 ings in human life. All men are not as con 
 siderate of books as I am ; I wish they were. 
 Many times I have felt the deepest compas 
 sion for noble volumes in the possession of 
 persons wholly incapable of appreciating 
 them. The helpless books seemed to appeal 
 to me to rescue them, and too many times I 
 have been tempted to snatch them from their 
 inhospitable shelves, and march them away 
 to a pleasant refuge beneath my own com 
 fortable roof tree. 
 
 Too few people seem to realize that books 
 have feelings. But if I know one thing bet 
 ter than another I know this, that my books 
 
 97 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 know me and love me. When of a morning 
 I awaken I cast my eyes about my room to 
 see how fare my beloved treasures, and as 
 I cry cheerily to them, "Good-day to you, 
 sweet friends!" how lovingly they beam 
 upon me, and how glad they are that my 
 repose has been unbroken. When I take 
 them from their places, how tenderly do 
 they respond to the caresses of my hands, 
 and with what exultation do they respond 
 unto my call for sympathy ! 
 
 Laughter for my gayer moods, distraction 
 for my cares, solace for my griefs, gossip for 
 my idler moments, tears for my sorrows, 
 counsel for my doubts, and assurance against 
 my fears these things my books give me 
 with a promptness and a certainty and a 
 cheerfulness which are more than human; 
 so that I were less than human did I not love 
 these comforters and bear eternal gratitude 
 to them. 
 
 Judge Methuen read me once a little poem 
 which I fancy mightily; it is entitled "Win- 
 freda," and you will find it in your Percy, if 
 you have one. The last stanza, as I recall it, 
 runs in this wise: 
 
 98 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 And when by envy time transported 
 Shall seek to rob us of our joys, 
 
 You 11 in our girls again be courted 
 And I 11 go wooing in our boys. 
 
 "Now who was the author of those 
 lines ? " asked the Judge. 
 
 "Undoubtedly Oliver Wendell Holmes," 
 said I. "They have the flavor peculiar to 
 our Autocrat; none but he could have done 
 up so much sweetness in such a quaint little 
 bundle." 
 
 "You are wrong," said the Judge, "but 
 the mistake is a natural one. The whole 
 poem is such a one as Holmes might have 
 written, but it saw the light long before our 
 dear doctor s day : what a pity that its author 
 ship is not known!" 
 
 " Yet why a pity ? " quoth I. "Is it not 
 true that words are the only things that live 
 forever? Are we not mortal, and are not 
 books immortal ? Homer s harp is broken and 
 Horace s lyre is unstrung, and the voices of 
 the great singers are hushed ; but their songs 
 their songs are imperishable. O friend! 
 what moots it to them or to us who gave 
 this epic or that lyric to immortality? The 
 99 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 singer belongs to a year, his song to all time. 
 I know it is the custom now to credit the 
 author with his work, for this is a utilitarian 
 age, and all things are by the pound or the 
 piece, and for so much money. 
 
 "So when a song is printed it is printed 
 in small type, and the name of him who wrote 
 it is appended thereunto in big type. If the 
 song be meritorious it goes to the corners 
 of the earth through the medium of the art 
 preservative of arts, but the longer and the 
 farther it travels the bigger does the type of 
 the song become and the smaller becomes 
 the type wherein the author s name is 
 set. 
 
 "Then, finally, some inconsiderate hand, 
 wielding the pen or shears, blots out or 
 snips off the poet s name, and henceforth the 
 song is anonymous. A great iconoclast 
 a royal old iconoclast is Time : but he hath 
 no terrors for those precious things which 
 are embalmed in words, and the only fellow 
 that shall surely escape him till the crack of 
 doom is he whom men know by the name 
 of Anonymous! " 
 
 "Doubtless you speak truly," said the 
 
 IOO 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC / ; ,, jJj 
 
 Judge; "yet it would be different if I but 
 had the ordering of things. I would let 
 the poets live forever and I would kill off 
 most of their poetry. 
 
 I do not wonder that Ritson and Percy 
 quarrelled. It was his misfortune that Ritson 
 quarrelled with everybody. Yet Ritson was 
 a scrupulously honest man; he was so vul 
 garly sturdy in his honesty that he would 
 make all folk tell the truth even though the 
 truth were of such a character as to bring the 
 blush of shame to the devil s hardened cheek. 
 
 On the other hand, Percy believed that 
 there were certain true things which should 
 not be opened out in the broad light of day ; 
 it was this deep-seated conviction which 
 kept him from publishing the manuscript 
 folio, a priceless treasure, which Ritson never 
 saw and which, had it fallen in Ritson s way 
 instead of Percy s, would have been clapped 
 at once into the hands of the printer. 
 
 How fortunate it is for us that we have in 
 our time so great a scholar as Francis James 
 Child, so enamored of balladry and so learned 
 in it, to complete and finish the work of his 
 predecessors. I count myself happy that I 
 
 101 
 
THE 1OVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 have -h earcT from the lips of this enthusiast 
 several of the rarest and noblest of the old 
 British and old Scottish ballads; and I recall 
 with pride that he complimented me upon 
 my spirited vocal rendering of " Burd Isabel 
 and Sir Patrick," "Langjohnny More," The 
 Duke o Gordon s Daughter," and two or 
 three other famous songs which I had learned 
 while sojourning among the humbler classes 
 in the North of England. 
 
 After paying our compliments to the Robin 
 Hood garlands, to Scott, to Kirkpatrick 
 Sharpe, to Ritson, to Buchan, to MotherwelL 
 to Laing, to Christie, to Jamieson, and to the 
 other famous lovers and compilers of bal 
 ladry, we fell to discoursing of French song 
 and of the service that Francis Mahony per 
 formed for English-speaking humanity when 
 he exploited in his inimitable style those 
 lyrics of the French and the Italian people 
 which are now ours as much as they are 
 anybody else s. 
 
 Dear old Beranger! what wonder that 
 Prout loved him, and what wonder that we 
 all love him ? I have thirty odd editions 
 of his works, and I would walk farther to 
 
 102 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 pick up a volume of his lyrics than I would 
 walk to secure any other book, excepting 
 of course a Horace. Beranger and I are old 
 cronies. I have for the great master a par 
 ticularly tender feeling, and all on account 
 of Fanchonette. 
 
 But there you know nothing of Fan 
 chonette, because I have not told you of her. 
 She, too, should have been a book instead of 
 the dainty, coquettish Gallic maiden that she 
 was. 
 
 103 
 
antJ 
 * 
 
IX 
 
 BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS, OLD 
 
 AND NEW 
 
 T UDGE Methuen tells me that he fears what I 
 I have said about my bookseller will create 
 the impression that I am unkindly disposed 
 toward the bookselling craft. For the last 
 fifty years I have had uninterrupted dealings 
 with booksellers, and none knows better 
 than the booksellers themselves that I par 
 ticularly admire them as a class. Visitors 
 to my home have noticed that upon my 
 walls are hung noble portraits of Caxton, 
 Wynkin de Worde, Richard Pynson, John 
 Wygthe, Rayne Wolfe, John Daye, Jacob 
 Tonson, Richard Johnes, John Dunton, and 
 other famous old printers and booksellers. 
 
 I have, too, a large collection of portraits 
 of modern booksellers, including a pen-and- 
 ink sketch of Quaritch, a line engraving of 
 Rimell, and a very excellent etching of my 
 107 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 dear friend, the late Henry Stevens. One 
 of the portraits is a unique, for I had it 
 painted myself, and I have never permitted 
 any copy to be made of it; it is of my book 
 seller, and it represents him in the garb of a 
 fisherman, holding his rod and reel in one 
 hand and the copy of the "Compleat An 
 gler" in the other. 
 
 Mr. Curwen speaks of booksellers as being 
 singularly thrifty, able, industrious, and 
 persevering in some few cases singularly 
 venturesome, liberal, and kind-hearted." 
 My own observation and experience have 
 taught me that as a class booksellers are ex 
 ceptionally intelligent, ranking with printers 
 in respect to the variety and extent of their 
 learning. 
 
 They have, however, this distinct advan 
 tage over the printers they are not brought 
 in contact-with the manifold temptations to 
 intemperance and profligacy which environ 
 the votaries of the art preservative of arts. 
 Horace Smith has said that "were there no 
 readers there certainly would be no writers; 
 clearly, therefore, the existence of writers 
 depends upon the existence of readers: and, 
 1 08 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 of course, since the cause must be antece 
 dent to the effect, readers existed before 
 writers. Yet, on the other hand, if there 
 were no writers there could be no readers; 
 so it would appear that writers must be an 
 tecedent to readers." 
 
 It amazes me that a reasoner so shrewd, 
 so clear, and so exacting as Horace Smith 
 did not pursue the proposition further; for 
 without booksellers there would have been 
 no market for books the author would 
 not have been able to sell, and the reader 
 would not have been able to buy. 
 
 The further we proceed with the investi 
 gation the more satisfied we become that the 
 original man was three of number, one of 
 him being the bookseller, who established 
 friendly relations between the other two of 
 him, saying: " I will serve you both by in 
 citing both a demand and a supply." So 
 then the author did his part, and the reader 
 his, which I take to be a much more dig 
 nified scheme than that suggested by Darwin 
 and his school of investigators. 
 
 By the very nature of their occupation 
 booksellers are broad-minded ; their associa- 
 109 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 tion with every class of humanity and their 
 constant companionship with books give 
 them a liberality that enables them to view 
 with singular clearness and dispassionateness 
 every phase of life and every dispensation of 
 Providence. They are not always practical, 
 for the development of the spiritual and in 
 tellectual natures in man does not at the 
 same time promote dexterity in the use of 
 the baser organs of the body; I have known 
 philosophers who could not harness a horse 
 or even shoo chickens. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson once consumed 
 several hours time trying to determine whe 
 ther he should trundle a wheelbarrow by 
 pushing it or by pulling it. A. Bronson 
 Alcott once tried to construct a chicken coop, 
 and he had boarded himself up inside the 
 structure before he discovered that he had 
 not provided for a door or for windows. 
 We have all heard the story of Isaac New 
 ton how he cut two holes in his study- 
 door, a large one for his cat to enter by, and 
 a small one for the kitten. 
 
 This unworldliness this impossibility, 
 if you please is characteristic of intellectual 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 progression. Judge Methuen s second son is 
 named Grolier; and the fact that he does n t 
 know enough to come in out of the rain 
 has inspired both the Judge and myself with 
 the conviction that in due time Grolier will 
 become a great philosopher. 
 
 The mention of this revered name reminds 
 me that my bookseller told me the other day 
 that just before I entered his shop a wealthy 
 patron of the arts and muses called with a 
 volume which he wished to have rebound. 
 
 "I can send it to Paris or to London," 
 said my bookseller. If you have no choice 
 of binder, I will entrust it to Zaehnsdorf with 
 instructions to lavish his choicest art upon 
 it." 
 
 "But indeed I have a choice," cried the 
 plutocrat, proudly. -"I noticed a large num 
 ber of Grolier bindings at the Art Institute 
 last week, and I want something of the same 
 kind myself. Send the book to Grolier, and 
 tell him to do his prettiest by it, for I can 
 stand the expense, no matter what it is." 
 
 Somewhere in his admirable discourse old 
 Walton has stated the theory that an angler 
 must be born and then made. I have always 
 in 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 held the same to be true of the bookseller. 
 There are many, too many, charlatans in the 
 trade ; the simon-pure bookseller enters upon 
 and conducts bookselling not merely as a 
 trade and for the purpose of amassing riches, 
 but because he loves books and because he 
 has pleasure in diffusing their gracious in 
 fluences. 
 
 Judge Methuen tells me that it is no longer 
 the fashion to refer to persons or things as 
 being "simon-pure" ; the fashion, as he 
 says, passed out some years ago when a 
 writer in a German paper " was led into an 
 amusing blunder by an English review. The 
 reviewer, having occasion to draw a distinc 
 tion between George and Robert Cruikshank, 
 spoke of the former as the real Simon Pure. 
 The German, not understanding the allusion, 
 gravely told his readers that George Cruik 
 shank was a pseudonym, the author s real 
 name being Simon Pure." 
 
 This incident is given in Henry B. Wheat- 
 ley s "Literary Blunders," a very charming 
 book, but one that could have been made 
 more interesting to me had it recorded the 
 curious blunder which Frederick Saunders 
 
 112 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 makes in his " Story of Some Famous Books. " 
 On page 169 we find this information: 
 11 Among earlier American bards we instance 
 Dana, whose imaginative poem The Cul 
 prit Fay, so replete with poetic beauty, is a 
 fairy tale of the highlands of the Hudson. 
 The origin of the poem is traced to a con 
 versation with Cooper, the novelist, and 
 Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet, who, speak 
 ing of the Scottish streams and their legen 
 dary associations, insisted that the American 
 rivers were not susceptible of like poetic 
 treatment. Dana thought otherwise, and to 
 make his position good produced three days 
 after this poem." 
 
 It may be that Saunders wrote the name 
 Drake, for it was Joseph Rodman Drake who 
 did " The Culprit Fay." Perhaps it was the 
 printer s fault that the poem is accredited to 
 Dana. Perhaps Mr. Saunders writes so leg 
 ible a hand that the printers are careless with 
 his manuscript. 
 
 " There is," says Wheatley, " there is a 
 popular notion among authors that it is not 
 wise to write a clear hand. Me nage was 
 one of the first to express it. He wrote : If 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 you desire that no mistake shall appear in 
 the works which you publish, never send 
 well-written copy to the printer, for in that 
 case the manuscript is given to young ap 
 prentices, who make a thousand errors; 
 while, on the other hand, that which is 
 difficult to read is dealt with by the master- 
 printers. 
 
 The most distressing blunder I ever read 
 in print was maje at the time of the burial 
 of the famous antiquary and litterateur, John 
 Payne Collier. In the London newspapers 
 of Sept. 21, 1883, it was reported that "the 
 remains of the late Mr. John Payne Collier 
 were interred yesterday in Bray churchyard, 
 near Maidenhead, in the presence of a large 
 number of spectators. " Thereupon the East 
 ern daily press published the following re 
 markable perversion: "The Bray Colliery 
 Disaster. The remains ofthe late John Payne, 
 collier, were interred yesterday afternoon in 
 the Bray churchyard in the presence of a 
 large number of friends and spectators." 
 
 Far be it from the book-lover and the 
 book-collector to rail at blunders, for not 
 unfrequently these very blunders make books 
 114 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 valuable. Who cares for a Pine s Horace 
 that does not contain the "potest" error? 
 The genuine first edition of Hawthorne s 
 " Scarlet Letter" is to be determined by the 
 presence of a certain typographical slip in 
 the introduction. The first edition of the 
 English Scriptures printed in Ireland (1716) 
 is much desired by collectors, and simply 
 because of an error. Isaiah bids us "sin no 
 more," but the Belfast printer, by some 
 means or another, transposed the letters in 
 such wise as to make the injunction read 
 "sin on more." 
 
 The so-called Wicked Bible is a book that 
 is seldom met with, and, therefore, in great 
 demand. It was printed in the time of 
 Charles I., and it is notorious because it 
 omits the adverb not " in its version of the 
 seventh commandment; the printers were 
 fined a large sum for this gross error. Six 
 copies of the Wicked Bible are known to be 
 in existence. At one time the late James 
 Lenox had two copies; in his interesting 
 memoirs Henry Stevens tells how he picked 
 up one copy in Paris for fifty guineas. 
 
 Rabelais printer got the satirical doctor 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 into deep water for printing asne for ame; 
 the council of the Sorbonne took the matter 
 up and asked Francis I. to prosecute Rabelais 
 for heresy; this the king declined to do, and 
 Rabelais proceeded forthwith to torment the 
 council for having founded a charge of heresy 
 upon a printer s blunder. 
 
