UBRARY 
 •CMML 
 
^/^^^ 
 
 y. 
 
OF MUCH LOVE 
 
 AND SOME KNOWLEDGE 
 
 OF BOOKS 
 
THE Committee on Publications 
 of the Caxton Club certifies that 
 this book is one of an edition of 
 three hundred and fifty- four copies 
 on Tuscany paper and three copies 
 on Imperial Japan paper. 
 
P^ OF MUCH LOVE 
 AND 
 SOME KNOWLEDGE 
 OF BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 y^ HENRY EDUARD LEGLER o^ 
 
The ornamental title-page and 
 
 other decorations in this book 
 
 have been engraved from designs 
 
 by Frederick William Gookin 
 
 /__ ( {< f a. f -J 
 
 ...(( 
 
 Copyright, 1912 
 
 By 
 
 The Caxton Club 
 
 Chicago 
 
,003, 
 
 Let me love the insides of 
 BOOKS WITH Dr. Johnson and 
 
 HAVE RESPECT UNTO THEIR OUT- 
 SIDES WITH David Garrick. 
 
 — DeWitt Miller's bookplate inscription. 
 
 ^^y ' \.^-^Z* ^ m 
 
OF MUCH 
 
 LOVE 
 
 AND SOME 
 
 KNOWLEDGE 
 
 OF BOOKS 
 
Let it be understood at the very outset that this 
 is to be no Hsting of books in any fashion as guides 
 for reading or for study; no cataloguing of volumes 
 warranted to comprise the hundred best books, nor 
 a thousand; no measurement of shelf-space to con- 
 tain selected works that no gentleman's library should 
 be without. One may be pardoned for choosing his 
 own titles, whether they be a baker's dozen or over- 
 run the allotted limits of a measured shelf. If one 
 gives in the choosing no evidence of good taste, as 
 determined by experts in culture, at any rate one 
 exercises the privilege of declaring for himself what 
 tastes good. 
 
 We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book. 
 And calculating profits ... so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 
 
 Books naturally fall into three classes, as Prof. 
 Woodberry points out: those that are outlived, 
 
 7 
 
because the experience they contain and address is 
 shallow or transitory; those that are arrived at late 
 because the experience involved is mature; and those, 
 the greatest, which give something to the youngest 
 and have something left to give to the oldest, which 
 keep pace with life itself and like life disclose them- 
 selves more profoundly, intimately, and in expanding 
 values with familiarity. 
 
 "The secret of appreciation," he says, "is to 
 share the passion for life that literature itself 
 exemplifies and contains; out of real experience, the 
 best that one can have, to possess oneself of that 
 imaginary experience which is the stuff of larger 
 life and the place of the ideal expansion of the soul, 
 the gateway to which is art in all forms and pri- 
 marily literature ; to avail oneself of that for pleasure 
 and wisdom and fulness of life. It is those minds 
 which are thus experienced that alone come to be 
 on the level of the greatest works and to absorb 
 their life; but the way is by a gradual ascent, by 
 natural growth, by maintaining a vital relation 
 with what is read. So long as the bond between 
 author and reader is a living bond, appreciation is 
 secure. 
 
 "The act of reading is a blending of two souls, 
 nor is it seldom that the reader brings the best 
 part, vivifying his author with his own memory 
 and aspiration and imparting a flame to the words 
 from his own soul. The appreciation of literature 
 is thus by no means a simple matter; it is not 
 the ability to read, nor even a canon of criticism 
 
 8 
 
and rules of admiration and censure that are re- 
 quired; but a live soul, full of curiosity and interest 
 in life, sensitive to impressions, acute and subtle in 
 reception, prompt to complete a suggestion, and 
 always ready with the light of its own life to serve 
 harmonious and enhancing environment of scenes 
 of love or tragedy. That reader does best who in 
 his use of literature insists on the presence of this 
 immediate appeal to himself in the books he reads. 
 If the book does not have this effect with him, if it 
 does not co-operate with his own taste and interest, 
 it may be the best of books for others, but it is not 
 for him — at least it is not yet for him." 
 
 There are books of facts, representing the lit- 
 erature of information; there are also books of imag- 
 ination, representing the literature of power in the 
 building of personality and character. 
 
 Concerning the first type of books, there must 
 be knowledge, but only an erratic fancy could lavish 
 love upon them. Of the other, knowledge but 
 presupposes love. Now love of books may be, as 
 it is in human relationship which books symbolize, 
 of three kinds: physical, intellectual, and emotional. 
 The one form creates the bibliographe; the next too 
 often produces the bibliotaphe; the other begets the 
 unbalanced bibliomaniac. In a merging of the three 
 elements of book love is found that finer spirit 
 summed up in the term bibliophile. Abbe Rive, 
 librarian of the Duke de Valliere, in his lexicon of 
 the booklover described the bibliophile as "a lover 
 of books, the only one of the class who appears to 
 
 9 
 
read them for his own pleasure," while a later 
 biblio-lexicographer has expanded this definition 
 thus: "The Simon-Pure lover of books, God bless 
 him! Much rarer he than people think him to be. 
 Bibliophile is a title which belongs to those who 
 seek books for themselves alone, hurried into no 
 excesses of the passion of the bibliomaniac, and 
 free from the selfish and miserly cupidity of the 
 bibliotaphe." 
 
 Reference again to Abbe Rive's biblio-lexicon, 
 and Halkett Lord's biblio-dictionary, and George 
 H. Ellw^anger's little list of similar definitions dis- 
 closes that in condensed terms the bibliotaphe is the 
 undertaker of literature who buries his books behind 
 locked doors; the bibliographe is he who deems a 
 coldly scientific collation or description of books his 
 chief duty toward them; the bibliomaniac is tersely 
 identified by the Germans as a Blicher-narr, or 
 book-fool. He is, to refer to Abbe Rive again, the 
 indiscriminate accumulator, cock-brained and purse- 
 heavy. He is learned only in titles, dates, and 
 editions, and a connoisseur of colophons. Of what 
 lies between the first and final pages, he careth 
 naught, save perhaps an illustration or an error of 
 typography. Him Sebastian Brant full four hun- 
 dred years ago sent on a wild-goose voyage in his 
 delectable Ship of Fools. "I am the first foole of 
 all the whole navy," Brant caused him to say, and 
 ever since it can be read of the bookworm in Ger- 
 man, Latin and in English, and in Suabian dialect, 
 too, what sort of fool he is : 
 
 10 
 
Still am I besy bokes assemblynge 
 
 For to haue plenty it is a pleasaunt thynge 
 
 In my conceyt and to haue them ay in honde — 
 
 But what they mean do I nat vnderstonde. 
 
 Lo in lyke wyse of bokys I haue store 
 
 But fewe I rede, and fewer understonde. 
 I folowe not theyr doctryne nor theyr lore — 
 
 It is ynoughe to bere a boke in hande, 
 It were to moche to be in suche a bande 
 For to be bounde to loke within the boke — 
 I am content on the fayre couerynge to loke. 
 
 Each of the latter three types, therefore, possesses 
 one, and but one, of three otherwise excellent qual- 
 ities, each of which is rendered ludicrous or odious 
 only in being detached from the others and becom- 
 ing over-accentuated. Refined and tempered by 
 association, these qualities become the essence of 
 that subtle love and knowledge of books which 
 yield the Seven Joys of Reading. And the Seven 
 Joys of Reading are these:* 
 
 The first joy is the Joy of Familiarity, 
 
 The second joy is the Joy of Surprise, 
 
 The third joy is the Joy of Sympathy, 
 
 The fourth joy is the Joy of Appreciation, 
 
 The fifth joy is the Joy of Expansion, 
 
 The sixth joy is the Joy of Shock, 
 
 The last of the seven is the Joy of Revelation. 
 
 The last Joy? Nay, perad venture, not the last. 
 There remain ninety-and-nine. 
 
 * Plummer, Mary W. The Seven Joys of Reading. 
 
 11 
 
II 
 
 Of the love of books, it may be reiterated, there 
 are three: Physical, intellectual, and emotional. 
 To have interest in the make-up of a book for 
 bibliographical descriptive purposes only is book- 
 love in counterfeit guise. Dr. Thomas Frognall 
 Dibdin was perhaps the pattern whose replicas, alas, 
 may be found in too many of our libraries to-day. 
 In his sumptuously printed volumes miles upon 
 miles of running type give with dull minuteness the 
 typographical vagaries of the volumes described, and 
 the prices which they brought at auction. The 
 Dibdinite delights in inverted letters, in wrong 
 pagination, in errors in spelling. To him it is a 
 greater pleasure to discover a typographical ec- 
 centricity than a living bit of literature. He delights 
 in the curious misspellings and bibliographic mis- 
 takes which have given flavor to certain editions of 
 the Bible such as the Breeches Bible, the Bug Bible, 
 the Wicked Bible, the Vinegar Bible, the Standing 
 Fishes Bible, the Ears-to-Ear Bible, the Wife-Hater 
 Bible, and many others. This is the measure of his 
 love of books. 
 
 Rightly pursued, however, the study of the physical 
 attributes of a book is not ignoble. Its format, its 
 binding, its proportion of text and margin, its type, 
 its title-page and colophon if it have one, its illus- 
 trations and decorations and the processes which 
 have produced them, the texture of the paper, the 
 
 1« 
 
chapter headings, and a score of other things 
 distinctive in a book, well repay most careful study. 
 And this study must embrace not only those con- 
 siderations individually, but their relation to each 
 other, for in combination they mar a book or render 
 it an object of beauty and nobility, just as personal 
 qualities make for man's character and shape his life. 
 Browsing at random among one's books, as the 
 mood sometimes impels, one finds between covers 
 something that ordinarily escapes attention — some- 
 thing unimportant, maybe, but conveying the little 
 intimate touch that gives the volume its value to the 
 possessor. For books have their little secrets, too, 
 that are not for the general reader, who could not 
 understand; that are reserved for those whose 
 sympathetic ear is attuned to hear the wee whisper, 
 and who can cherish the little confidences as those of 
 a friend. It may be that a mere signature will tell 
 a long, long story as does the thumb mark in that 
 volume of Keats which was found in Shelley's coat 
 pocket when his body was washed upon the beach. 
 It may be a scrawl on the margin, or where the 
 printed footnote belongs, or where the old master 
 printers were wont to put the colophon. And it 
 may be a mere affectation of phrase, in the printed 
 text, or a reference to scene or circumstance that to 
 him who knows means much, but to any other 
 gives no hint of personal allusion. For the one 
 the book is the draught that quenches thirst; for 
 the other it is the nectar whose exquisite flavor 
 lingers in the taste. 
 
 13 
 
Ill 
 
 For most readers the introduction is the part to 
 remain unread, and the dedication to be unnoted. 
 And yet the dedicatory page may be more interest- 
 ing than all the pages that follow. It is here that 
 the author permits the reader a glimpse of himself, 
 of his friendships, of his intimate thoughts. This, 
 of course, was not always so; in one period of book- 
 making, what should have been the "spontaneous 
 expression of an author's love" became perverted 
 into the fulsome praise of a wealthy patron "that 
 thrift might follow fawning." Into the dedication 
 of the modern book, nothing of sordid commer- 
 cialism enters; it is the one particular personal touch 
 which the author allows himself. The most interest- 
 ing dedications, as they are frequently the most 
 graceful in form and genuine in tone, are those 
 addressed to mother, wife or sweetheart. A random 
 journey along the bookshelves will disclose this fact. 
 They are not all of them in modern books. Perhaps 
 the example of an earlier century that comes most 
 readily to mind is Sir Philip Sidney's famous "Ar- 
 cadia," whose quaint and loving dedication has 
 caused it to be known as the "Countess of 
 Pembroke's * Arcadia.'" In a volume published 
 in 1772, Richard Steele's dedication to his wife 
 reads : 
 
 I owe to you that for my sake you have overlooked the 
 prospect of living in pomp and plenty, and I have not 
 
 14 
 
been circumspect enough to preserve you from care and 
 sorrow. 
 