 Once upon a time the Foulis printing es 
 tablishment at Glasgow determined to print 
 a perfect Horace; accordingly the proof 
 sheets were hung up at the gates of the uni 
 versity, and a sum of money was paid for 
 every error detected. 
 
 Notwithstanding these precautions the 
 edition had six uncorrected errors in it when 
 it was finally published. Disraeli says that 
 the so-called Pearl Bible had six thousand 
 errata! The works of Picus of Mirandula, 
 Strasburg, 1 507, gave a list of errata cover 
 ing fifteen folio pages, and a worse case is 
 that of "Missaeac Missalis Anatomia"(i56i), 
 a volume of one hundred and seventy-two 
 pages, fifteen of which are devoted to the 
 errata. The author of the Missae felt so 
 deeply aggrieved by this array of blunders 
 that he made a public explanation to the 
 116 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 effect that the devil himself stole the manu 
 script, tampered with it, and then actually 
 compelled the printer to misread it. 
 
 I am not sure that this ingenious explana 
 tion did not give origin to the term of 
 11 printer s devil." 
 
 It is frightful to think 
 
 What nonsense sometimes 
 They make of one s sense 
 
 And, what s worse, of one s rhymes. 
 
 It was only last week, 
 
 In my ode upon spring, 
 Which I meant to have made 
 
 A most beautiful thing, 
 
 When I talked of the dewdrops 
 
 From freshly blown roses, 
 The nasty things made it 
 
 From freshly blown noses. 
 
 We can fancy Richard Person s rage (for 
 Person was of violent temper) when, having 
 written the statement that "the crowd rent 
 the air with their shouts," his printer made 
 the line read "the crowd rent the air with 
 their snouts." However, this error was a 
 natural one, since it occurs in the Catechism 
 117 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 of the Swinish Multitude. " Royalty only are 
 privileged when it comes to the matter of 
 blundering. When Louis XIV. was a boy 
 he one day spoke of "un carosse " ; he 
 should have said " une carosse," but he was 
 king, and having changed the gender of 
 carosse the change was accepted, and unto 
 this day carosse is masculine. 
 
 That errors should occur in newspapers 
 is not remarkable, for much of the work in 
 a newspaper office is done hastily. Yet 
 some of these errors are very amusing. I 
 remember to have read in a Berlin newspaper 
 a number of years ago that " Prince Bismarck 
 is trying to keep up honest and straightfor 
 ward relations with all the girls " (madchen). 
 
 This statement seemed incomprehensible 
 until it transpired that the word " madchen " 
 was in this instance a misprint for "mach- 
 ten," a word meaning all the European 
 powers. 
 
 118 
 
jpamfconme 2?etoitctjcti 
 
WHEN FANCHONETTE BEWITCHED 
 ME 
 
 THE garden in which I am straying has 
 so many diversions to catch my eye, 
 to engage my attention and to inspire remi 
 niscence that I find it hard to treat of its beau 
 ties methodically. I find myself wandering 
 up and down, hither and thither, in so irre 
 sponsible a fashion that I marvel you have 
 not abandoned me as the most irrational of 
 madmen. 
 
 Yet how could it be otherwise? All 
 around me I see those things that draw me 
 from the pathway I set out to pursue : like a 
 heedless butterfly I flit from this sweet unto 
 that, glorying and revelling in the sunshine 
 and the posies. There is little that is selfish 
 in a love like this, and herein we have an 
 other reason why the passion for books is 
 beneficial. He who loves women must and 
 
 121 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 should love some one woman above the rest, 
 and he has her to his keeping, which I esteem 
 to be one kind of selfishness. 
 
 But he who truly loves books loves all 
 books alike, and not only this, but it grieves 
 him that all other men do not share with 
 him this noble passion. Verily, this is the 
 most unselfish of loves ! 
 
 To return now to the matter of booksellers, 
 I would fain impress you with the excellences 
 of the craft, for I know their virtues. My 
 association with them has covered so long a 
 period and has been so intimate that even in 
 a vast multitude of people I have no diffi 
 culty in determining who are the booksellers 
 and who are not. 
 
 For, having to do with books, these men 
 in due time come to resemble their wares 
 not only in appearance but als6 in conversa 
 tion. My bookseller has dwelt so long in 
 his corner with folios and quartos and other 
 antique tomes that he talks in black-letter 
 and has the modest, engaging look of a 
 brown old stout binding, and to the delecta 
 tion of discriminating olfactories he exhaleth 
 an odor of mildew and of tobacco com- 
 
 122 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 mingled, which is more grateful to the true 
 bibliophile than all the perfumes of Araby. 
 
 I have studied the craft so diligently that 
 by merely clapping my eyes upon a book 
 seller I can tell you with certainty what man 
 ner of books he sells; but you must know 
 that the ideal bookseller has no fads, being 
 equally proficient in and a lover of all spheres, 
 departments, branches, and lines of his art. 
 He is, moreover, of a benignant nature, and 
 he denies credit to none; yet, withal, he is 
 righteously so discriminating that he lets the 
 poor scholar have for a paltry sum that which 
 the rich parvenu must pay dearly for. He is 
 courteous and considerate where courtesy 
 and consideration are most seemly. 
 
 Samuel Johnson once rolled into a London 
 bookseller s shop to ask for literary employ 
 ment. The bookseller scrutinized his burly 
 frame, enormous hands, coarse face, and 
 humble apparel. 
 
 "You would make a better porter," said 
 he. 
 
 This was too much for the young lexico 
 grapher s patience. He picked up a folio and 
 incontinently let fly at the bookseller s head, 
 123 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 and then stepping over the prostrate victim 
 he made his exit, saying: "Lie there, thou 
 lump of lead!" 
 
 This bookseller was Osborne, who had a 
 shop at Gray s Inn Gate. To Boswell John 
 son subsequently explained: "Sir, he was 
 impertinent to me, and I beat him." 
 
 Jacob Tonson was Dryden s bookseller; 
 in the earlier times a seller was also a pub 
 lisher of books. Dryden was not always on 
 amiable terms with Tonson, presumably be 
 cause Dryden invariably was in debt to Ton- 
 son. On one occasion Dryden asked for an 
 advance of money, but Tonson refused upon 
 the grounds that the poet s overdraft already 
 exceeded the limits of reasonableness. There 
 upon Dryden penned the following lines 
 and sent them to Tonson with the message 
 that he who wrote these lines could write 
 more : 
 
 With leering looks, bull-faced and freckled fair, 
 With two left legs, with Judas-colored hair, 
 And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air. 
 
 These lines wrought the desired effect: Ton- 
 son sent the money which Dryden had asked 
 124 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 for. When Dryden died Tonson made over 
 tures to Pope, but the latter soon went over 
 to Tonson s most formidable rival, Bernard 
 Lintot. On one occasion Pope happened to 
 be writing to both publishers, and by a 
 curious blunder he inclosed to each the letter 
 intended for the other. In the letter meant 
 for Tonson, he said that Lintot was a scoun 
 drel, and in the letter meant for Lintot he 
 declared that Tonson was an old rascal. We 
 can fancy how little satisfaction Messrs. Lin 
 tot and Tonson derived from the perusal of 
 these missent epistles. 
 
 Andrew Millar was the publisher who had 
 practical charge of the production of John 
 son s dictionary. It seems that Johnson drew 
 out his stipulated honorarium of eight thou 
 sand dollars (to be more exact, ,1575) be 
 fore the dictionary went to press; this is not 
 surprising, for the work of preparation con 
 sumed eight years, instead of three, as John 
 son had calculated. Johnson inquired of the 
 messenger what Millar said when he re 
 ceived the last batch of copy. The messen 
 ger answered : " He said Thank God I have 
 done with him. " This made Johnson smile. 
 125 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 "I am glad," said he, quietly, that he 
 thanks God for anything." 
 
 I was not done with my discourse when 
 a book was brought in from Judge Methuen ; 
 the interruption was a pleasant one. "I 
 was too busy last evening, " writes the judge, 
 "to bring you this volume which I picked 
 up in a La Salle street stall yesterday. I 
 know your love for the scallawag Villon, so 
 I am sure you will fancy the lines which, 
 evidently, the former owner of this book has 
 scribbled upon the fly-leaf." Fancy them ? 
 Indeed I do; and if you dote on the "scal 
 lawag " as I dote on him you also will de 
 clare that our anonymous poet has not 
 wrought ill. 
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON 
 
 If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I, 
 
 What would it matter to me how the time might drag 
 
 or fly? 
 He would in sweaty anguish toil the days and nights 
 
 away, 
 And still not keep the prowling, growling, howling wolf 
 
 at bay ! 
 
 But, with my valiant bottle and my frouzy brevet-bride, 
 And my score of loyal cut-throats standing guard for me 
 
 outside, 
 
 126 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 What worry of the morrow would provoke a casual sigh 
 If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I ? 
 
 If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I, 
 
 To yonder gloomy boulevard at midnight I would hie ; 
 
 "Stop, stranger ! and deliver your possessions, ere you 
 
 feel 
 
 The mettle of my bludgeon or the temper of my steel ! " 
 He should give me gold and diamonds, his snuff-box and 
 
 his cane 
 "Now back, my boon companions, to our bordel with 
 
 our gain ! " 
 And, back within that brothel, how the bottles they 
 
 would fly, 
 If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I ! 
 
 If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I, 
 
 We both would mock the gibbet which the law has 
 
 lifted high ; 
 
 He in his meagre, shabby home, / in my roaring den 
 He with his babes around him, / with my hunted men ! 
 His virtue be his bulwark my genius should be mine ! 
 " Go, fetch my pen, sweet Margot, and a jorum of your 
 
 wine ! 
 
 So would one vainly plod, and one win immortality 
 If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I ! 
 
 My acquaintance with Master Villon was 
 made in Paris during my second visit to that 
 
 127 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 fascinating capital, and for a while I was un 
 der his spell to that extent that I would read 
 no book but his, and I made journeys to 
 Rouen, Tours, Bordeaux, and Poitiers for the 
 purpose of familiarizing myself with the 
 spots where he had lived, and always under 
 the surveillance of the police. In fact, I be 
 came so infatuated of Villonism that at one 
 time I seriously thought of abandoning my 
 self to a life of crime in order to emulate in 
 certain particulars at least the example of 
 my hero. 
 
 There were, however, hindrances to this 
 scheme, first of which was my inability to 
 find associates whom I wished to attach to 
 my cause in the capacity in which Colin de 
 Cayeulx and the Baron de Grigny served 
 Master Francois. I sought the companion 
 ship of several low-browed, ill-favored fel 
 lows whom I believed suited to my pur 
 poses, but almost immediately I wearied of 
 them, for they had never looked into a book 
 and were so profoundly ignorant as to be 
 unable to distinguish between a folio and a 
 thirty-twomo. 
 
 Then again it befell that, while the Villon 
 128 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 fever was raging within and I was con 
 templating a career of vice, I had a letter 
 from my uncle Cephas, apprising me that 
 Captivity Waite (she was now Mrs. Eli- 
 phalet Parker) had named her first-born 
 after me! This intelligence had the effect 
 of cooling and sobering me; I began to re 
 alize that, with the responsibility the com 
 ing and the christening of Captivity s first 
 born had imposed upon me, it behooved 
 me to guard with exceeding jealousy the 
 honor of the name which my namesake 
 bore. 
 
 While I was thus tempest-tossed, Fanchon- 
 ette came across my pathway, and with the 
 appearance of Fanchonette every ambition 
 to figure in the annals of bravado left me. 
 Fanchonette was the niece of my landlady; 
 her father was a perfumer; she lived with 
 the old people in the Rue des Capucins. 
 She was of middling stature and had blue 
 eyes and black hair. Had she not been 
 French, she would have been Irish, or, per 
 haps, a Grecian. Her manner had an inde 
 finable charm. 
 
 It was she who acquainted me with Be- 
 
 I2Q 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 ranger; that is why I never take up that 
 precious volume that I do not think, sweetly 
 and tenderly, of Fanchonette. The book is 
 bound, as you see, in a dainty blue, and the 
 border toolings are delicate tracings of white 
 all for a purpose, I can assure you. She 
 used to wear a dainty blue gown, from be 
 hind the nether hem of which the most im 
 maculate of petticoats peeped out. 
 
 If we were never boys, how barren and 
 lonely our age would be. Next to the inef 
 fably blessed period of youth there is no time 
 of life pleasanter than that in which serene 
 old age reviews the exploits and the prodi 
 gies of boyhood. Ah, my gay fellows, har 
 vest your crops diligently, that your barns 
 and granaries be full when your arms are no 
 longer able to wield the sickle! 
 
 Hzec meminisse to recall the old time 
 to see her rise out of the dear past to 
 hear Fanchonette s voice again to feel the 
 grace of springtime how gloriously sweet 
 this is! The little quarrels, the reconcilia 
 tions, the coquetries, the jealousies, the re 
 proaches, the forgivenesses all the charac 
 teristic and endearing haps of the Maytime 
 
 130 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 of life precious indeed are these retrospec 
 tions to the hungry eyes of age! 
 
 She wed with the perfumer s apprentice; 
 but that was so very long ago that I can 
 pardon, if not forget, the indiscretion. Who 
 knows where she is to-day ? Perhaps a 
 granny beldame in a Parisian alley; perhaps 
 for years asleep in Pere la Chaise. Come 
 forth, beloved Beranger, and sing me the 
 old song to make me young and strong and 
 brave again! 
 
 Let them be served on gold 
 The wealthy and the great; 
 Two lovers only want 
 A single glass and plate! 
 Ring ding, ring ding, 
 Ring ding ding 
 Old wine, young lassie, 
 Sing, boys, sing! 
 
of tfje 2&aciHug liftrorum 
 
XI 
 
 DIAGNOSIS OF THE BACILLUS 
 LIBRORUM 
 
 FOR a good many years I was deeply in 
 terested in British politics. 1 was con 
 verted to Liberalism, so-called, by an incident 
 which I deem well worth relating. One af 
 ternoon I entered a book-shop in High Hoi- 
 born, and found that the Hon. William E. 
 Gladstone had preceded me thither. I had 
 never seen Mr. Gladstone before. I recog 
 nized him now by his resemblance to the 
 caricatures, and by his unlikeness to the 
 portraits which the newspapers had printed. 
 
 As 1 entered the shop I heard the booksel 
 ler ask : What books shall I send ? " 
 
 To this, with a very magnificent sweep 
 of his arms indicating every point of the 
 compass, Gladstone made answer: "Send 
 me tbose! " 
 
 35 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 With these words he left the place, and 1 
 stepped forward to claim a volume which 
 had attracted my favorable attention several 
 days previous. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," said the book 
 seller, politely, "but that book is sold." 
 
 "Sold?" I cried. 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the bookseller, smiling 
 with evident pride; "Mr. Gladstone just 
 bought it; I have n t a book for sale Mr. 
 Gladstone just bought them all!" 
 
 The bookseller then proceeded to tell me 
 that whenever Gladstone entered a book 
 shop he made a practice of buying everything 
 in sight. That magnificent, sweeping ges 
 ture of his comprehended everything the 
 ology, history, social science, folk-lore, med 
 icine, travel, biography everything that 
 came to his net was fish! 
 
 "This is the third time Mr. Gladstone 
 has visited me," said the bookseller, "and 
 this is the third time he has cleaned me out." 
 
 "This man is a good man," says I to my 
 self. "So notable a lover of books surely 
 cannot err. The cause of home rule must 
 be a just one after all." 
 136 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 From others intimately acquainted with 
 him I learned that Gladstone was an omniv 
 orous reader; that he ordered his books by 
 the cart-load, and that his home in Hawarden 
 literally overflowed with books. He made 
 a practice, 1 was told, of overhauling his li 
 brary once in so often and of weeding out 
 such volumes as he did not care to keep. 
 These discarded books were sent to the sec 
 ond-hand dealers, and it is said that the deal 
 ers not unfrequently took advantage of Glad 
 stone by reselling him over and over again 
 (and at advanced prices, too) the very lots 
 of books he had culled out and rejected. 
 
 Every book-lover has his own way of 
 buying; so there are as many ways of buy 
 ing as there are purchasers. However, 
 Judge Methuen and I have agreed that all 
 buyers may be classed in these following 
 specified grand divisions: 
 
 The reckless buyer. 
 
 The shrewd buyer. 
 
 The timid buyer. 
 
 Of these three classes the third is least 
 worthy of our consideration, although it in 
 cludes very many lovers of books, and con- 
 137 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 sequently very many friends of mine. I have 
 actually known men to hesitate, to ponder, 
 to dodder for weeks, nay, months over the 
 purchase of a book; not because they did 
 not want it, nor because they deemed the 
 price exorbitant, nor yet because they were 
 not abundantly able to pay that price. Their 
 hesitancy was due to an innate, congenital 
 lack of determination that same hideous 
 curse of vacillation which is responsible for 
 so much misery in human life. 
 
 I have made a study of these people, and 
 I find that most of them are bachelors whose 
 state of singleness is due to the fact that 
 the same hesitancy which has deprived them 
 of many a coveted volume has operated to 
 their discomfiture in the matrimonial sphere. 
 While they deliberated, another bolder than 
 they came along and walked off with the 
 prize. 
 
 One of the gamest buyers I know of was 
 the late John A. Rice of Chicago. As a 
 competitor at the great auction sales he was 
 invincible; and why? Because, having de 
 termined to buy a book, he put no limit to 
 the amount of his bid. His instructions to 
 138 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 his agent were in these words: "I must 
 have those books, no matter what they 
 cost." 
 
 An English collector found in Rice s li 
 brary a set of rare volumes he had been 
 searching for for years. 
 
 "How did you happen to get them ? " he 
 asked. "You bought them at the Spencer 
 sale and against my bid. Do you know, I 
 told my buyer to bid a thousand pounds 
 for them, if necessary!" 
 
 "That was where I had the advantage of 
 you," said Rice, quietly. "I specified no 
 limit; 1 simply told my man to buy the 
 books." 
 
 The spirit of the collector cropped out 
 early in Rice. I remember to have heard 
 him tell how one time, when he was a young 
 man, he was shuffling over a lot of tracts in 
 a bin in front of a Boston bookstall. His 
 eye suddenly fell upon a little pamphlet en 
 titled "The Cow-Chace." He picked it up 
 and read it. It was a poem founded upon 
 the defeat of Generals Wayne, Irving, and 
 Proctor. The last stanza ran in this 
 wise: 
 
 139 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 And now I ve closed my epic strain, 
 
 I tremble as I show it, 
 Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, 
 
 Should ever catch the poet. 
 
 Rice noticed that the pamphlet bore the 
 imprint of James Rivington, New York, 
 1780. It occurred to him that some time 
 this modest tract of eighteen pages might be 
 valuable ; at any rate, he paid the fifteen cents 
 demanded for it, and at the same time he 
 purchased for ten cents another pamphlet 
 entitled "The American Tories, a Satire." 
 
 Twenty years later, having learned the 
 value of these exceedingly rare tracts, Mr. 
 Rice sent them to London and had them 
 bound in Francis Bedford s best style 
 "crimson crushed levant morocco, finished 
 to a Grolier pattern." Bedford s charges 
 amounted to seventy-five dollars, which with 
 the original cost of the pamphlets represented 
 an expenditure of seventy-five dollars and 
 twenty-five cents upon Mr. Rice s part. At 
 the sale of the Rice library in 1870, however, 
 this curious, rare, and beautiful little book 
 brought the extraordinary sum of seven 
 hundred and fifty dollars! 
 140 
 
A BBLIOMANIAC 
 
 The Rice library contained about five thous 
 and volumes, and it realized at auction sale 
 somewhat more than seventy-two thousand 
 dollars. Rice has often told me that for a 
 longtime he could not make up his mind to 
 part with his books; yet his health was so 
 poor that he found it imperative to retire 
 from business, and to devote a long period 
 of time to travel; these were the considera 
 tions that induced him finally to part with 
 his treasures " I have never regretted hav 
 ing sold them/ he said. "Two years after 
 the sale the Chicago fire came along. Had 
 I retained those books, every one of them 
 would have been lost." 
 
 Mrs. Rice shared her husband s enthusi 
 asm for books. Whenever a new invoice 
 arrived, the two would lock themselves in 
 their room, get down upon their knees on 
 the floor, open the box, take out the trea 
 sures and gloat over them, together! Noble 
 lady! she was such a wife as any good man 
 might be proud of. They were very happy 
 in their companionship on earth, were my 
 dear old friends. He was the first to go; 
 their separation was short; together once 
 141 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 more and forever they share the illimitable 
 joys which await all lovers of good books 
 when virtue hath mournfully writ the colo 
 phon to their human careers. 
 
 Although Mr. Rice survived the sale of his 
 remarkable library a period of twenty-six 
 years, he did not get together again a col 
 lection of books that he was willing to call 
 a library. His first collection was so re 
 markable that he preferred to have his fame 
 rest wholly upon it. Perhaps he was wise; 
 yet how few collectors there are who would 
 have done as he did. 
 
 As for myself, I verily believe that, if by 
 fire or by water my library should be de 
 stroyed this night, 1 should start in again 
 to-morrow upon the collection of another 
 library. Or if I did not do this, I should lay 
 myself down to die, for how could I live 
 without the companionships to which I have 
 ever been accustomed, and which have 
 grown as dear to me as life itself? 
 
 Whenever Judge Methuen is in a jocular 
 
 mood and wishes to tease me, he asks me 
 
 whether I have forgotten the time when I 
 
 was possessed of a spirit of reform and re- 
 
 142 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 gistered a solemn vow in high heaven to 
 buy no more books. Teasing, says Victor 
 Hugo, is the malice of good men; Judge 
 Methuen means no evil when he recalls that 
 weakness the one weakness in all my 
 career. 
 
 No, I have not forgotten that time; 1 look 
 back upon it with a shudder of horror, for 
 wretched indeed would have been my exis 
 tence had I carried into effect the project I 
 devised at that remote period! 
 
 Dr. O Rell has an interesting theory which 
 you will find recorded in the published pro 
 ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 
 (vol. xxxiv., p. 216). Or, if you cannot pro 
 cure copies of that work, it may serve your 
 purpose to know that the doctor s theory is 
 to this effect viz., that bibliomania does not 
 deserve the name of bibliomania until it is 
 exhibited in the second stage. For second 
 ary bibliomania there is no known cure; the 
 few cases reported as having been cured 
 were doubtless not bibliomania at all, or, at 
 least, were what we of the faculty call false 
 or chicken bibliomania. 
 
 "In false bibliomania, which," says Dr. 
 
 43 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 O Reil, "is the primary stage of the grand 
 passion the vestibule to the main edifice 
 the usual symptoms are flushed cheeks, 
 sparkling eyes, a bounding pulse, and quick 
 respiration. This period of exaltation is not 
 unfrequently followed by a condition of col 
 lapse in which we find the victim pale, pulse 
 less, and dejected. He is pursued and tor 
 mented of imaginary horrors, he reproaches 
 himself for imaginary crimes, and he implores 
 piteously for relief from fancied dangers. 
 The sufferer now stands in a slippery place ; 
 unless his case is treated intelligently he will 
 issue from that period of gloom cured of the 
 sweetest of madnesses, and doomed to a 
 life of singular uselessness. 
 
 "But properly treated," continues Dr. 
 O Reil, " and particularly if his spiritual needs 
 be ministered to, he can be brought safely 
 through this period of collapse into a condi 
 tion of reenforced exaltation, which is the 
 true, or secondary stage of, bibliomania, and 
 for which there is no cure known to hu 
 manity." 
 
 I should trust Dr. O Rell s judgment in 
 this matter, even if I did not know from ex- 
 144 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 perience that it was true. For Dr. O Rell is 
 the most famous authority we have in bibli 
 omania and kindred maladies. It is he (I 
 make the information known at the risk of 
 offending the ethics of the profession) it 
 is he who discovered the bacillus librorum, 
 and, what is still more important and still 
 more to his glory, it is he who invented that 
 subtle lymph which is now everywhere em 
 ployed by the profession as a diagnostic 
 where the presence of the germs of biblio 
 mania (in other words, bacilli librorum) is 
 suspected. 
 
 I once got this learned scientist to inject a 
 milligram of the lymph into the femoral ar 
 tery of Miss Susan s cat. Within an hour 
 the precocious beast surreptitiously entered 
 my library for the first time in her life, and 
 ate the covers of my pet edition of Rabelais. 
 This demonstrated to Dr. O Rell s satisfac 
 tion the efficacy of his diagnostic, and it 
 proved to Judge Methuen s satisfaction what 
 the Judge has always maintained viz., that 
 Rabelais was an old rat. 
 
* 
 f>e Peaguceg of 
 
 * 
 
XII 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF EXTRA- 
 ILLUSTRATION 
 
 VERY many years ago we became con 
 vinced Judge Methuen and I did 
 that there was nothing new in the world. 
 I think it was while we were in London 
 and while we were deep in the many fads of 
 bibliomania that we arrived at this important 
 conclusion. 
 
 We had been pursuing with enthusiasm 
 the exciting delights of extra-illustration, a 
 practice sometimes known as Grangerism; 
 the friends of the practice call it by the for 
 mer name, the enemies by the latter. We 
 were engaged at extra-illustrating Boswell s 
 life of Johnson, and had already got together 
 somewhat more than eleven thousand prints 
 when we ran against a snag, an obstacle we 
 149 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 never could surmount. We agreed that our 
 work would be incomplete, and therefore 
 vain, unless we secured a picture of the book 
 with which the great lexicographer knocked 
 down Osborne, the bookseller at Gray s Inn 
 Gate. 
 
 Unhappily we were wholly in the dark as 
 to what the title of that book was, and, al 
 though we ransacked the British Museum 
 and even appealed to the learned Frognall 
 Dibdin, we could not get a clew to the iden 
 tity of the volume. To be wholly frank with 
 you, I will say that both the Judge and 1 had 
 wearied of the occupation; moreover, it in 
 volved great expense, since we were content 
 with nothing but India proofs (those before 
 letters preferred). So we were glad of this 
 excuse for abandoning the practice. 
 
 While we were contemplating a graceful 
 retreat the Judge happened to discover in the 
 "Natural History" of Pliny a passage which 
 proved to our satisfaction that, so far from 
 being a new or a modern thing, the extra- 
 illustration of books was of exceptional anti 
 quity. It seems that Atticus, the friend of 
 Cicero, wrote a book on the subject of por- 
 150 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 traits and portrait-painting, in the course of 
 which treatise he mentions that Marcus Varro 
 "conceived the very liberal idea of inserting, 
 by some means or another, in his numerous 
 volumes, the portraits of several hundred in 
 dividuals, as he could not bear the idea that 
 all traces of their features should be lost or 
 that the lapse of centuries should get the 
 better of mankind." 
 
 "Thus," says Pliny, "was he the inven 
 tor of a benefit to his fellow-men that might 
 have been envied by the gods themselves; 
 for not only did he confer immortality upon 
 the originals of these portraits, but he trans 
 mitted these portraits to all parts of the earth, 
 so that everywhere it might be possible for 
 them to be present, and for each to occupy 
 his niche." 
 
 Now, Pliny is not the only one who has 
 contributed to the immortalization of Marcus 
 Varro. 1 have had among my papers for 
 thirty years the verses which Judge Methuen 
 dashed off (for poets invariably dash off their 
 poetry), and they are such pleasant verses 
 that I don t mind letting the world see 
 them. 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 MARCUS VARRO 
 
 Marcus Varro went up and down 
 
 The places where old books were sold; 
 He ransacked all the shops in town 
 
 For pictures new and pictures old. 
 He gave the folk of earth no peace; 
 
 Snooping around by day and night, 
 He plied the trade in Rome and Greece 
 
 Of an insatiate Grangerite. 
 
 " Pictures!" was evermore his cry 
 
 " Pictures of old or recent date," 
 And pictures only would he buy 
 
 Wherewith to "extra-illustrate." 
 Full many a tome of ancient type 
 
 And many a manuscript he took, 
 For nary purpose but to swipe 
 
 Their pictures for some other book. 
 
 While Marcus Varro plied his fad 
 
 There was not in the shops of Greece 
 A book or pamphlet to be had 
 
 That was not minus frontispiece. 
 Nor did he hesitate to ply 
 
 His baleful practices at home; 
 It was not possible to buy 
 
 A perfect book in all of Rome ! 
 152 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 What must the other folk have done 
 
 Who, glancing o er the books they bought, 
 Came soon and suddenly upon 
 
 The vandalism Varro wrought! 
 How must their cheeks have flamed with red- 
 
 How did their hearts with choler beat! 
 We can imagine what they said 
 
 We can imagine 1 ) not repeat! 
 
 Where are the books that Varro made 
 
 The pride of dilettante Rome 
 With divers portraitures inlaid 
 
 Swiped from so many another tome ? 
 The worms devoured them long ago 
 
 O wretched worms! ye should have fed 
 Not on the books " extended " so, 
 
 But on old Varro s flesh instead! 
 
 Alas, that Marcus Varro lives 
 
 And is a potent factor yet! 
 Alas, that still his practice gives 
 
 Good men occasion for regret ! 
 To yonder bookstall, pri thee, go, 
 
 And by the " missing " prints and plates 
 And frontispieces you shall know 
 
 He lives, and " extra-illustrates" ! 
 
 In justice to the Judge and to myself 1 
 should say that neither of us wholly ap 
 proves the sentiment which the poem I have 
 53 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 quoted implies. We regard Grangerism as 
 one of the unfortunate stages in bibliomania ; 
 it is a period which seldom covers more 
 than five years, although Dr. O Rell has met 
 with one case in his practice that has lasted 
 ten years and still gives no symptom of 
 abating in virulence. 
 
 Humanity invariably condones the pranks 
 of youth on the broad and charitable grounds 
 that "boys will be boys"; so we biblio 
 maniacs are prone to wink at the follies of 
 the Grangerite, for we know that he will 
 know better by and by and will heartily 
 repent of the mischief he has done. We 
 know the power of books so well that we 
 know that no man can have to do with 
 books that presently he does not love them. 
 He may at first endure them; then he may 
 come only to pity them; anon, as surely as 
 the morrow s sun riseth, he shall embrace 
 and love those precious things. 
 
 So we say that we would put no curb 
 upon any man, it being better that many 
 books should be destroyed, if ultimately by 
 that destruction a penitent and loyal soul 
 be added to the roster of bibliomaniacs. 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 There is more joy over one Grangerite that 
 repenteth than over ninety and nine just 
 men that need no repentance. 
 
 And we have a similar feeling toward 
 such of our number as for the nonce be 
 come imbued with a passion for any of the 
 other little fads which bibliomaniac flesh is 
 heir to. All the soldiers in an army cannot 
 be foot, or horse, or captains, or majors, or 
 generals, or artillery, or ensigns, or drum 
 mers, or buglers. Each one has his place 
 to fill and his part to do, and the conse 
 quence is a concinnate whole. Bibliomania 
 is beautiful as an entirety, as a symmetrical 
 blending of a multitude of component parts, 
 and he is indeed disloyal to the cause who, 
 through envy or shortsightedness or igno 
 rance, argues to the discredit of angling, 
 or Napoleonana, or balladry, or Indians, or 
 Burns, or Americana, or any other branch 
 or phase of bibliomania ; for each of these 
 things accomplishes a noble purpose in that 
 each contributes to the glory of the great 
 common cause of bibliomania, which is in 
 deed the summum bonum of human life. 
 