 Poor Dick Steele! He well earned the definition 
 applied to him as a man "who multiplied troubles 
 as few men will, and bore them better than most 
 men can." 
 
 Of modern dedications, William Ernest Henley's 
 to his wife in that last thin sheaf of verse published 
 before his death may well come first. Henley's was 
 a tempestuous spirit, but his mood was rarely tender 
 when he wrote this: 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 Take, dear, my little sheaf of songs, 
 
 For, old and new. 
 All that is good in them belongs 
 
 Only to you. 
 
 And singing as when always young. 
 
 They will recall 
 Those others, lived but left unsung — 
 
 The best of all. 
 
 Mention of Henley inevitably recalls Robert 
 Louis Stevenson. With characteristic fervor and 
 fire, the wizard of words wrote: 
 
 Trusty, dusky, vivid, true. 
 
 With eyes of gold and bramble dew. 
 
 Steel-true and blade-straight, 
 
 The Great Artificer 
 
 Made my mate. 
 
 15 
 
Honour, anger, valour, fire; 
 
 A love that life could never tire, 
 
 Death quench, or evil stir, 
 
 The Mighty Master gave to her. 
 
 Teacher, tender comrade, wife, 
 A fellow-farer true through life, 
 Heart-whole and soul-free. 
 The August Father 
 Gave to me. 
 
 When Stevenson wrote "Weir of Hermiston," it 
 was his wife to whom he dedicated what was des- 
 tined to remain a fragment: 
 
 I saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn 
 On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again 
 In my precipitous city beaten bells 
 Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, 
 Intent on my own race and place, I wrote. 
 Take thou the writing: thine it is. For who 
 Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal. 
 Held still the target higher, chary of praise 
 And prodigal of counsel — who but thou.^ 
 So now, in the end, if this the least be good. 
 If any deed be done, if any fire 
 Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson dedicated two of his books to his 
 wife, issued more than a quarter of a century apart. 
 This dedication to Mrs. Tennyson was first printed 
 in the Enoch Arden volume of 1864: 
 
 A DEDICATION 
 
 Dear, near and true — no truer Time himself 
 Can prove you, though he make you evermore 
 Dearer and nearer. 
 
 16 
 
His last volume bears the second dedication. 
 It was written shortly prior to his death in 1892: 
 
 I thought to myself I would offer this book to you, 
 This and my love together, 
 To you that are seventy-seven. 
 With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue 
 heaven. 
 And a fancy as Summer new 
 As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the 
 heather. 
 
 Mary Olcott is the autlior of the following 
 felicitous dedication: 
 
 I hide within my book till eyes 
 Which draw my own shall look and read; 
 Others may look, yet give no heed; 
 The printed word has no surprise 
 For alien eyes. 
 
 Whoever reads, save only one. 
 May read. But one alone shall find 
 The impress of the hidden mind, 
 Uttering speech where speech is none 
 For but the one. 
 
 The estrangement of Elizabeth Barrett and her 
 father when she married Robert Browning is one of 
 the sad chapters of literary history. The pathos 
 of this dedicatory preface appears the greater when 
 it is recalled that her father refused to be reconciled 
 to his daughter for marrying in opposition to his 
 wishes. This is the dedication: 
 
 17 
 
To My Father: When your eyes fall upon this page 
 of dedication, and you start to see to whom it is inscribed, 
 your first thought will be of the time far off when I was 
 a child and wrote verses, and when I dedicated them to 
 you, who were my public and my critic. Of all that such 
 a recollection imphes of saddest and sweetest to both of 
 us, it would become neither of us to speak before the world; 
 nor would it be possible for us to speak of it to one another 
 with voices that did not falter. Enough, that what is 
 in my heart when I write thus, will be fully known to 
 yours. . . . Somewhat more faint-hearted than I 
 used to be, it is my fancy thus to seem to return to a 
 visible dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child 
 again; to conjure your beloved image between myself and 
 the public, so as to be sure of one smile, — and to satisfy 
 my heart while I sanctify my ambition, by associating 
 with the great pursuit of my life its tenderest and holiest 
 affection. 
 
 No name is given by Pierre Loti on the dedicatory 
 page of "From Lands of Exile:" 
 
 I dedicate this to the memory of a noble and exquisite 
 woman, whose never-to-be-forgotten image rises before 
 me strangely vivid whenever I have time to think. These 
 notes from the faraway Yellow Land were originally 
 written for her alone. I used to send them to her out of 
 the distance as a sort of chat to amuse her during the 
 long, weary months while she was slowly fading out of 
 life, slowly and with a serene smile. 
 
 In the extraordinary love-story that resulted in 
 the marriage of Honore de Balzac and the Countess 
 Hanska, the novelist's dedication prefixed to 
 "Modeste Mignon" is but an incident. It was 
 written when his fair and distant correspondent 
 
 18 
 
was unknown to liim by name. The rhapsodical 
 address is truly French in verbiage and in spirit; 
 
 To ii Polish Lady: Daughter of an enslaved land, 
 angel through love, witch through fancy, child by faith, 
 aged by experience, man in brain, woman in heart, giant 
 by hope, mother through sorrow, poet in thy dreams, to 
 thee belongs this book, in which thy love, thy fancy, 
 thy experience, thy sorrow, thy hope, thy dreams are 
 the warp through which is shot a woof less brilliant than 
 the poetry of thy soul, whose expression when it shines 
 upon thy countenance is to those who love thee what the 
 characters of a lost language are to scholars. 
 
 There is a fine reserve in Walter Pater's dedication 
 to his wife, which appears in his "Angel in the 
 House:" 
 
 This Poem 
 
 is inscribed 
 
 to 
 
 the memory of Her 
 
 By whom and for whom I became a poet. 
 