 I have heard many decried who indulged 
 
 155 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 their fancy for bookplates, as if, forsooth, if 
 a man loved his books, he should not lavish 
 upon them testimonials of his affection! 
 Who that loves his wife should hesitate to 
 buy adornments for her person ? I favor 
 everything that tends to prove that the hu 
 man heart is swayed by the tenderer emo 
 tions. Gratitude is surely one of the noblest 
 emotions of which humanity is capable, 
 and he is indeed unworthy of our respect 
 who would forbid humanity s expressing in 
 every dignified and reverential manner its 
 gratitude for the benefits conferred by the 
 companionship of books. 
 
 As for myself, I urge upon all lovers of 
 books to provide themselves with book 
 plates. Whenever I see a book that bears 
 its owner s plate I feel myself obligated to 
 treat that book with special consideration. 
 It carries with it a certificate of its master s 
 love; the bookplate gives the volume a cer 
 tain status it would not otherwise have. 
 Time and again I have fished musty books 
 out of bins in front of bookstalls, bought 
 them and borne them home with me sim 
 ply because they had upon their covers the 
 .56 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 bookplates of their former owners. I have 
 a case filled with these aristocratic estrays, 
 and I insist that they shall be as carefully 
 dusted and kept as my other books, and I 
 have provided in my will for their perpetual 
 maintenance after my decease. 
 
 If I were a rich man I should found a 
 hospital for homeless aristocratic books, an 
 institution similar in all essential particulars 
 to the institution which is now operated at 
 our national capital under the bequest of 
 the late Mr. Cochrane. I should name it 
 the Home for Genteel Volumes in Decayed 
 Circumstances. 
 
 I was a young man when I adopted the 
 bookplate which I am still using, and which 
 will be found in all my books. I drew the 
 design myself and had it executed by a son 
 of Anderson, the first of American engravers. 
 It is by no means elaborate: a book rests 
 upon a heart, and underneath appear the 
 
 lines: 
 
 My Book and Heart 
 Must never part. 
 
 Ah, little Puritan maid, with thy dear eyes 
 
 of honest blue and thy fair hair in proper 
 
 57 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 plaits adown thy back, little thought we 
 that springtime long ago back among the 
 New England hills that the tiny book we 
 
 read together should follow me through all 
 my life ! What a part has that Primer played ! 
 And now all these other beloved companions 
 bear witness to the love I bear that Primer 
 and its teachings, for each wears the emblem 
 I plucked from its homely pages. 
 
 That was in the springtime, Captivity 
 Waite; anon came summer, with all its 
 exuberant glory, and presently the cheery 
 autumn stole upon me. And now it is the 
 winter-time, and under the snows lies buried 
 158 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 many a sweet, fair thing I cherished once. 
 I am aweary and will rest a little while; lie 
 thou there, my pen, for a dream a pleasant 
 dream calleth me away. I shall see those 
 distant hills again, and the homestead under 
 the elms; the old associations and the old 
 influences shall be round about me, and a 
 child shall lead me and we shall go together 
 through green pastures and by still waters. 
 And, O my pen, it will be the springtime 
 again ! 
 
 159 
 
XIII 
 
 ON THE ODORS WHICH MY BOOKS 
 EXHALE 
 
 HAVE you ever come out of the thick, 
 smoky atmosphere of the town into 
 the fragrant, gracious atmosphere of a li 
 brary ? If you have, you know how grateful 
 the change is, and you will agree with me 
 when I say that nothing else is so quieting 
 to the nerves, so conducive to physical health, 
 and so quick to restore a lively flow of the 
 spirits. 
 
 Lafcadio Hearn once wrote a treatise upon 
 perfumes, an ingenious and scholarly per 
 formance; he limited the edition to fifty 
 copies and published it privately so the 
 book is rarely met with. Curiously enough, 
 however, this author had nothing to say in 
 the book about the smells of books, which I 
 regard as a most unpardonable error, unless, 
 properly estimating the subject to be worthy 
 163 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 of a separate treatise, he has postponed its 
 consideration and treatment to a time when 
 he can devote the requisite study and care 
 to it. 
 
 We have it upon the authority of William 
 Blades that books breathe; however, the 
 testimony of experts is not needed upon this 
 point, for if anybody be sceptical, all he has 
 to do to convince himself is to open a door 
 of a bookcase at any time and his olfactories 
 will be greeted by an outrush of odors that 
 will prove to him beyond all doubt that 
 books do actually consume air and exhale 
 perfumes. 
 
 Visitors to the British Museum complain 
 not unfrequently that they are overcome by 
 the closeness of the atmosphere in that place, 
 and what is known as the British Museum 
 headache has come to be recognized by the 
 medical profession in London as a specific 
 ailment due to the absence of oxygen in the 
 atmosphere, which condition is caused by 
 the multitude of books, each one of which, 
 by that breathing process peculiar to books, 
 consumes several thousand cubic feet of air 
 every twenty-four hours. 
 .64 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Professor Huxley wondered for a long time 
 why the atmosphere of the British Museum 
 should be poisonous while other libraries 
 were free from the poison ; a series of experi 
 ments convinced him that the presence of 
 poison in the atmosphere was due to the 
 number of profane books in the Museum. 
 He recommended that these poison-engen 
 dering volumes be treated once every six 
 months with a bath of cedria, which, as I 
 understand, is a solution of the juices of the 
 cedar tree; this, he said, would purge the 
 mischievous volumes temporarily of their 
 evil propensities and abilities. 
 
 1 do not know whether this remedy is ef 
 fective, but I remember to have read in Pliny 
 that cedria was used by the ancients to ren 
 der their manuscripts imperishable. When 
 Cneius Terentius went digging in his estate 
 in the Janiculum he came upon a coffer 
 which contained not only the remains of 
 Numa, the old Roman king, but also the 
 manuscripts of the famous laws which Numa 
 compiled. The king was in some such 
 condition as you might suppose him to be 
 after having been buried several centuries, 
 165 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 but the manuscripts were as fresh as new, 
 and their being so is said to have been due 
 to the fact that before their burial they were 
 rubbed with citrus leaves. 
 
 These so-called books of Numa would per 
 haps have been preserved unto this day but 
 for the fanaticism of the people who ex 
 humed and read them; they were promptly 
 burned by Quintus Petilius, the praetor, be 
 cause (as Cassius Hemina explains) they 
 treated of philosophical subjects, or because, 
 as Livy testifies, their doctrines were inimi 
 cal to the religion then existing. 
 
 As I have had little to do with profane lit 
 erature, I know nothing of the habits of such 
 books as Professor Huxley has prescribed an 
 antidote against. Of such books as I have 
 gathered about me and made my constant 
 companions I can say truthfully that a more 
 delectable-flavored lot it were impossible to 
 find. As I walk amongst them, touching 
 first this one and then that, and regarding 
 all with glances of affectionate approval, I 
 fancy that I am walking in a splendid gar 
 den, full of charming vistas, wherein par 
 terre after parterre of beautiful flowers is 
 166 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 unfolded to my enraptured vision ; and surely 
 there never were other odors so delightful 
 as the odors which my books exhale! 
 
 My garden aboundeth in pleasant nooks 
 
 And fragrance is over it all; 
 For sweet is the smell of my old, old books 
 
 In their places against the wall. 
 
 Here is a folio that s grim with age 
 And yellow and green with mould; 
 
 There s the breath of the sea on every page 
 And the hint of a stanch ship s hold. 
 
 And here is a treasure from France la belle 
 
 Exhaleth a faint perfume 
 Of wedded lily and asphodel 
 
 In a garden of song abloom. 
 
 And this wee little book of Puritan mien 
 
 And rude, conspicuous print 
 Hath the Yankee flavor of wintergreen, 
 
 Or, may be, of peppermint. 
 
 In Walton the brooks a-babbling tell 
 Where the cheery daisy grows, 
 
 And where in meadow or woodland dwell 
 The buttercup and the rose. 
 
 167 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 But best beloved of books, I ween, 
 
 Are those which one perceives 
 Are hallowed by ashes dropped between 
 
 The yellow, well-thumbed leaves. 
 
 For it s here a laugh and it s there a tear, 
 
 Till the treasured book is read ; 
 And the ashes betwixt the pages here 
 
 Tell us of one long dead. 
 
 But the gracious presence reappears 
 
 As we read the book again, 
 And the fragrance of precious, distant years 
 
 Filleth the hearts of men. 
 
 Come, pluck with me in my garden nooks 
 
 The posies that bloom for all; 
 Oh, sweet is the smell of my old, old books 
 
 In their places against the wall ! 
 
 B.etter than flowers are they, these books 
 of mine ! For what are the seasons to them ? 
 Neither can the drought of summer nor the 
 asperity of winter wither or change them. 
 At all times and under all circumstances they 
 are the same radiant, fragrant, hopeful, 
 helpful! There is no charm which they do 
 not possess, no beauty that is not theirs. 
 
 What wonder is it that from time imme- 
 168 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 morial humanity has craved the boon of car 
 rying to the grave some book particularly 
 beloved in life ? Even Numa Pompilius pro 
 vided that his books should share his tomb 
 with him. Twenty-four of these precious 
 volumes were consigned with him to the 
 grave. When Gabriel Rossetti s wife died, 
 the poet cast into her open grave the unfin 
 ished volume of his poems, that being the 
 last and most precious tribute he could pay 
 to her cherished memory. 
 
 History records instance after instance of 
 the consolation dying men have received 
 from the perusal of books, and many a one 
 has made his end holding in his hands a par 
 ticularly beloved volume. The reverence 
 which even unlearned men have for books 
 appears in these splendid libraries which are 
 erected now and again with funds provided 
 by the wills of the illiterate. How dreadful 
 must be the last moments of that person 
 who has steadfastly refused to share the 
 companionship and acknowledge the saving 
 grace of books! 
 
 Such, indeed, is my regard for these friend 
 ships that it is with misery that I contemplate 
 169 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 the probability of separation from them by 
 and by. I have given my friends to under 
 stand that when I am done with earth cer 
 tain of my books shall be buried with me. 
 The list of these books will be found in the 
 left-hand upper drawer of the old mahog 
 any secretary in the front spare room. 
 
 When I am done, 
 
 I d have no son 
 Pounce on these treasures like a vulture ; 
 
 Nay, give them half 
 
 My epitaph 
 And let them share in my sepulture. 
 
 Then when the crack 
 
 Of doom rolls back 
 The marble and the earth that hide me, 
 
 I 11 smuggle home 
 
 Each precious tome 
 Without a fear a wife shall chide me. 
 
 The dread of being separated by death 
 from the objects of one s love has pursued 
 humanity from the beginning. The Hindoos 
 used to have a selfish fashion of requiring 
 their widows to be entombed alive with 
 their corpses. The North American Indian 
 170 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 insists that his horse, his bow and arrows, 
 his spear, and his other cherished trinkets 
 shall share his grave with him. 
 
 My sister, Miss Susan, has provided that 
 after her demise a number of her most prized 
 curios shall be buried with her. The list, as 
 I recall it, includes a mahogany four-post 
 bedstead, an Empire dresser, a brass warm 
 ing-pan, a pair of brass andirons, a Louis 
 Quinze table, a Mayflower teapot, a Tomb 
 of Washington platter, a pewter tankard, 
 a pair of her grandmother s candlesticks, a 
 Paul Revere lantern, a tall Dutch clock, a 
 complete suit of armor purchased in Rome, 
 and a collection of Japanese bric-a-brac pre 
 sented to Miss Susan by a returned mis 
 sionary. 
 
 I do not see what Miss Susan can possibly 
 do with all this trumpery in the hereafter, 
 but, if I survive her, I shall certainly insist 
 upon a compliance with her wishes, even 
 though it involve the erection of a tumulus 
 as prodigious as the pyramid of Cheops. 
 
 171 
 
anb 
 
XIV 
 
 ELZEVIRS AND DIVERS OTHER 
 MATTERS 
 
 BOSWELL S "Life of Johnson" and Lock- 
 hart s "Life of Scott" are accepted as 
 the models of biography. The third re 
 markable performance in this line is Mrs. 
 Gordon s memoir of her father, John Wilson, 
 a volume so charmingly and tenderly written 
 as to be of interest to those even who know 
 and care little about that era in the history 
 of English literature in which " crusty Chris 
 topher " and his associates in the making of 
 "Blackwood s" figured. 
 
 It is a significant fact, I think, that the 
 three greatest biographers the world has 
 known should have been Scotch; it has long 
 been the fashion to laugh and to sneer at 
 what is called Scotch dulness; yet what 
 prodigies has not Scotch genius performed 
 
 75 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 in every department of literature, and would 
 not our literature be poor indeed to-day but 
 for the contributions which have been made 
 to it by the very people whom we affect to 
 deride ? 
 
 John Wilson was one of the most inter 
 esting figures of a time when learning was 
 at a premium ; he was a big man amongst 
 big men, and even in this irreverential time 
 genius uncovers at the mention of his name. 
 His versatility was astounding; with equal 
 facility and felicity he could conduct a liter 
 ary symposium and a cock-fight, a theolog 
 ical discussion and an angling expedition, 
 a historical or a political inquiry and a fisti 
 cuffs. 
 
 Nature had provided him with a mighty 
 brain in a powerful body; he had a physique 
 equal to the performance of what suggestion 
 soever his splendid intellectuals made. To 
 him the incredible feat of walking seventy 
 miles within the compass of a day was mere 
 child s play; then, when the printer became 
 clamorous, he would immure himself in his 
 wonderful den and reel off copy until that 
 printer cried "Hold; enough!" It was no 
 176 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 unusual thing for him to write for thirteen 
 hours at a stretch; when he worked he 
 worked, and when he played he played 
 that is perhaps the reason why he was never 
 a dull boy. 
 
 Wilson seems to have been a procrasti- 
 nator. He would put off his task to the very 
 last moment; this is a practice that is com 
 mon with literary men in fact, it was en 
 couraged by those who were regarded as 
 authorities in such matters anciently. Rin- 
 gelbergius gave this advice to an author un 
 der his tuition : 
 
 "Tell the printers," said he, "to make 
 preparations for a work you intend writing, 
 and never alarm yourself about it because 
 it is not even begun, for, after having an 
 nounced it you may without difficulty trace 
 out in your own head the whole plan of 
 your work and its divisions, after which com 
 pose the arguments of the chapters, and I 
 can assure you that in this manner you may 
 furnish the printers daily with more copy 
 than they want. But, remember, when you 
 have once begun there must be no flagging 
 till the work is finished." 
 
 77 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 The loyalty of human admiration was 
 never better illustrated than in Shelton Mac 
 kenzie s devotion to Wilson s genius. To 
 Mackenzie we are indebted for a compilation 
 of the Noctes Ambrosianse," edited with 
 such discrimination, such ability, such learn 
 ing, and such enthusiasm that, it seems to 
 me, the work must endure as a monument 
 not only to Wilson s but also to Mackenzie s 
 genius. 
 
 I have noticed one peculiarity that distin 
 guishes many admirers of the Noctes: they 
 seldom care to read anything else; in the 
 Noctes they find a response to the demand 
 of every mood. It is much the same way 
 with lovers of Father Prout. Dr. O Rell di 
 vides his adoration between old Kit North 
 and the sage of Watergrass Hill. To be 
 bitten of either mania is bad enough ; when 
 one is possessed at the same time of a pas 
 sion both for the Noctes and for the Reliques 
 hopeless indeed is his malady! Dr. O Rell 
 is so deep under the spell of crusty Christo 
 pher and the Corkonian pere that he not 
 only buys every copy of the Noctes and of 
 the Reliques he comes across, but insists 
 178 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 upon giving copies of these books to every 
 body in his acquaintance. I have even known 
 him to prescribe one or the other of these 
 works to patients of his. 
 