 "From the worst of poets to the best of wives" 
 was the dedicatory phrase used by Sir Wilfred Law- 
 son for his "Cartoons in Rhyme and Line." 
 
 These examples will suffice to indicate the interest 
 that attaches to the unconsidered trifles of book 
 lore. 
 
 IV 
 
 No matter how limited the collection of books, no 
 book-lover's library is complete without at least a 
 handful of well-thumbed volumes of verse. If he 
 
 19 
 
doth possess the real spirit of the bookfellow, the 
 individual books in this group are likely to bear a 
 certain kinship. The collection may comprise a 
 representation of the minor poets. There may be 
 found together perhaps those joyful booklets issued 
 by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey, jointly and 
 severally, including the little rare brochures privately 
 issued. Or, perchance, there may be fraternizing 
 the different editions of the myriad publications 
 bearing the name of the Persian Tent-dweller. Per- 
 haps some of the books may suggest a legacy from 
 the troubadours, even though in modern guise. 
 Such grouping, while evidence of special affection, 
 if not of taste, in either case conveys an interest 
 which no serried row of jostling uncongenial books 
 upon a shelf can ever have. 
 
 In Provence, land of idyllic sunny skies and 
 languorous romance, "land of the nightingale and 
 rose;" in Provence, where in the centuries agone 
 troubadours sang their lays and jongleurs recited their 
 verse; there first grew into fullness the curious forms 
 of versification whose modern equivalents are known 
 as ballades, triolets, virelais and villanelles. For nine 
 centuries, the wandering minstrels of the days of chiv- 
 alry have been dust; their epitaphs are brief references 
 to be found in histories of European literature. 
 
 A quarter-century ago Algernon Swinburne's 
 studies in old French literature prompted him to 
 essay in English garb what had been done so felici- 
 tously in that Romance dialect peculiar to Southern 
 France. The facile pen of Andrew Lang soon made 
 
 20 
 
these verse-forms popular. Austin Dobson, Edmund 
 Gosse, Richard Le GalHenne, W. E. Henley and 
 others of the modern school of English poets caught 
 their enthusiasm. On this continent they were 
 joined by Frank Dempster Sherman, Clinton Scol- 
 lard, Brander Matthews and H. C. Bunner. Their 
 contributions in these archaic measures and the 
 interest inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson and 
 John Payne in the careers of Master Frangois Villon 
 and his kindred Gallic spirits have again made cur- 
 rent coin the medium used by these swaggering 
 vagabonds of literature who were the legatees of 
 the old troubadours. 
 
 Certainly, there is something fascinating in these 
 dainty bits of fragile rhyme, apparently so carelessly 
 free, and yet when analyzed, so rigorously fettered 
 by rules that may not be ignored. They lend them- 
 selves in a remarkable degree to that harmonious 
 combination that blends sound and meaning in 
 such manner that to separate is to destroy both. 
 These measures are essentially the language of 
 poets, and they have inspired many morceaux 
 descriptive of their own quaint structure. One of 
 the best examples of this character is Algernon 
 Charles Swinburne's 
 
 THE ROUNDEL 
 
 A Roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere, 
 With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought, 
 That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure 
 his ear 
 
 A roundel is wrought: 
 21 
 
Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught — 
 
 Love, laughter, or mourning — remembrance of rapture 
 
 or fear — 
 That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought. 
 
 As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us 
 
 hear — 
 Pause answers to pause, and again the same strain caught, 
 So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear, 
 A roundel is wrought. 
 
 Mr. Clinton Scollard prefers the ballade, with its 
 inevitable envoy addressed to Prince, or other 
 dignitary to whom custom has made it necessary 
 to dedicate the verses: 
 
 FOR ME THE BLITHE BALLADE 
 
 Of all the songs that dwell 
 
 Where softest speech doth flow. 
 
 Some love the sweet roundel, 
 And some the bright rondeau. 
 With rhymes that tripping go 
 
 In mirthful measures clad; 
 
 But would I choose them? — no, 
 
 For me the blithe ballade! 
 
 O'er some the villanelle, 
 
 That sets the heart aglow. 
 Doth its enchanting spell 
 
 With lines recurring throw; 
 
 Some weighted with wasting woe. 
 Gay triolets make them glad; 
 
 But would I choose them? — no. 
 For me the blithe ballade ! 
 
 On chant of stately swell 
 
 With measured feet and slow. 
 
As grave as minster bell 
 
 At vesper tolling low, 
 
 Do some their praise bestow; 
 Some on sestinas sad; 
 
 But would I choose them? — no. 
 For me the blithe ballade! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Prince, to these songs a-row 
 The Muse might endless add; 
 
 But would I choose them? — no, 
 For me the blithe ballade! 
 
 Less ready in conforming to the technique of 
 ballade-writing, Mr. Gleeson White finds the per- 
 spiration running down his face as he describes 
 his experience; 
 
 BALLADE OF A BALLADE MONGER 
 
 You start ahead in splendid style. 
 
 No stint of rhymes appear in view, 
 With many a happy thought the while — 
 
 You dash away as though you knew 
 
 Enough to fill the thirty-two, 
 Those lines, that need such careful filling, 
 
 Yet you are lucky if you do — 
 For ballade-mongering is killing. 
 
 Now on your face may dawn a smile. 
 
 To think that rhj^mes both neat and new, 
 To end your stanzas will beguile 
 
 Your pen — till "envoy" you must brew; 
 
 But half the poem yet is due. 
 And though she ready be and willing. 
 
 To your shy muse you yet must sue — 
 For ballade-mongering is killing. 
 23 
 
Here's stanza three, and now they rile, 
 
 Those end words that of every hue 
 And form, all seem so poor and vile, 
 
 You, weary of the hackneyed crew, 
 
 This one suggests the other's cue. 
 As fresh as — twelve pence for a shilling. 
 
 No, never change can you renew, 
 For ballade-mongering is killing. 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 Rhymesters ! The Envoy you will rue. 
 Since it should be supreme and thrilling! 
 
 It's ended, tamely it is true. 
 
 For ballade-mongering is killing. 
 
 Naturally, Mr. W. E. Henley prefers the villanelle, 
 for he pioneered the way for it in England, though 
 he was not the first to attempt that form of versifica- 
 tion: 
 
 VILLANELLE 
 
 A dainty thing's the Villanelle, 
 
 Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, 
 It serves its purpose passing well. 
 
 A double-clappered silver-bell, 
 
 That must be made to clink in chime, 
 A dainty thing's the Villanelle; 
 
 And if you wish to flute a spell. 
 
 Or ask a meeting, neath the lime, 
 It serves its purpose passing well. 
 
 You must not ask of it the swell 
 
 Of organs grandiose and sublime — 
 A dainty thing's the Villanelle; 
 
 24 
 
And, filled with sweetness, as a shell 
 
 Is filled with sound, and launched in time. 
 It serves its purpose passing well. 
 
 Still fair to see and good to smell 
 
 As in the quaintness of its prime, 
 A dainty thing's the Villanelle, 
 It serves its purpose passing well. 
 
 As a burlesque, Mr. Walter W. Skeat's recipe for 
 the villanelle may properly find a place in juxta- 
 position to Mr. Henley's: 
 
 VILLANELLE 
 
 How to compose a Villanelle, which is said to require 
 an elaborate amount of care in production, which those 
 who read only would hardly suspect existed. 
 
 It's all a trick, quite easy when you know it. 
 
 As easy as reciting ABC, 
 You need not be an atom of a poet. 
 
 If you've a grain of wit and want to show it, 
 Writing a Villanelle — take this from me — 
 It's all a trick quite easy when you know it. 
 
 You start a pair of "rimes" and then you "go it" 
 
 With rapid running pen and fancy free. 
 You need not be an atom of a poet. 
 
 Take any thought, write round it and below it. 
 
 Above or near it, as it Kketh thee; 
 Its' all a trick, quite easy when you know it. 
 
 Pursue your task, till, like a shrub, you grow it, 
 
 Up to the standard size it ought to be; 
 You need not be an atom of a poet. 
 25 
 
Clear it of weeds, and water it, and hoe it, 
 
 Then watch it blossom with triumphant glee; 
 It's all a trick quite easy when you know it. 
 You need not be an atom of a poet. 
 
 Fond as he is of the villanelle, Mr. Henley suggests 
 that easy is the triolet, if you really learn to make it ! 
 It is of the triolet that one poet has said: *'It is 
 charming — nothing can be more ingeniously mis- 
 chievous, more playfully sly, than this tiny trill of 
 epigrammatic melody turning so simply upon its 
 own innocent axis." 
 
 TRIOLET 
 
 Easy is the Triolet, 
 
 If you really learn to make it ! 
 Once a neat refrain you get, 
 Easy is the Triolet, 
 As you see ! — I pay my debt 
 
 With another rhyme. Deuce take it. 
 Easy is the Triolet, 
 
 If you really learn to make it. 
 
 The rondeau appeals to Mr. Austin Dobson, 
 though he admits that he must await the mood to 
 properly construct one: 
 
 IN VAIN TO-DAY 
 
 In vain to-day I scrape and blot; 
 
 The nimble words, the phrases neat, 
 
 Decline to mingle and to meet; 
 My skill is all foregone, forgot. 
 
 He will not canter, walk, or trot, 
 My Pegasus; I spur, I beat 
 In vain to-day. 
 26 
 
And yet *t were sure the saddest lot 
 That I should fail to leave complete 
 
 One poor . . . the rhyme suggests ''conceit!** 
 Alas! 'tis all too clear I'm not 
 In vein to-day. 
 
 These verses have not been cited as particularly 
 excellent examples of their kind, for that they are 
 not. But they are felicitously descriptive of them- 
 selves. With the exception of Mr. Swinburne's 
 roundel, they serve to emphasize the facility with 
 which they can be burlesqued, though there is more 
 of playful phrasing than broad burlesque even here. 
 More descriptive than the words are the structural 
 combinations. It all seems so easy, till one attempts 
 it ! For these metrical forms are subject to rigid laws. 
 
 In the Royal French library are stored old manu- 
 scripts that include many thousands of ballades and 
 rondeaus and virelais. The authorship of some of 
 them is known, while many are by unknown writers. 
 Prof. Saintsbury, in his excellent work on French 
 literature, says that one troubadour has bequeathed 
 to posterity one thousand, one hundred and seventy- 
 five ballades, not to mention a great mass of rondeaus 
 and virelais. "Charles d'Orleans (1391-1466) is 
 especially honored as the master of the roundel, 
 while Francois Villon (1431-1485) stands out as the 
 prince of all ballade-makers. The first triolet in 
 modern English is ascribed to Robert Bridges. 
 Austin Dobson is credited with the first ballade, 
 Edmund Gosse with the first villanelle and chant 
 royal, while W. E. Henley first essayed the double 
 
 27 
 
ballade and a few other variations. Robert Louis 
 Stevenson, it is said, essayed a few of the Pro- 
 vencal forms of verse, but his published works do 
 not include his attempts, if such there were. 
 
 It is interesting to note the tremendous output of 
 books that relate to Omar Khayyam. FitzGerald's 
 thin pamphlets in brown paper wrappers found a 
 neglected grave in Quaritch's penny box in 1859. 
 More than thirty years elapsed before the Omar 
 cult began. Indeed, the paraphrases of the Persian 
 tentmaker's quatrains, rendered into English by the 
 recluse of Woodbridge, have had their tremendous 
 vogue — especially in America — less than two dec- 
 ades. In this brief period there have appeared in 
 America alone more than two hundred editions con- 
 taining FitzGerald's versions, and probably as many 
 more giving the text of other translators. Magazine 
 articles, pamphlets, booklets and books dealing with 
 Omarian philosophy and verse that have come from 
 the press during the same period are numbered by 
 the thousands. A book of fairly formidable pro- 
 portions comprises a compilation of verse addressed 
 to the poet of Naishapur, and it contains a mere 
 selection of such verse. Thus a few years have 
 sufficed for a single poem to create a literature 
 almost equal in volume to the entire output that all 
 the works of Shakespeare have called into being in 
 nearly two hundred years — up to a century ago. 
 