 I recall that upon one occasion, having 
 lost an Elzevir at a book auction, I was af 
 flicted with melancholia to such a degree 
 that I had to take to my bed. Upon my 
 physician s arrival he made, as is his custom, 
 a careful inquiry into my condition and into 
 the causes inducing it. Finally, "You are 
 afflicted," said Dr. O Rell, "with the me 
 grims, which, fortunately, is at present con 
 fined to the region of the Pacchionian de 
 pressions of the sinister parietal. I shall ad 
 minister Father Front s Rogueries of Tom 
 Moore (pronounced More) and Kit North s 
 debate with the Ettrick Shepherd upon the 
 subject of sawmon. No other remedy will 
 prove effective." 
 
 The treatment did, in fact, avail me, for 
 within forty-eight hours I was out of bed, 
 and out of the house; and, what is better 
 yet, I picked up at a bookstall, for a mere 
 song, a first edition of " Special Providences 
 in New England"! 
 
 179 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Never, however, have I wholly ceased to 
 regret the loss of the Elzevir, for an Elzevir 
 is to me one of the most gladdening sights 
 human eye can rest upon. In his life of the 
 elder Aldus, Renouard says: " How few are 
 there of those who esteem and pay so dearly 
 for these pretty editions who know that the 
 type that so much please them are the work 
 of Francis Garamond, who cast them one 
 hundred years before at Paris." 
 
 In his bibliographical notes (a volume sel 
 dom met with now) the learned William 
 Davis records that Louis Elzevir was the first 
 who observed the distinction between the v 
 consonant and the u vowel, which distinc 
 tion, however, had been recommended long 
 before by Ramus and other writers, but had 
 never been regarded. There were five of 
 these Elzevirs, viz. : Louis, Bonaventure, 
 Abraham, Louis, Jr., and Daniel. 
 
 A hundred years ago a famous bibliophile 
 remarked: "The diminutiveness of a large 
 portion, and the beauty of the whole, of the 
 classics printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden 
 and Amsterdam have long rendered them 
 justly celebrated, and the prices they bear in 
 1 80 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 public sales sufficiently demonstrate the es 
 timation in which they are at present held." 
 
 The regard for these precious books still 
 obtains, and we meet with it in curiously 
 out-of-the-way places, as well as in those 
 libraries where one would naturally expect 
 to find it. My young friend Irving Way 
 (himself a collector of rare enthusiasm) tells 
 me that recently during a pilgrimage through 
 the state of Texas he came upon a gentleman 
 who showed him in his modest home the 
 most superb collection of Elzevirs he had 
 ever set eyes upon ! 
 
 How far-reaching is thy grace, O biblio 
 mania! How good and sweet it is that 
 no distance, no environment, no poverty, no 
 distress can appall or stay thee. Like that 
 grim spectre we call death, thou knockest 
 impartially at the palace portal and at the 
 cottage door. And it seemeth thy especial 
 delight to bring unto the lonely in desert 
 places the companionship that exalteth hu 
 manity! 
 
 It makes me groan to think of the number 
 of Elzevirs that are lost in the libraries of rich 
 parvenus who know nothing of and care no- 
 181 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 thing for the treasures about them further 
 than a certain vulgar vanity which is involved. 
 When Catherine of Russia wearied of Koritz 
 she took to her affection one Kimsky Kossa- 
 kof, a sergeant in the guards. Kimsky was 
 elated by this sudden acquisition of favor 
 and riches. One of his first orders was to 
 his bookseller. Said he to that worthy: 
 " Fit me up a handsome library; little books 
 above and great ones below." 
 
 It is narrated of a certain British warrior 
 that upon his retirement from service he 
 bought a library en bloc, and, not knowing 
 any more about books than a peccary knows 
 of the harmonies of the heavenly choir, he 
 gave orders for the arrangement of the 
 volumes in this wise: "Range me," he 
 quoth, "the grenadiers (folios) at the bot 
 tom, the battalion (octavos) in the mid 
 dle, and the light-bobs (duodecimos) at the 
 top!" 
 
 Samuel Johnson, dancing attendance upon 
 Lord Chesterfield, could hardly have felt his 
 humiliation more keenly than did the histo 
 rian Gibbon when his grace the Duke of 
 Cumberland met him bringing the third vol- 
 182 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 ume of his "Decline and Fall of the Ro 
 man Empire" to the ducal mansion. This 
 history was originally printed in quarto; 
 Gibbon was carrying the volume and an 
 ticipating the joy of the duke upon its ar 
 rival. What did the duke say ? " What ?" 
 
 he cried. "Ah, another big square 
 
 book, eh ?" 
 
 It is the fashion nowadays to harp upon 
 the degeneracy of humanity; to insist that 
 taste is corrupted, and that the faculty of ap 
 preciation is dead. We seem incapable of 
 realizing that this is the golden age of au 
 thors, if not the golden age of authorship. 
 
 In the good old days authors were in fact 
 a despised and neglected class. The Greeks 
 put them to death, as the humor seized them. 
 For a hundred years after his death Shake 
 speare was practically unknown to his coun 
 trymen, except Suckling and his coterie: 
 during his life he was roundly assailed by 
 his contemporaries, one of the latter going 
 to the extreme of denouncing him as a daw 
 that strutted in borrowed plumage. Milton 
 was accused of plagiarism, and one of his 
 critics devoted many years to compiling 
 183 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 from every quarter passages in ancient works 
 which bore a similarity to the blind poet s 
 verses. Even Samuel Johnson s satire of 
 " London" was pronounced a plagiarism. 
 
 The good old days were the days, seem 
 ingly, when th-e critics had their way and 
 ran things with a high hand ; they made or 
 unmade books and authors. They killed 
 Chatterton, just as, some years later, they 
 hastened the death of Keats. For a time 
 they were all-powerful. It was not until 
 the end of the eighteenth century that these 
 professional tyrants began to lose their grip, 
 and when Byron took up the lance against 
 them their doom was practically sealed. 
 
 Who would care a picayune in these de 
 generate days what Dr. Warburton said pro 
 or con a book? It was Warburton (then 
 Bishop of Gloucester) who remarked of 
 Granger s Biographical History of Eng 
 land " that it was " an odd one." This was 
 as high a compliment as he ever paid a book ; 
 those which he did not like he called sad 
 books, and those which he fancied he called 
 odd ones. 
 
 The truth seems to be that through the 
 184 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 diffusion of knowledge and the multiplicity 
 and cheapness of books people generally 
 have reached the point in intelligence where 
 they feel warranted in asserting their ability 
 to judge for themselves. So the occupation 
 of the critic, as interpreted and practised of 
 old, is gone. 
 
 Reverting to the practice of lamenting the 
 degeneracy of humanity, I should say that the 
 fashion is by no means a new one. Search 
 the records of the ancients and you will find 
 the same harping upon the one string of 
 present decay and former virtue. Herodotus, 
 Sallust, Csesar, Cicero, and Pliny take up and 
 repeat the lugubrious tale in turn. 
 
 Upon earth there are three distinct classes 
 of men : Those who contemplate the past, 
 those who contemplate the present, those 
 who contemplate the future. 1 am of those 
 who believe that humanity progresses, and 
 it is my theory that the best works of the 
 past have survived and come down to us 
 in these books which are our dearest legacies, 
 our proudest possessions, and our best-be 
 loved companions. 
 
 185 
 
ttjat 
 
 ant" 
 
XV 
 
 A BOOK THAT BRINGS SOLACE 
 AND CHEER 
 
 ONE of my friends had a mania for 
 Bunyan once upon a time, and, al 
 though he has now abandoned that fad for 
 the more fashionable passion of Napoleonana, 
 he still exhibits with evident pride the many 
 editions of the "Pilgrim s Progress" he gath 
 ered together years ago. I have frequently 
 besought him to give me one of his copies, 
 which has a curious frontispiece illustrating 
 the dangers besetting the traveller from the 
 City of Destruction to the Celestial City. 
 This frontispiece, which is prettily illumi 
 nated, occurs in Virtue s edition of the "Pil 
 grim s Progress " ; the book itself is not rare, 
 but it is hardly procurable in perfect condi 
 tion, for the reason that the colored plate is 
 so pleasing to the eye that few have been able 
 to resist the temptation to make away with it. 
 189 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 For similar reasons it is seldom that we 
 meet with a perfect edition of Quarles 
 "Emblems"; indeed, an "Emblems "of early 
 publication that does not lack the title-page 
 is a great rarity. In the "good old days," 
 when juvenile books were few, the works of 
 Bunyan and of Quarles were vastly popular 
 with the little folk, and little fingers wrought 
 sad havoc with the title-pages and the pic 
 tures that with their extravagant and vivid 
 suggestions appealed so directly and pow 
 erfully to the youthful fancy. 
 
 Coleridge says of the " Pilgrim s Progress" 
 that it is the best summary of evangelical 
 Christianity ever produced by a writer not 
 miraculously inspired. Froude declares that 
 it has for two centuries affected the spiritual 
 opinions of the English race in every part of 
 the world more powerfully than any other 
 book, except the Bible. "It is," says Ma- 
 caulay, perhaps the only book about which, 
 after the lapse of a hundred years, the edu 
 cated minority has come over to the opinion 
 of the common people." 
 
 Whether or not Bunyan is, as D Israeli has 
 called him, the Spenser of the people, and 
 190 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 whether or not his work is the poetry of 
 Puritanism, the best evidence of the merit 
 of the "Pilgrim s Progress" appears, as Dr. 
 Johnson has shrewdly pointed out, in the 
 general and continued approbation of man 
 kind. Southey has critically observed that 
 to his natural style Bunyan is in some degree 
 beholden for his general popularity, his lan 
 guage being everywhere level to the most 
 ignorant reader and to the meanest capacity; 
 "there is a homely reality about it a nur 
 sery tale is not more intelligible, in its man 
 ner of narration, to a child." 
 
 Another cause of his popularity, says 
 Southey, is that he taxes the imagination as 
 little as the understanding. " The vividness 
 of his own, which, as history shows, some 
 times could not distinguish ideal impressions 
 from actual ones, occasioned this. He saw 
 the things of which he was writing as dis 
 tinctly with his mind s eye as if they were, 
 indeed, passing before him in a dream." 
 
 It is clear to me that in his youth Bunyan 
 
 would have endeared himself to me had I 
 
 lived at that time, for his fancy was of that 
 
 kind and of such intensity as I delight to find 
 
 191 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 in youth. " My sins," he tells us, " did so 
 offend the Lord that even in my childhood 
 He did scare and affright me with fearful 
 dreams and did terrify me with dreadful vi 
 sions. I have been in my bed greatly af 
 flicted, while asleep, with apprehensions of 
 devils and wicked spirits, who still, as I then 
 thought, labored to draw me away with 
 them, of which I could never be rid." 
 
 It is quite likely that Bunyan overestimated 
 his viciousness. One of his ardent, intense 
 temperament having once been touched of 
 the saving grace could hardly help recog 
 nizing in himself the most miserable of sin 
 ners. It is related that upon one occasion 
 he was going somewhere disguised as a 
 wagoner, when he was overtaken by a con 
 stable who had a warrant for his arrest. 
 
 "Do you know that devil of a fellow 
 Bunyan ? " asked the constable. 
 
 " Know him ?" cried Bunyan. You might 
 call him a devil indeed, if you knew him as 
 well as I once did! " 
 
 This was not the only time his wit served 
 him to good purpose. On another occasion 
 a certain Cambridge student, who was filled 
 192 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 with a sense of his own importance, under 
 took to prove to him what a divine thing 
 reason was, and he capped his argument 
 with the declaration that reason was the 
 chief glory of man which distinguished him 
 from a beast. To this Bunyan calmly made 
 answer: Sin distinguishes man from beast; 
 is sin divine?" 
 
 Frederick Saunders observes that, like 
 Milton in his blindness, Bunyan in his im 
 prisonment had his spiritual perception 
 made all the brighter by his exclusion from 
 the glare of the outside world. And of the 
 great debt of gratitude we all owe to "the 
 wicked tinker of Elstow " Dean Stanley has 
 spoken so truly that I am fain to quote his 
 words: "We all need to be cheered by the 
 help of Greatheart and Standfast and Val- 
 iant-for-the-Truth, and good old Honesty! 
 Some of us have been in Doubting Castle, 
 some in the Slough of Despond. Some 
 have experienced the temptations of Vanity 
 Fair; all of us have to climb the Hill of 
 Difficulty; all of us need to be instructed 
 by the Interpreter in the House Beautiful; 
 all of us bear the same burden ; all of us 
 
 93 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 need the same armor in our fight with 
 Apollyon; all of us have to pass through 
 the Wicket Gate to pass through the 
 dark river, and for all of us (if God so will) 
 there wait the shining ones at the gates of 
 the Celestial City! Who does not love to 
 linger over the life story of the immortal 
 dreamer as one of those characters for 
 whom man has done so little and God so 
 much ?" 
 
 About my favorite copy of the " Pilgrim s 
 Progress" many a pleasant reminiscence 
 lingers, for it was one of the books my 
 grandmother gave my father when he left 
 home to engage in the great battle of life; 
 when my father died this thick, dumpy lit 
 tle volume, with its rude cuts and poorly 
 printed pages, came into my possession. 1 
 do not know what part this book played 
 in my father s life, but I can say for myself 
 that it has brought me solace and cheer a 
 many times. 
 
 The only occasion upon which I felt bit 
 terly toward Dr. O Rell was when that per 
 sonage observed in my hearing one day 
 that Bunyan was a dyspeptic, and that had 
 194 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 he not been one he would doubtless never 
 have written the " Pilgrim s Progress." 
 
 I took issue with the doctor on this point; 
 whereupon he cited those visions and 
 dreams, which, according to the light of 
 science as it now shines, demonstrate that 
 Bunyan s digestion must have been morbid. 
 And, forthwith, he overwhelmed me with 
 learned instances from Galen and Hippo 
 crates, from Spurzheim and Binns, from 
 Locke and Beattie, from Malebranche and 
 Bertholini, from Darwin and Descartes, from 
 Charlevoix and Berkeley, from Heraclitus 
 and Blumenbach, from Priestley and Aber- 
 crombie; in fact, forsooth, he quoted me so 
 many authorities that it verily seemed to me 
 as though the whole world were against me ! 
 
 I did not know until then that Dr. O Rell 
 had made a special study of dreams, of their 
 causes and of their signification. I had al 
 ways supposed that astrology was his par 
 ticular hobby, in which science I will con 
 cede him to be deeply learned, even though 
 he has never yet proved to my entire satis 
 faction that the reason why my copy of 
 Justinian has faded from a royal purple to a 
 95 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 pale blue is, first, because the binding was 
 renewed at the wane of the moon and when 
 Sirius was in the ascendant, and, secondly, 
 because (as Dr. O Rell has discovered) my 
 binder was born at a moment fifty-six years 
 ago when Mercury was in the fourth house 
 and Herschel and Saturn were aspected in 
 conjunction, with Sol at his northern dec 
 lination. 
 
 Dr. O Rell has frequently expressed sur 
 prise that I have never wearied of and drifted 
 away from the book-friendships of my earlier 
 years. Other people, he says, find, as time 
 elapses, that they no longer discover those 
 charms in certain books which attracted 
 them so powerfully in youth. "We have 
 in our earlier days," argues the doctor, 
 "friendships so dear to us that we would 
 repel with horror the suggestion that we 
 could ever become heedless or forgetful 
 of them ; yet, alas, as we grow older we 
 gradually become indifferent to these first 
 friends, and we are weaned from them by 
 other friendships; there even comes a time 
 when we actually wonder how it were pos 
 sible for us to be on terms of intimacy with 
 196 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 such or such a person. We grow away 
 from people, and in like manner and for 
 similar reasons we grow away from books." 
 Is it indeed possible for one to become 
 indifferent to an object he has once loved ? 
 I can hardly believe so. At least it is not 
 so with me, and, even though the time 
 may come when I shall no longer be able 
 to enjoy the uses of these dear old friends 
 with the old-time enthusiasm, I should still 
 regard them with that tender reverence 
 which in his age the poet Longfellow ex 
 pressed when looking round upon his be 
 loved books : 
 
 Sadly as some old mediaeval knight 
 
 Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield 
 The sword two-handed and the shining shield 
 
 Suspended in the hall and full in sight, 
 
 While secret longings for the lost delight 
 Of tourney or adventure in the field 
 Came over him, and tears but half concealed 
 
 Trembled and fell upon his beard of white; 
 
 So I behold these books upon their shelf, 
 My ornaments and arms of other days; 
 Not wholly useless, though no longer used, 
 
 For they remind me of my other self, 
 Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways 
 In which I walked, now clouded and confused. 
 
 197 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 If my friend O Rell s theory be true, how 
 barren would be Age ! Lord Bacon tells us 
 in his " Apothegms " that Alonzo of Aragon 
 was wont to say, in commendation of Age, 
 that Age appeared to be best in four things: 
 Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; 
 old friends to trust; and old authors to read. 
 Sir John Davys recalls that "a French writer 
 (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of 
 companions: Men, women and books," and 
 my revered and beloved poet-friend, Richard 
 Henry Stoddard, has wrought out this senti 
 ment in a poem of exceeding beauty, of which 
 the concluding stanza runs in this wise: 
 
 Better than men and women, friend, 
 
 That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, 
 Are the books their cunning hands have penned, 
 
 For they depart, but the books remain; 
 Through these they speak to us what was best 
 
 In the loving heart and the noble mind; 
 All their royal souls possessed 
 
 Belongs forever to all mankind! 
 When others fail him, the wise man looks 
 To the sure companionship of books. 
 
 If ever, O honest friends of mine, I should 
 forget you or weary of your companionship, 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 whither would depart the memories and the 
 associations with which each of you is hal 
 lowed! Would ever the modest flowers of 
 spring-time, budding in pathways where I 
 no longer wander, recall to my failing sight 
 the vernal beauty of the Puritan maid, Cap 
 tivity ? In what reverie of summer-time 
 should I feel again the graciousness of thy 
 presence, Yseult ? 
 
 And Fanchonette sweet, timid little Fan- 
 chonette! would ever thy ghost come back 
 from out those years away off yonder ? Be 
 hushed, my Beranger, fora moment; another 
 song hath awakened softly responsive echoes 
 in my heart! It is a song of Fanchonette: 
 
 In vain, in vain; we meet no more, 
 
 Nor dream what fates befall; 
 And long upon the stranger s shore 
 
 My voice on thee may call, 
 When years have clothed the line in moss 
 
 That tells thy name and days, 
 And withered, on thy simple cross, 
 
 The wreaths of Pere la Chaise! 
 
 199 
 
* 
 
 fje a^rtabp calfefc tfatafogttte 
 
XVI 
 THE MALADY CALLED CATALOGITIS 
 
 JUDGE METHUEN tells me that one of the 
 most pleasing delusions he has experi 
 enced in his long and active career as a bib 
 liomaniac is that which is born of the cata 
 logue habit. Presuming that there are among 
 my readers many laymen, for I preach sal 
 vation to the heathen, I will explain for 
 their information that the catalogue habit, 
 so called, is a practice to which the con 
 firmed lover of books is likely to become 
 addicted. It is a custom of many publish 
 ers and dealers to publish and to disseminate 
 at certain periods lists of their wares, in the 
 hope of thereby enticing readers to buy those 
 wares. 
 
 By what means these crafty tradesmen se 
 cure the names of their prospective victims I 
 cannot say, but this I know full well that 
 203 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 there seems not to be a book-lover on the 
 face of the earth, I care not how remote or 
 how secret his habitation may be, that these 
 dealers do not presently find him out and 
 overwhelm him with their delightful temp 
 tations. 
 
 I have been told that among booksellers 
 there exists a secret league which provides 
 for the interchange of confidences; so that 
 when a new customer enters a shop in the 
 Fulham road or in Oxford street or along the 
 quays of Paris, or it matters not where (so 
 long as the object of his inquiry be a book), 
 within the space of a month that man s 
 name and place of residence are reported to 
 and entered in the address list of every other 
 bookseller in Christendom, and forthwith 
 and forever after the catalogues and price- 
 lists and bulletins of publishers and dealers 
 in every part of the world are pelted at him 
 through the unerring processes of the mails. 
 
 Judge Methuen has been a victim (a pleas 
 ant victim) to the catalogue habit for the 
 last forty years, and he has declared that if 
 all the catalogues sent to and read by him in 
 that space of time were gathered together in 
 204 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 a heap they would make a pile bigger than 
 Pike s Peak, and a thousandfold more in 
 teresting. I myself have been a famous 
 reader of catalogues, and 1 can testify that 
 the habit has possessed me of remarkable de 
 lusions, the most conspicuous of which is 
 that which produces within me the convic 
 tion that a book is as good as mine as soon 
 as I have met with its title in a catalogue, 
 and set an X over against it in pencil. 
 
 I recall that on one occasion I was discuss 
 ing with Judge Methuen and Dr. O Rell the 
 attempted escapes of Charles I. from Caris- 
 brooke Castle ; a point of difference having 
 arisen, I said: Gentlemen, I will refer to 
 Hillier s Narrative, and I doubt not that 
 my argument will be sustained by that au 
 thority." 
 
 It was vastly easier, however, to cite Hil- 
 lier than it was to find him. For three days 
 1 searched in my library, and tumbled my 
 books about in that confusion which results 
 from undue eagerness; t was all in vain; 
 neither hide nor hair of the desired volume 
 could I discover. It finally occurred to me 
 that I must have lent the book to somebody, 
 205 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 and then again I felt sure that it had been 
 stolen. 
 
 No tidings of the missing volume came to 
 me, and I had almost forgotten the incident 
 when one evening (it was fully two years 
 after my discussion with my cronies) I came 
 upon, in one of the drawers of my oak chest, 
 a Sotheran catalogue of May, 1871. By the 
 merest chance I opened it, and as luck would 
 have it, I opened it at the very page upon 
 which appeared this item : 
 
 "Hillier (G.) Narrative of the Attempted 
 Escapes of Charles the First from Carisbrooke 
 Castle ; cr. 8vo, 1852, cloth, 3/6." 
 
 Against this item appeared a cross in my 
 chirography, and I saw at a glance that this 
 was my long-lost Hillier! I had meant to 
 buy it, and had marked it for purchase; but 
 with the determination and that pencilled 
 cross the transaction had ended. Yet, hav 
 ing resolved to buy it had served me almost 
 as effectively as though I had actually bought 
 it; I thought aye, I could have sworn 
 I had bought it, simply because I meant to 
 buy it. 
 
 "The experience is not unique," said 
 206 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Judge Methuen, when I narrated it to him at 
 our next meeting. "Speaking for myself, 
 I can say that it is a confirmed habit with me 
 to mark certain items in catalogues which 1 
 read, and then to go my way in the pleasing 
 conviction that they are actually mine." 
 
 "1 meet with cases of this character con 
 tinually," said Dr. O Rell. " The hallucina 
 tion is one that is recognized as a specific 
 one by pathologists; its cure is quickest ef 
 fected by means of hypnotism. Within the 
 last year a lady of beauty and refinement 
 came to me in serious distress. She con 
 fided to me amid a copious effusion of tears 
 that her husband was upon the verge of in 
 sanity. Her testimony was to the effect that 
 the unfortunate man believed himself to be 
 possessed of a large library, the fact being 
 that the number of his books was limited to 
 three hundred or thereabouts. 
 
 Upon inquiry I learned that N. M. (for so 
 I will call the victim of this delusion) made 
 a practice of reading and of marking book 
 sellers catalogues; further investigation de 
 veloped that N. M. s great-uncle on his mo 
 ther s side had invented a flying-machine 
 207 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 that would not fly, and that a half-brother 
 of his was the author of a pamphlet entitled 
 1 6 to i ; or the Poor Man s Vade-Mecum. 
 
 " Madam, said I, it is clear to me that 
 your husband is afflicted with catalogitis. 
 
 At this the poor woman went into hyster 
 ics, bewailing that she should have lived to 
 see the object of her affection the victim of 
 a malady so grievous as to require a Greek 
 name. When she became calmer I explained 
 to her that the malady was by no means fatal, 
 and that it yielded readily to treatment." 
 
 What, in plain terms," asked Judge Me- 
 thuen, "is catalogitis?" 
 
 "I will explain briefly," answered the 
 doctor. "You must know first that every 
 perfect human being is provided with two 
 sets of bowels; he has physical bowels and 
 intellectual bowels, the brain being the lat 
 ter. Hippocrates (since whose time the 
 science of medicine has not advanced even 
 the two stadia, five parasangs of Xeno- 
 phon) Hippocrates, I say, discovered that 
 the brain is subject to those very same dis 
 eases to which the other and inferior bowels 
 are liable. 
 
 208 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 "Galen confirmed this discovery and he 
 records a case (Lib. xi., p. 318) wherein there 
 were exhibited in the intellectual bowels 
 symptoms similar to those we find in ap 
 pendicitis. The brain is wrought into cer 
 tain convolutions, just as the alimentary 
 canal is; the fourth layer, so called, contains 
 elongated groups of small cells or nuclei, 
 radiating at right angles to its plane, which 
 groups present a distinctly fanlike structure. 
 "Catalogitis is a stoppage of this fourth 
 layer, whereby the functions of the fanlike 
 structure are suffered no longer to cool the 
 brain, and whereby also continuity of 
 thought is interrupted, just as continuity of 
 digestion is prevented by stoppage of the 
 vermiform appendix. 
 
 " The learned Professor Biersteintrinken," 
 continued Dr. O Rell, " has advanced in his 
 scholarly work on Raderinderkopf the in 
 teresting theory that catalogitis is produced 
 by the presence in the brain of a germ which 
 has its origin in the cheap paper used by 
 booksellers for catalogue purposes, and 
 this theory seems to have the approval of 
 M. Marie-Tonsard, the most famous of au- 
 209 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 thorities on inebriety, in his celebrated clas 
 sic entitled Un Trait sur Jacques-Jacques. " 
 
 "Did you effect a cure in the case of 
 N. M. ?" I asked. 
 
 "With the greatest of ease," answered 
 the doctor. "By means of hypnotism 1 
 purged his intellectuals of their hallucination, 
 relieving them of their perception of objects 
 which have no reality and ridding them of 
 sensations which have no corresponding ex 
 ternal cause. The patient made a rapid re 
 covery, and, although three months have 
 elapsed since his discharge, he has had no 
 return of the disease." 
 
 As a class booksellers do not encourage 
 the reading of other booksellers catalogues ; 
 this is, presumably, because they do not care 
 to encourage buyers to buy of other sellers. 
 My bookseller, who in all virtues of head 
 and heart excels all other booksellers I ever 
 met with, makes a scrupulous practice of 
 destroying the catalogues that come to his 
 shop, lest some stray copy may fall into the 
 hands of a mousing book-lover and divert 
 his attention to other hunting-grounds. It 
 is indeed remarkable to what excess the 
 
 210 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 catalogue habit will carry its victim; the 
 author of "Will Shakespeare, a Comedy," 
 has frequently confessed to me that it mat 
 tered not to him whether a catalogue was 
 twenty years old so long as it was a cata 
 logue of books he found the keenest delight 
 in its perusal; I have often heard Mr. Ham- 
 lin, the theatre manager, say that he pre 
 ferred old catalogues to new, for the reason 
 that the bargains to be met with in old cata 
 logues expired long ago under the statute of 
 limitations. 
 
 Judge Methuen, who is a married man 
 and has therefore had an excellent opportu 
 nity to study the sex, tells me that the 
 wives of bibliomaniacs regard catalogues as 
 the most mischievous temptations that can 
 be thrown in the way of their husbands. I 
 once committed the imprudence of men 
 tioning the subject in Mrs. Methuen s pres 
 ence: that estimable lady gave it as her 
 opinion that there were plenty of ways of 
 spending money foolishly without having 
 recourse to a book-catalogue for suggestion. 
 I wonder whether Captivity would have had 
 this opinion, had Providence ordained that 
 
 211 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 we should walk together the quiet pathway 
 of New England life; would Yseult always 
 have retained the exuberance and sweetness 
 of her youth, had she and I realized what 
 might have been ? Would Fanchonette al 
 ways have sympathized with the whims 
 and vagaries of the restless yet loyal soul 
 that hung enraptured on her singing in the 
 Quartier Latin so long ago that the memory 
 of that song is like the memory of a ghostly 
 echo now ? 
 
 Away with such reflections! Bring in 
 the candles, good servitor, and range them 
 at my bed s head; sweet avocation awaits 
 me, for here I have a goodly parcel of cata 
 logues with which to commune. They are 
 messages from Methuen, Sotheran, Libbie, 
 Irvine, Hutt, Davey, Baer, Crawford, Bangs, 
 McClurg, Matthews, Francis, Bouton, Scrib- 
 ner, Benjamin, and a score of other friends 
 in every part of Christendom ; they deserve 
 and they shall have my respectful nay, 
 my enthusiastic attention. Once more I 
 shall seem to be in the old familiar shops 
 where treasures abound and where patient 
 delving bringeth rich rewards. Egad, what 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 a spendthrift 1 shall be this night; pence, 
 shillings, thalers, marks, francs, dollars, sov 
 ereigns they are the same to me! 
 
 Then, after I have comprehended all the 
 treasures within reach, how sweet shall be 
 my dreams of shelves overflowing with the 
 wealth of which my fancy has possessed 
 me! 
 
 Then shall my library be devote 
 
 To the magic of Niddy-Noddy, 
 Including the volumes which Nobody wrote 
 
 And the works of Everybody. 
 
 213 
 
lje 
 
XVII 
 THE NAPOLEONIC RENAISSANCE 
 
 IF I had begun collecting Napoleonana in my 
 youth I should now have on hand a price 
 less collection. This reminds me that when 
 I first came to Chicago suburban property 
 along the North Shore could be bought for 
 five hundred dollars an acre which now sells 
 for two hundred dollars a front foot; if I had 
 purchased real estate in that locality when 1 
 had the opportunity forty years ago I should 
 be a millionnaire at the present time. 
 
 I think I am more regretful of having 
 neglected the Napoleonana than of having 
 missed the real-estate chances, for since my 
 library contains fewer than two hundred vol 
 umes relating to Bonaparte and his times I feel 
 that I have been strangely remiss in the pur 
 suit of one of the most interesting and most 
 instructive of bibliomaniac fads. When I be- 
 217 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 hold the remarkable collections of Napoleon- 
 ana made by certain friends of mine I am 
 filled with conflicting emotions of delight 
 and envy, and Judge Methuen and 1 are wont 
 to contemplate with regret the opportunities 
 we once had of throwing all these modern 
 collections in the shade. 
 
 When I speak of Napoleonana I refer ex 
 clusively to literature relating to Napoleon ; 
 the term, however, is generally used in a 
 broader sense, and includes every variety of 
 object, from the snuff-boxes used by the em 
 peror at Malmaison to the slippers he wore 
 at St. Helena. My friend, Mr. Redding, of 
 California, has a silver knife and fork that 
 once belonged to Bonaparte, and Mr. Mills, 
 another friend of mine, has the neckerchief 
 which Napoleon wore on the field of Water 
 loo. In Le Blanc s little treatise upon the 
 art of tying the cravat it is recorded that 
 Napoleon generally wore a black silk cravat, 
 as was remarked at Wagram, Lodi, Ma- 
 rengo and Austerlitz. "But at Waterloo," 
 says Le Blanc, "it was observed that, con 
 trary to his usual custom, he wore a white 
 handkerchief with a flowing bow, although 
 218 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 the day previous he appeared in his black 
 cravat." 
 