 28 
 
Much of this literature is controversial. Carlyle, 
 in one of his choleric outbursts, called Omar "that 
 Persian blackguard," and more recently Edgar 
 Saltus has termed the "ruffian heterodoxy of this 
 Persian bon vivant'* commonplace, "since it merely 
 decorates the obvious in wine-drenched garlands and 
 tawdry spangles." More flippantly, but less ven- 
 omously, Thomas Moore has suggested that 
 
 A Persian Heaven is easily made: — 
 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. John Hay, and certain 
 Englishmen of literary tastes belonging to the Par- 
 nassian school, have sounded the praises of Omar with 
 as keen a spirit as his detractors have disparaged him. 
 
 Now whether the quatrains of the old Persian 
 bear a mystical interpretation or whether his song 
 is merely materialistic, something of its spirit has 
 evidently found a responsive note among thousands 
 of readers. It may be true, as Richard LeGalli- 
 enne avers, that Omar sometimes made use of wine 
 and women as symbols of his mystical philosophy, 
 and then after the Oriental fashion sought the ideal 
 in the real. Whatever inspired the song of the 
 Tentmaker nine centuries ago, the modern reader 
 hearkens to that note to which his own mind and 
 heart are attuned. With unerring instinct popular 
 estimation has selected, from the thousand rubaiyat 
 credited to old Omar, three or four as apart from 
 the rest in beauty of expression and feeling. And 
 of these, one of them is held above them all: 
 
 29 
 
Here with a Loaf of bread Beneath the Bough, 
 A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou 
 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
 Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow. 
 
 In these four lines is concentrated all that is need- 
 ful for man's happiness; it is the creed of the democ- 
 racy of happiness. All else — power, riches, fame — 
 are as but "the rumble of the distant drum." 
 
 These four lines of FitzGerald's, more than any 
 other, demonstrate by comparison how feeble has 
 been the effort of those who have attempted to do 
 what he did much better. Franklin once suggested 
 a revision on modern lines of the Book of Job. His 
 specimens have to-day an interest as curiosities 
 merely. A century hence FitzGerald's paraphrases 
 will remain a classic, and the books of the later 
 translators will be known but to the literary anti- 
 quarian and book collector. To them the four lines 
 of Omar above quoted will furnish an interesting 
 source of comparison. The genesis thereof may be 
 found in the following literal translation, as rendered 
 by Edward Heron-Allen from the original manu- 
 script : 
 
 I desire a flask of ruby wine and a book of verses — 
 Just enough to keep me alive, and half a loaf is needful. 
 And then, that thou and I should sit in the wilderness, 
 Is better than the kingdom of a Sultan. 
 
 If a loaf of wheaten bread be forthcoming, 
 
 A gourd of wine, and a thigh-bone of mutton 
 
 And then, if thou and I be sitting in the wilderness, — 
 
 That were a joy not within the power of any Sultan. 
 
 30 
 
McCarthy's rendering in sober prose is al)out as 
 inanimate as Heron-Allen's, and it has not its merit 
 of literal exactitude : 
 
 "Give me a flagon of red wine, a book of verses, a 
 loaf of bread and a little idleness. If with such store 
 I might sit by thy dear side in some lonely place, I 
 should deem myself happier than a king in his 
 kingdom." 
 
 Such bleaching bones as these FitzGerald has 
 clothed with living, palpitating flesh. In his lines 
 leaps the passion of Oriental fervor. Compare with 
 his quatrain, for instance, the parallel verse which 
 Miss Elizabeth Alden Curtis has constructed. The 
 atmosphere is at once translated from Iran to New 
 England; the date palm becomes a crabapple tree, 
 and the juice expressed from grapes tastes suspi- 
 ciously like cider. And yet Miss Curtis has un- 
 deniably written some pretty verses. LeGallienne's, 
 too, have an interest all their own. And in the 
 German, von Schack has caught much of the 
 passionate fervor that finds its true expression in 
 the Orient. 
 
 If Edward FitzGerald had not so amply shown 
 that "a little thing may be perfect and perfection 
 is not a little thing," perhaps praise would come 
 easier for the many later interpreters of Omar. 
 And this suggests that perhaps the fairest com- 
 parison is to be found, not in comment that 
 may after all but reflect individual taste, but in 
 the juxtaposition of the various renderings of 
 this quatrain: 
 
 31 
 
Edward FitzGerald (fourth version) : 
 A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
 A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou 
 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
 Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow. 
 
 Richard LeGallienne: 
 A Book, a Woman, and a Flask of Wine, 
 The Three make heaven — for me; it may be thine 
 
 Is some sour place of singing cold and bare — 
 But then, I never said thy heaven was mine. 
 
 Elizabeth Alden Curtis: 
 A roll of verse, a crust of wheaten bread, 
 Thy voice for music, and my soul is fed; 
 
 The ruby of thy crimson lips for wine — 
 Ah, who would choose a paradise instead.'^ 
 
 Charles J. Pickering: 
 In this world whoso hath but a half a loaf of bread, 
 And in his breast a refuge where to lay his head. 
 
 Who of no man is slave, who of no man is lord — 
 Tell such to live in joy; his world is sweet indeed. 
 
 Michael Kerney: 
 A flask of red wine, and a volume of song, together — 
 Half a loaf, — just enough the ravage of Want to tether; 
 
 Such is my wish — then, thou in the waste with me — 
 Oh! sweeter were this than a monarch's crown and 
 feather ! 
 