 I remember to have seen in the collection 
 of Mr. Melville E. Stone a finger-ring, which, 
 having been brought by an old French sol 
 dier to New Orleans, ultimately found its 
 way to a pawn-shop. This bauble was of 
 gold, and at two opposite points upon its 
 outer surface appeared a Napoleonic "N," 
 done in black enamel; by pressing upon one 
 of these Ns a secret spring was operated, 
 the top of the ring flew back, and a tiny 
 gold figure of the Little Corporal stood up, 
 to the astonishment and admiration of the 
 beholder. 
 
 Another curious Napoleonic souvenir in 
 Mr. Stone s motley collection is a cotton print 
 handkerchief, upon which are recorded scenes 
 from the career of the emperor; the thing 
 must have been of English manufacture, for 
 only an Englishman (inspired by that fear 
 and that hatred of Bonaparte which only 
 Englishmen had) could have devised this 
 atrocious libel. One has to read the literature 
 current in the earlier part of this century in 
 order to get a correct idea of the terror with 
 219 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 which Bonaparte filled his enemies, and this 
 literature is so extensive that it seems an im 
 possibility that anything like a complete col 
 lection should be got together; to say nothing 
 of the histories, the biographies, the volumes 
 of reminiscence and the books of criticism 
 which the career of the Corsican inspired, 
 there are Napoleon dream-books, Napoleon 
 song-books, Napoleon chap-books, etc., etc., 
 beyond the capability of enumeration. 
 
 The English were particularly active in 
 disseminating libels upon Napoleon; they 
 charged him in their books and pamphlets 
 with murder, arson, incest, treason, treach 
 ery, cowardice, seduction, hypocrisy, avar 
 ice, robbery, ingratitude, and jealousy; they 
 said that he poisoned his sick soldiers, that 
 he was the father of Hortense s child, that 
 he committed the most atrocious cruelties in 
 Egypt and Italy, that he married Barras dis 
 carded mistress, that he was afflicted with 
 a loathsome disease, that he murdered the 
 Due d Enghien and officers in his own army 
 of whom he was jealous, that he was crimi 
 nally intimate with his own sisters in short, 
 there was no crime, however revolting, with 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 which these calumniators were not hasty to 
 charge the emperor. 
 
 This same vindictive hatred was visited 
 also upon all associated with Bonaparte in 
 the conduct of affairs at that time. Murat 
 was "a brute and a thief"; Josephine, Hor- 
 tense, Pauline, and Mme. Letitia were courte 
 sans; Berthier was a shuffling, time-serving 
 lackey and tool; Augereau was a bastard, 
 a spy, a robber, and a murderer; Fouche 
 was the incarnation of every vice; Lucien 
 Bonaparte was a roue and a marplot; Cam- 
 baceres was a debauchee ; Lannes was a thief, 
 brigand, and a poisoner; Talleyrand and Bar- 
 ras were well, what evil was told of them 
 has yet to be disproved. But you would 
 gather from contemporaneous English pub 
 lications that Bonaparte and his associates 
 were veritable fiends from hell sent to scourge 
 civilization. These books are so strangely 
 curious that we find it hard to classify them ; 
 we cannot call them history, and they are 
 too truculent to pass for humor; yet they 
 occupy a distinct and important place among 
 Napoleonana. 
 
 Until William Hazlitt s life of Bonaparte 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 appeared we had no English treatment of Bo 
 naparte that was in any sense fair, and, by the 
 way, Hazlitt s work is the only one in English 
 I know of which gives the will of Bonaparte, 
 an exceedingly interesting document. 
 
 For a good many years I held the char 
 acter of Napoleon in light esteem, for the 
 reason that he had but small regard for 
 books. Recent revelations, however, made 
 to me by Dr. O Rell (grandnephew of Torn 
 Burke of Ours "), have served to dissipate that 
 prejudice, and I question not that I shall duly 
 become as ardent a worshipper of the Corsi- 
 can as my doctor himself is. Dr. O Rell tells 
 me and his declarations are corroborated 
 by Frederic Masson and other authorities 
 that Bonaparte was a lover and a collector of 
 books, and that he contributed largely to the 
 dignity and the glorification of literature by 
 publishing a large number of volumes in the 
 highest style of the art. 
 
 The one department of literature for which 
 he seems to have had no liking was fiction. 
 Novels of all kinds he was in the habit of 
 tossing into the fire. He was a prodigious 
 buyer of books, and those which he read 
 
 222 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 were invariably stamped on the outer cover 
 with the imperial arms; at St. Helena his li 
 brary stamp was merely a seal upon which 
 ink was smeared. 
 
 Napoleon cared little for fine bindings, yet 
 he knew their value, and whenever a presen 
 tation copy was to be bound he required that 
 it be bound handsomely. The books in his 
 own library were invariably bound "in calf 
 of indifferent quality," and he was wont, 
 while reading a book, to fill the margin with 
 comments in pencil. Wherever he went he 
 took a library of books with him, and these 
 volumes he had deprived of all superfluous 
 margin, so as to save weight and space. Not 
 infrequently when hampered by the rapid 
 growth of this travelling library he would toss 
 the "overflow" of books out of his carriage 
 window, and it was his custom (I shudder 
 to record it!) to separate the leaves of pam 
 phlets, magazines, and volumes by running 
 his finger between them, thereby invariably 
 tearing the pages in shocking wise. 
 
 In the arrangement of his library Napoleon 
 observed that exacting method which was 
 characteristic of him in other employments 
 223 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 and avocations. Each book had its particular 
 place in a special case, and Napoleon knew 
 his library so well that he could at any mo 
 ment place his hand upon any volume he 
 desired. The libraries at his palaces he had 
 arranged exactly as the library at Malmaison 
 was, and never was one book borrowed from 
 one to serve in another. It is narrated of him 
 that if ever a volume was missing Napoleon 
 would describe its size and the color of its 
 binding to the librarian, and would point out 
 the place where it might have been wrongly 
 put and the case where it properly belonged. 
 If any one question the greatness of this 
 man let him explain if he can why civiliza 
 tion s interest in Napoleon increases as time 
 rolls on. Why is it that we are curious to 
 know all about him that we have gratifi 
 cation in hearing tell of his minutest habits, 
 his moods, his whims, his practices, his pre 
 judices ? Why is it that even those who 
 hated him and who denied his genius have 
 felt called upon to record in ponderous tomes 
 their reminiscences of him and his deeds ? 
 Princes, generals, lords, courtiers, poets, 
 painters, priests, plebeians all have vied 
 224 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 with one another in answering humanity s 
 demand for more and more and ever more 
 about Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 I think that the supply will, like the de 
 mand, never be exhausted. The women of 
 the court have supplied us with their mem 
 oirs; so have the diplomats of that period; 
 so have the wives of his generals; so have 
 the Tom-Dick-and-Harry spectators of those 
 kaleidoscopic scenes; so have his keepers in 
 exile; so has his barber. The chambermaids 
 will be heard from in good time, and the 
 hostlers, and the scullions. Already there are 
 rumors that we are soon to be regaled with 
 Memoirs of the Emperor Napoleon by the 
 Lady who knew the Tailor who Once Sewed 
 a Button on the Emperor s Coat, edited by 
 her loving grandson, the Due de Bunco. 
 
 Without doubt many of those who read 
 these lines will live to see the time when 
 memoirs of Napoleon will be offered by " a 
 gentleman who purchased a collection of 
 Napoleon spoons in 1899" ; doubtless, too, 
 the book will be hailed with satisfaction, for 
 this Napoleonic enthusiasm increases as time 
 wears on. 
 
 225 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Curious, is it not, that no calm, judicial 
 study of this man s character and exploits 
 is received with favor? He who treats of 
 the subject must be either a hater or an 
 adorer of Napoleon; his blood must be hot 
 with the enthusiasm of rage or of love. 
 
 To the human eye there appears in space 
 a luminous sphere that in its appointed path 
 goes on unceasingly. The wise men are" 
 not agreed whether this apparition is merely 
 of gaseous composition or is a solid body 
 supplied extraneously with heat and lumi 
 nosity, inexhaustibly; some argue that its 
 existence will be limited to the period of one 
 thousand, or five hundred thousand, or one 
 million years; others declare that it will roll 
 on until the end of time. Perhaps the nature 
 of that luminous sphere will never be truly 
 known to mankind; yet with calm dignity 
 it moves in its appointed path among the 
 planets and the stars of the universe, its 
 fires unabated, its luminosity undimmed. 
 
 Even so the great Corsican, scrutinized of 
 all human eyes, passes along the aisle of Time 
 enveloped in the impenetrable mystery of 
 enthusiasm, genius, and splendor. 
 226 
 
XVIII 
 MY WORKSHOP AND OTHERS 
 
 The women-folk are few up there, 
 
 For t were not fair, you know, 
 That they our heavenly bliss should share 
 
 Who vex us here below ! 
 The few are those who have been kind 
 
 To husbands such as we : 
 They knew our fads and did n t mind 
 
 Says Dibdin s ghost to me. 
 
 IT has never been explained to my satis 
 faction why women, as a class, are the 
 enemies of books, and are particularly hostile 
 to bibliomania. The exceptions met with 
 now and then simply prove the rule. Judge 
 Methuen declares that bibliophobia is but 
 one phase of jealousy; that one s wife hates 
 one s books because she fears that her 
 husband is in love, or is going to be in 
 love, with those companions of his student 
 229 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 hours. If, instead of being folios, quartos, 
 octavos, and the like, the Judge s books 
 were buxom, blithe maidens, his wife could 
 hardly be more jealous of the Judge s atten 
 tions to them than she is under existing cir 
 cumstances. On one occasion, having found 
 the Judge on two successive afternoons sit 
 ting alone in the library with Pliny in his 
 lap, this spirited lady snatched the insidious 
 volume from her husband s embraces and 
 locked it up in one of the kitchen pantries; 
 nor did she release the object of her displea 
 sure until the Judge had promised solemnly 
 to be more circumspect in the future, and 
 had further mollified his wife s anger by 
 bringing home a new silk dress and a bon 
 net of exceptional loveliness. 
 
 Other instances of a similar character have 
 demonstrated that Mrs. Methuen regards 
 with implacable antipathy the volumes upon 
 which my learned and ingenious friend would 
 fain lavish the superabundance of his affec 
 tion. Many years ago the Judge was com 
 pelled to resort to every kind of artifice in 
 order to sneak new books into his house, 
 and had he not been imbued with the true 
 230 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 afflatus of bibliomania he would long ago 
 have broken down under the heartless tyr 
 anny of his vindictive spouse. 
 
 When I look around me and survey the 
 persecution to which book-lovers are sub 
 jected by their wives, I thank the goddess 
 Fortune that she has cast my lot among the 
 celibates; indeed, it is still one of the few 
 serious questions I have not yet solved, viz. : 
 whether a man can at the same time be 
 true to a wife and to bibliomania. Both are 
 exacting mistresses, and neither will tolerate 
 a rival. 
 
 Dr. O Rell has a theory that the trouble 
 with most wives is that they are not caught 
 young enough; he quotes Dr. Johnson s 
 sage remark to the effect that "much can 
 be made of a Scotchman if caught young," 
 and he asserts that this is equally true of wo 
 man. Mrs. O Rell was a mere girl when 
 she wedded with the doctor, and the result 
 of thirty years experience and training is 
 that this model woman sympathizes with 
 her excellent husband s tastes, and actually 
 has a feeling of contempt for other wives 
 who have never heard of Father Prout and 
 231 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Kit North, and who object to their husbands 
 smoking in bed. 
 
 I recall with, what enthusiasm I once heard 
 this superior creature commend the doctor 
 for having accepted in lieu of a fee a set of 
 Calvin s " Institutes," with copious notes, in 
 twelve octavo volumes, and a portfolio of 
 colored fox-hunting prints. My admiration 
 for this model wife could find expression in 
 no other way; I jumped from my chair, 
 seized her in my arms, and imprinted upon 
 her brow a fervent but respectful kiss. 
 
 It would be hard to imagine a prettier pic 
 ture than that presented to my vision as I 
 looked in from the porch of the doctor s res 
 idence upon the doctor s family gathered 
 together in the library after dinner. The 
 doctor himself, snuggled down in a vast 
 easy-chair, was dividing his attention be 
 tween a brier pipe and the odes of Proper- 
 tius; his wife, beside him in her rocker, 
 smiled and smiled again over the quaint hu 
 mor of Mrs. Gaskell s "Cranford"; upon 
 yonder settee, Francis Mahony Methuen, the 
 oldest son, was deep in the perusal of Wil 
 son s " Tales of the Border"; his brother, 
 232 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Russell Lowell, was equally absorbed in the 
 pathetic tale of "The Man without a Coun 
 try " ; Letitia Landon Methuen, the daughter, 
 was quietly sobbing over the tragedy of 
 " Evangeline "; in his high chair sat the 
 chubby baby boy, Beranger Methuen, crow 
 ing gleefully over an illustrated copy of 
 that grand old classic, Poems for Infant 
 Minds by Two Young Persons." 
 
 For several moments I stood spellbound, 
 regarding with ineffable rapture this inspir 
 ing spectacle. " How manifold are thy 
 blessings, O Bibliomania," thought I, "and 
 how graciously they are distributed in this 
 joyous circle, wherein it is permitted to see 
 not only the maturer members, but, alas, 
 the youth and even the babes and sucklings 
 drinking freely and gratefully at the fountain- 
 head of thy delights! " 
 
 Dr. O Rell s library is one of the most 
 charming apartments I know of. It looks 
 out upon every variety of scenery, for Dr. 
 O Rell has had constructed at considerable 
 expense a light iron framework from which 
 are suspended at different times cunningly 
 painted canvases representing landscapes 
 233 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 the "Faerie Queen," Jeremy Taylor, and 
 Ben Jonson occupying close quarters with 
 fishing-rods, boxing-gloves, and tins of bar 
 ley-sugar. 
 
 Charles Lamb s favorite workshop was in 
 an attic; upon the walls of this room he 
 and his sister pasted old prints and gay pic 
 tures, and this resulted in giving the place 
 a cheery aspect. Lamb loved old books, 
 old friends, old times; " he evades the pres 
 ent, he works at the future, and his affec 
 tions revert to and settle on the past," so 
 says Hazlitt. His favorite books seem to 
 have been Bunyan s " Holy War," Browne s 
 "Urn-Burial," Burton s "Anatomy of Mel 
 ancholy," Fuller s " Worthies," and Taylor s 
 " Holy Living and Dying." Thomas West- 
 wood tells us that there were few modern 
 volumes in his library, it being his custom 
 to give away and throw away (as the same 
 writer asserts) presentation copies of con 
 temporaneous literature. Says Barry Corn 
 wall: "Lamb s pleasures lay amongst the 
 books of the old English writers," and Lamb 
 himself uttered these memorable words : "I 
 cannot sit and think books think for me." 
 238 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 Wordsworth, on the other hand, cared lit 
 tle for books; his library was a small one, 
 embracing hardly more than five hundred 
 volumes. He drew his inspiration not from 
 books, but from Nature. From all that I 
 have heard of him I judge him to have been 
 a very dull man. Allibone relates of him 
 that he once remarked that he did not con 
 sider himself a witty poet. Indeed, " quoth 
 he, " I don t think I ever was witty but once 
 in my life." 
 
 His friends urged him to tell them about 
 it. After some hesitation, he said : "Well, 
 I will tell you. I was standing some time 
 ago at the entrance of Rydal Mount. A 
 man accosted me with the question : Pray, 
 sir, have you seen my wife pass by ? 
 Whereupon I retorted, Why, my good 
 friend, I did n t know till this moment that 
 you had a wife. 
 
 Illustrative of Wordsworth s vanity, it is 
 told that when it was reported that the next 
 Waverley novel was to be " Rob Roy," the 
 poet took down his "Ballads" and read to 
 the company "Rob Roy s Grave." Then 
 he said gravely: "I do not know what 
 239 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 would lock the door of that room and be 
 take himself toother quarters, which in turn 
 would eventually become quite as littered 
 up, cluttered up, and impassable as the first 
 rooms. 
 
 From all that can be gathered upon the 
 subject it would appear that De Quincey 
 was careless in his treatment of books; 1 
 have read somewhere (but I forget where) 
 that he used his forefinger as a paper-cutter 
 and that he did not hesitate to mutilate old 
 folios which he borrowed. But he was ex 
 traordinarily tender with his manuscripts; 
 and he was wont to carry in his pockets a 
 soft brush with which he used to dust off 
 his manuscripts most carefully before hand 
 ing them to the publisher. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was similarly careful with 
 his books, and he used, for purposes of dust 
 ing them, the end of a fox s tail set in a 
 handle of silver. Scott, was, however, par 
 ticular and systematic in the arrangement of 
 his books, and his work-room, with its choice 
 bric-a-brac and its interesting collection of 
 pictures and framed letters, was a veritable 
 paradise to the visiting book-lover and curio- 
 236 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 lover. He was as fond of early rising as 
 Francis Jeffrey was averse to it, and both 
 these eminent men were strongly attached 
 to animal pets. Jeffrey particularly affected 
 an aged and garrulous parrot and an equally 
 disreputable little dog. Scott was so stanch 
 a friend of dogs that wherever he went he 
 was accompanied by one or two some 
 times by a whole kennel of these faithful 
 brutes. 
 
 In Mrs. Gordon s noble Memoirs" we have 
 a vivid picture of Professor Wilson s work 
 room. All was confusion there: " his room 
 was a strange mixture of what may be 
 called order and untidiness, for there was 
 not a scrap of paper or a book that his 
 hand could not light upon in a moment, 
 while to the casual eye, in search of discov 
 ery, it would appear chaos." Wilson had 
 no love for fine furniture, and he seems to 
 have crowded his books together without 
 regard to any system of classification. He 
 had a habit of mixing his books around 
 with fishing-tackle, and his charming biog 
 rapher tells us it was no uncommon thing 
 to find the "Wealth of Nations," " Boxiana," 
 237 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 and marines corresponding to the most 
 whimsical fancy. 
 
 In the dead of winter, the doctor often 
 has a desire to look out upon a cheery land 
 scape; thereupon, by a simple manipulation 
 of a keyboard, there is unrolled a panorama 
 of velvety hillsides and flowery meads, of 
 grazing sheep, and of piping rustics; so 
 natural is the spectacle that one can almost 
 hear the music of the reeds, and fancy him 
 self in Arcadia. If in midsummer the heat 
 is oppressive and life seems burthensome, 
 forthwith another canvas is outspread, and 
 the glories of the Alps appear, or a stretch 
 of blue sea, or a corner of a primeval forest 
 
 So there is an outlook for every mood, and 
 1 doubt not that this ingenious provision 
 contributes potently towards promoting bib 
 liomaniac harmony and prosperity in my 
 friend s household. It is true that I myself 
 am not susceptible to external influences 
 when once I am surrounded by books; I do 
 not care a fig whether my library overlooks 
 a garden or a desert; give me my dear com 
 panions in their dress of leather, cloth, or 
 boards, and it matters not to me whether 
 234 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 God sends storm or sunshine, flowers or 
 hail, light or darkness, noise or calm. Yet 
 I know and admit that environment means 
 much to most people, and I do most heartily 
 applaud Dr. O Rell s versatile device. 
 
 I have always thought that De Quincey s 
 workshop would have given me great de 
 light. The particular thing that excited De 
 Quincey s choler was interference with his 
 books and manuscripts, which he piled atop 
 of one another upon the floor and over his 
 desk, until at last there would be but a nar 
 row little pathway from the desk to the fire 
 place and from the fireplace to the door; 
 and his writing-table gracious! what a 
 Pelion upon Ossa of confusion it must have 
 been ! 
 
 Yet De Quincey insisted that he knew 
 "just where everything was," and he merely 
 exacted that the servants attempt no such 
 vandalism as "cleaning up" in his work 
 shop. Of course there would presently 
 come a time when there was no more room 
 on the table and when the little pathway 
 to the fireplace and the door would be no 
 longer visible; then, with a sigh, De Quincey 
 235 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 more Mr. Scott can have to say on the 
 subject." 
 
 Wordsworth and Dickens disliked each 
 other cordially. Having been asked his 
 opinion of the young novelist, Wordsworth 
 answered: "Why, I m not much given to 
 turn critic on people I meet; but, as you 
 ask me, I will cordially avow that I thought 
 him a very talkative young person but 
 I dare say he may be very clever. Mind, I 
 don t want to say a word against him, for 
 I have never read a line he has written." 
 
 The same inquirer subsequently asked 
 Dickens how he liked Wordsworth. 
 
 "Like him!" roared Dickens, "not at all; 
 he is a dreadful Old Ass! " 
 
 240 
 
SDeBt to 
 
XIX 
 OUR DEBT TO MONKISH MEN 
 
 WHERE one has the time and the money 
 to devote to the collection of missals 
 and illuminated books, the avocation must 
 be a very delightful one. I never look upon 
 a missal or upon a bit of antique illumination 
 that I do not invest that object with a cer 
 tain poetic romance, and I picture to myself 
 long lines of monkish men bending over 
 their tasks, and applying themselves with 
 pious enthusiasm thereto. We should not 
 flatter ourselves that the enjoyment of the 
 delights of bibliomania was reserved to one 
 time and generation ; a greater than any of us 
 lived many centuries ago, and went his bib- 
 liomaniacal way, gathering together trea 
 sures from every quarter, and diffusing every 
 where a veneration and love for books. 
 243 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Richard de Bury was the king, if not the 
 father, of bibliomaniacs; his immortal work 
 reveals to us that long before the invention 
 of printing men were tormented and enrap 
 tured by those very same desires, envies, 
 jealousies, greeds, enthusiasms, and pas 
 sions which possess and control biblioma 
 niacs at the present time. That vanity was 
 sometimes the controlling passion with the 
 early collectors is evidenced in a passage in 
 Barclay s satire, " The Ship of Fools " ; there 
 are the stanzas which apply so neatly to cer 
 tain people I know that sometimes I actually 
 suspect that Barclay s prophetic eye must 
 have had these nineteenth-century charlatans 
 in view. 
 
 But yet I have them in great reverence 
 And honor, saving them from filth and ordure 
 
 By often brushing and much diligence. 
 Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture 
 Of damask, satin, or else of velvet pure, 
 
 I keep them sure, fearing lest they should be lost, 
 
 For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast. 
 
 But if it fortune that any learned man 
 
 Within my house fall to disputation, 
 I draw the curtains to show my books them, 
 244 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 That they of my cunning should make probation; 
 
 I love not to fall into alternation, 
 And while they come, my books I turn and wind, 
 For all is in them, and nothing in my mind. 
 
 Richard de Bury had exceptional opportu 
 nities for gratify ing his bibliomaniac passions. 
 He- was chancellor and treasurer of Edward 
 III., and his official position gained him ac 
 cess to public and private libraries and to the 
 society of literary men. Moreover, when it 
 became known that he was fond of such 
 things, people from every quarter sent him 
 and brought him old books; it may be that 
 they hoped in this wise to court his official 
 favor, or perhaps they were prompted by 
 the less selfish motive of gladdening the bib 
 liomaniac soul. 
 
 "The flying fame of our love," says de 
 Bury, "had already spread in all directions, 
 and it was reported not only that we had a 
 longing desire for books, and especially for 
 old ones, but that any one could more easily 
 obtain our favors by quartos than by money. 
 Wherefore, when supported by the bounty 
 of the aforesaid prince of worthy memory, 
 we were enabled to oppose or advance, to 
 245 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 appoint or to discharge ; crazy quartos and tot 
 tering folios, precious however in our sight 
 as in our affections, flowed in most rapidly 
 from the great and the small, instead of new 
 year s gifts and remunerations, and instead 
 of presents and jewels. Then the cabinets 
 of the most noble monasteries were opened, 
 cases were unlocked, caskets were unclasped, 
 and sleeping volumes which had slumbered 
 for long ages in their sepulchres were roused 
 up, and those that lay hid in dark places 
 were overwhelmed with the rays of a new 
 light. Among these, as time served, we 
 sat down more voluptuously than the deli 
 cate physician could do amidst his stores of 
 aromatics, and where we found an object of 
 love we found also an assuagement." 
 
 "If," says de Bury, "we would have 
 amassed cups of gold and silver, excellent 
 horses, or no mean sums of money, we could 
 in those days have laid up abundance of 
 wealth for ourselves. But we regarded 
 books, not pounds ; and valued codices 
 more than florins, and preferred paltry pam 
 phlets to pampered palfreys. On tedious 
 embassies and in perilous times, we carried 
 246 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 about with us that fondness for books which 
 many waters could not extinguish." 
 
 And what books they were in those old 
 days! What tall folios! What stout quartos! 
 How magnificent were the bindings, wrought 
 often in silver devices, sometimes in gold, 
 and not infrequently in silver and gold, with 
 splendid jewels and precious stones to add 
 their value to that of the precious volume 
 which they adorned. The works of Justin, 
 Seneca, Martial, Terence, and Claudian were 
 highly popular with the bibliophiles of early 
 times ; and the writings of Ovid, Tully, 
 Horace, Cato, Aristotle, Sallust, Hippocrates, 
 Macrobius, Augustine, Bede, Gregory, Ori- 
 gen, etc. But for the veneration and love 
 for books which the monks of the mediaeval 
 ages had, what would have been preserved 
 to us of the classics of the Greeks and the 
 Romans ? 
 
 The same auspicious fate that prompted 
 those bibliomaniacal monks to hide away 
 manuscript treasures in the cellars of their 
 monasteries, inspired Poggio Bracciolini sev 
 eral centuries later to hunt out and invade 
 those sacred hiding-places, and these quests 
 247 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 were rewarded with finds whose value can 
 not be overestimated. All that we have of 
 the histories of Livy come to us through 
 Poggio s industry as a manuscript-hunter; 
 this same worthy found and brought away 
 from different monasteries a perfect copy of 
 Quintilian, a Cicero s oration for Csecina, a 
 complete Tertullian, a Petronius Arbiter, and 
 fifteen or twenty other classics almost as 
 valuable as those I have named. From Ger 
 man monasteries, Poggio s friend, Nicolas of 
 Treves, brought away twelve comedies of 
 Plautus and a fragment of Aulus Gellius. 
 
 Dear as their pagan books were to the 
 monkish collectors, it was upon their Bibles, 
 their psalters, and their other religious 
 books that these mediaeval bibliomaniacs 
 expended their choicest art and their most 
 loving care. St. Cuthbert s " Gospels," pre 
 served in the British Museum, was written 
 by Egfrith, a monk, circa 720 ; y^thelwald 
 bound the book in gold and precious stones, 
 and Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it by pre 
 fixing to each gospel a beautiful painting 
 representing one of the Evangelists, and a 
 tessellated cross, executed in a most elaborate 
 248 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 manner. Bilfrid also illuminated the large 
 capital letters at the beginning of the gospels. 
 This precious volume was still further en 
 riched by Aldred of Durham, who interlined 
 it with a Saxon Gloss, or version of the Latin 
 text of St. Jerome. 
 
 "Of the exact pecuniary value of books 
 during the middle ages," says Merry- 
 weather, "we have no means of judging. 
 The few instances that have accidentally 
 been recorded are totally inadequate to en 
 able us to form an opinion. The extravagant 
 estimate given by some as to the value of 
 books in those days is merely conjectural, as 
 it necessarily must be when we remember 
 that the price was guided by the accuracy 
 of the transcription, the splendor of the bind 
 ing (which was often gorgeous to excess), 
 and by the beauty and richness of the illu 
 minations. Many of the manuscripts of the 
 middle, ages are magnificent in the extreme; 
 sometimes inscribed in liquid gold on parch 
 ment of the richest purple, and adorned with 
 illuminations of exquisite workmanship." 
 
 With such a veneration and love for books 
 obtaining in the cloister and at the fireside, 
 249 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 what pathos is revealed to us in the suppli 
 cation which invited God s blessing upon 
 the beloved tomes: "O Lord, send the vir 
 tue of thy Holy Spirit upon these our books; 
 that cleansing them from all earthly things, 
 by thy holy blessing, they may mercifully 
 enlighten our hearts and give us true under 
 standing; and grant that by thy teachings 
 they may brightly preserve and make full 
 an abundance of good works according to 
 thy will." 
 
 And what inspiration and cheer does 
 every book-lover find in the letter which that 
 grand old bibliomaniac, Alcuin, addressed 
 to Charlemagne: "I, your Flaccus, accord 
 ing to your admonitions and good will, ad 
 minister to some in the house of St. Martin 
 the sweets of the Holy Scriptures ; others I 
 inebriate with the study of ancient wisdom ; 
 and others I fill with the fruits of grammati 
 cal lore. Many I seek to instruct in the order 
 of the stars which illuminate the glorious 
 vault of heaven, so that they may be made 
 ornaments to the holy church of God and 
 the court of your imperial majesty; that the 
 goodness of God and your kindness may not 
 250 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 be altogether unproductive of good. But in 
 doing this I discover the want of much, es 
 pecially those exquisite books of scholastic 
 learning which I possessed in my own 
 country, through the industry of my good 
 and most devout master, Egbert. I there 
 fore entreat your Excellence to permit me to 
 send into Britain some of our youths to pro 
 cure those books which we so much desire, 
 and thus transplant into France the flowers 
 of Britain, that they may fructify and per 
 fume, not only the garden at York, but also 
 the Paradise of Tours, and that we may say 
 in the words of the song: Let my beloved 
 come into his garden and eat his pleasant 
 fruit; and to the young: Eat, O friends; 
 drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved ; 
 or exhort in the words of the prophet Isaiah : 
 Every one that thirsteth to come to the wa 
 ters, and ye that have no money, come ye, 
 buy and eat: yea, come buy wine and milk, 
 without money and without price. 
 
 I was meaning to have somewhat to say 
 
 about Alcuin, and had intended to pay my 
 
 respects to Canute, Alfred, the Abbot of St. 
 
 Albans, the Archbishop of Salzburg, the 
 
 251 
 
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 Prior of Dover, and other mediaeval worthies, 
 whenjudge Methuen came in and interrupted 
 the thread of my meditation. The Judge 
 brings me some verses done recently by a 
 poet-friend of his, and he asks me to give 
 them a place in these memoirs as illustrating 
 the vanity of human confidence. 
 
 One day I got a missive 
 
 Writ in a dainty hand, 
 Which made my manly bosom 
 
 With vanity expand. 
 T was from a " young admirer " 
 
 Who asked me would I mind 
 Sending her " favorite poem " 
 
 " In autograph, and signed." 
 
 She craved the boon so sweetly 
 
 That I had been a churl 
 Had 1 repulsed the homage 
 
 Of this gentle, timid girl; 
 With bright illuminations 
 
 I decked the manuscript, 
 And in my choicest paints and inks 
 
 My brush and pen I dipt. 
 
 Indeed it had been tedious 
 
 But that a flattered smile 
 Played on my rugged features 
 
 And eased my toil the while. 
 252 
 
A BIBLIOMANIAC 
 
 I was assured my poem 
 Would fill her with delight 
 
 I fancied she was pretty 
 I knew that she was bright! 
 
 And for a spell thereafter 
 
 That unknown damsel s face 
 With its worshipful expression 
 
 Pursued me every place; 
 Meseemed to hear her whisper: 
 
 "O, thank you, gifted sir, 
 For the overwhelming honor 
 
 You so graciously confer ! " 
 
 But a catalogue from Benjamin s 
 
 Disproves what things meseemed- 
 Dispels with savage certainty 
 
 The flattering dreams I dreamed; 
 For that poor " favorite poem," 
 
 Done and signed in autograph, 
 Is listed in " Cheap Items " 
 
 At a dollar-and-a-half. 
 
 253 
 
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