 Edward H. Whinfield: 
 Give me a skin of mne, a crust of bread, 
 A pittance bare, a book of verse to read; 
 
 With thee, O love, to share my lowly roof, 
 I would not take the sultan's realm instead! 
 
 32 
 
John Leslie Garner: 
 A Flask of Wine, a book, a Loaf of Bread, — 
 To every Care and Worldly Sorrow dead, 
 
 I covet not, when thou, Oh Love, art near. 
 The Jeweled Crown upon the Sultan's Head. 
 
 H. G. Keene: 
 A jug of wine, a book of poetry, 
 For stay of life a crust of bread give me, 
 
 And thou beside me, in the wilderness! 
 The Sultan's Kingdom better cannot be. 
 
 Anson: 
 Thy ruby Ups pour fragrance into mine. 
 
 Thine eye's deep chaUce bids me drink thy soul; 
 As yonder crystal goblet brims with wine, 
 
 So in thy tear the heart's full tide doth roll. 
 
 Louisa Stuart Costello: 
 When a Houri form appears. 
 Which a vase of ruby bears, 
 Call me Giaour if then I prize 
 All the joys of Paradise ! 
 
 Edward Boyles Cowell: 
 Some ruby wine and a divan of poems, 
 A crust of bread to keep the breath in one's body, 
 And thou and I alone in a desert, — 
 Were a lot beyond a Sultan's throne. 
 
 F. York Powell: 
 Whether in Heaven or Hell my lot be stay'd, 
 A Cup, a Lute, a fair and frolic Maid, 
 
 Within a place of roses please me now; 
 While on the chance of Heaven thy life is laid. 
 
 33 
 
VI 
 
 So, too, the format and the page in its aspect to 
 the eye must bear relation to the content. 
 
 Lo, the sinners are many, and the saintly are but 
 few! 
 
 Who can read with pleasure a book of poems 
 unless it be in dainty form, easy to hold, slim as 
 the waist of a maiden, and as a maid, elusive in the 
 shifting moods of its verses. Give one a fat, dumpy 
 volume of poems, and the romance fades out of 
 its pages. Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses 
 in its dainty Mosher form gives unstinted joy; in 
 its quarto form, illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith, 
 it becomes a monstrosity, and it becomes ludicrous 
 in its less bulky but no less inappropriate dress in 
 the style of the Sunbonnet Babies. Even the 
 handsome Thistle edition gives a sense of unfitness. 
 
 So it must be with books in other classes of lit- 
 erature — the thought must be clothed appropriately. 
 **I cannot read Beaumont and Fletcher but in folio," 
 Charles Lamb wrote . * ' The octavo editions are pain- 
 ful to look at. I have no sympathy with them." 
 
 "The ideal book, or book beautiful," says T. J. 
 Cobden-Sanderson, "is a composite thing made up 
 of many parts and may be made beautiful by the 
 beauty of each of its parts — its literary content, its 
 material or materials, its writing or printing, its 
 illumination or illustration, its binding and decora- 
 tion of each of its parts in subordination to the whole 
 
 34 
 
which collectively they constitute; or it may be 
 made beautiful by the supreme beauty of one or 
 more of its parts, all the other parts subordinating 
 or even effacing themselves for the sake of this one 
 or more, and each in turn being capable of playing 
 this supreme part and each in its own peculiar and 
 characteristic way. On the other hand each con- 
 tributory craft may usurp the functions of the rest 
 and of the whole and, growing beautiful beyond all 
 bounds, ruin for its own the common cause. 
 
 "Finally, if the Book Beautiful may be beautiful 
 by virtue of its writing or printing or illustration, it 
 may also be beautiful, be even more beautiful, by the 
 union of all to the production of one composite whole, 
 the consummate Book Beautiful. Here the idea to be 
 communicated by the book comes first, as the thing of 
 supreme importance. Then comes in attendance up- 
 on it, striving for the love of the idea to be itself beau- 
 tiful, the written or printed page, the decorated or 
 decorative letters, the pictures, set amid the text, 
 and finally the binding, holding the whole in its 
 strong grip and for very love again itself becoming 
 beautiful because in company with the idea." 
 
 Of the purely intellectual love of books, leading 
 in the end to their purely selfish exploitation, one 
 example may suffice. It is related of Antoine 
 Magliabecchi that *'from his earliest years he dis- 
 played an inordinate passion for the acquisition of 
 book knowledge. Having mastered the Greek, 
 Latin, and Hebrew languages, he literally buried 
 himself among books, disorderly piles of which 
 
 35 
 
encumbered every portion of his dwelling. In his 
 daily habits he grew to disregard the requirements 
 of social and sanitary life; and such was his avidity 
 of study that he finally denied himself even the 
 requisite intervals of repose. His memory was 
 prodigious. Regarded as the literary prodigy of his 
 times, he was appointed court librarian by the 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany, and many tributes of 
 respect were tendered him by royal and distinguished 
 personages. He was intolerant of literary merit in 
 others, was involved in several bitter literary squab- 
 bles, and died leaving outside his correspondence no 
 written record of his encyclopedic knowledge." 
 
 So we come to the third species of the genus 
 bookworm, the most numerous of all, though at times 
 the most lovable, as fools are fain to be — the biblio- 
 maniac. Indeed, there are fifty-seven times fifty- 
 seven varieties of him. "He was not," wrote Mr. 
 Hill Burton of one of them, "he was not a black- 
 letter man, or a tall copyist, or an uncut man, or a 
 rough-edge man, or an English dramatist, or an 
 Elzevirian, or a broadsider, or a pasquinader, or an 
 old-brown calf man, or a Grangerite, or a taw^ny 
 moroccoite, or a gilt-topper, or a marbled insider, or 
 an editio princeps man." Mr. Hill Burton's list 
 of nicknames might be extended indefinitely. The 
 bibliomaniac is distinguished by his voracious 
 bibliothecal appetite, which is never satisfied. 
 Modern examples will readily occur to mind. The 
 most conspicuous member of this banderlog tribe 
 was Bishop Heber, a wealthy Englishman who 
 
 S6 
 
bought books by tens of thousands. It is related of 
 him that he had a library in his house at Hodnet. 
 His residence in Pimlico, where he died, was filled 
 like Magliabecchi's at Florence, with books from 
 top to bottom; every chair, every passage contained 
 piles of erudition. He had a house in York street, 
 London, filled with books. He had a library at 
 Oxford, one at Antwerp, one at Brussels, one at 
 Ghent. The estimate of his collections places the 
 total at 146,827 volumes, which cost him half a 
 million dollars. After his death the catalogue of his 
 accumulations was published in a series of volumes, 
 and the sales lasted over three years. 
 
 In the historic Saints' and Sinners' Corner of a 
 Chicago book store Eugene Field set a scene one 
 Sylvester eve satirizing his bibliomaniac friends. 
 They had gathered to see the old year out. As 
 the hour and minute hands were as one over the 
 XII, the lights were turned out, leaving everyone 
 to witness the succession of years in darkness. 
 There came from the distant gloom, in sepulchral 
 tones, the spoken lines, heard then for the first time, 
 of Field's inimitable poem, "Dibdin's Ghost;" 
 
 Dear wife, last midnight while I read 
 
 The tomes you so despise, 
 A spectre rose beside my bed 
 
 And spoke in this true wise: 
 "From Canaan's beatific coast 
 
 IVe come to visit thee — 
 For I am Frognall Dibdin's ghost ! " 
 
 Says Dibdin's ghost to me. 
 37 
 
I bade him welcome, and we twain 
 
 Discussed with buoyant hearts 
 The various things that appertain 
 
 To bibliomaniac arts. 
 "Since you are fresh from t'other side, 
 
 Pray tell me of that host 
 That treasured books before they died," 
 
 Says I to Dibdin's ghost. 
 
 "They've entered into perfect rest, 
 
 For in the life they've won 
 There are no auctions to molest — 
 
 Nor creditors to dun. 
 Their heavenly rapture has no bounds 
 
 Beside that jasper sea, 
 It is a joy unknown to Lowndes," 
 
 Says Dibdin's ghost to me. 
 
 Much I rejoiced to hear him speak 
 
 Of biblio bliss above, 
 For I am one of those who seek 
 
 What bibliomaniacs love. 
 "But tell me — for I long to hear 
 
 What interests me most, 
 Are wives admitted to that sphere.'^" 
 
 Says I to Dibdin's ghost. 
 
 "The womenfolks are few up there. 
 
 For 'twere not fair, you know, 
 That they our heavenly joy 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 didn't mind," 
 
 Says Dibdin's ghost to me. 
 
"But what of those who scolded us 
 
 When we would read in bed — 
 Or, wanting victuals, made a fuss 
 
 When we bought books instead? 
 And what of those who dusted not 
 
 Our treasured pride and boast — 
 Shall they profane that sacred spot?" 
 
 Says I to Dibdin's ghost. 
 
 "O, no! They tread that other path 
 
 Which leads where torments roll, 
 And worms — yea, bookworms, vent their wrath 
 
 Upon the guilty soul! 
 Untouched by bibliomaniacs' grace, 
 
 That saveth such as we, 
 They wallow in that dreadful place!" 
 
 Says Dibdin's ghost to me. 
 
 *'To my dear wife will I recite 
 
 What things I've heard you say; 
 She'll let me read the books by night, 
 
 She'll let me buy by day; 
 For we together, by and by, 
 
 Would join that heavenly host — 
 She's earned a rest as well as I," 
 
 Says I to Dibdin's ghost. 
 
 More clever, if possible, is his prose satire in archaic 
 form, which he called "The Story of Two Friars." 
 
 Eugene Field has written most delightfully of 
 himself as an unregenerate bibliomaniac in his 
 "Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." His brother, 
 Roswell Field, also pictured him, with loving touches, 
 as a bibliomaniac in the readable romance which he 
 called "The Bondage of Ballinger." 
 
 39 
 
In truth, one smiles at the vagaries of the biblio- 
 maniac but cannot avoid the spell of his likeable- 
 ness. Ian Maclaren has caught a bit from life in 
 his delineation of the dominie in Kate Carnegie: 
 
 "Book-shelves had long ago failed to accommodate 
 the Rabbi's treasures, and the floor had been bravely 
 utilized. Islands of books, rugged and perpendic- 
 ular, rose on every side; long promontories reached 
 out from the shores, varied by bold headlands; and 
 so broken and varied was that floor that the Rabbi 
 was pleased to call it the ^Egean Sea, where he had 
 his Lesbos and his Samos. It is absolutely incred- 
 ible, but it is all the same a simple fact, that he knew 
 every book and its location, having a sense of the 
 feel as well as the shape of his favorites. This was 
 not because he had the faintest approach to order- 
 liness — ^for he would take down twenty volumes and 
 never restore them to the same place by any chance. 
 It was a sort of motherly instinct by which he 
 watched over them all, even loved prodigals that 
 wandered over all the study and then set off on 
 adventurous journeys into distant rooms. The 
 restoration of an emigrant to his lawful home was 
 celebrated by a feast in which, by a confusion of 
 circumstances, the book played the part of calf, 
 being read afresh from beginning to end." 
 
 And it's a clever description that Ian Maclaren 
 introduces as to the removal of the Rabbi's house- 
 hold effects: 
 
 " Saunderson's reputation for unfathomable learn- 
 ing and saintly simplicity was built up out of many 
 
 40 
 
incidents, and grew with the lapse of years to a 
 solitary height in the big strath, so that no man 
 would have dared to smile had the Free Kirk 
 minister of Kilbogie appeared in Muirtown in his 
 shirt sleeves, and Kilbogie would only have been a 
 trifle more conceited. Truly he was an amazing 
 man. The arrival of his goods was more than many 
 sermons to Kilbogie. Mr. Saunderson was at the 
 station, having reached it by some miracle without 
 mistake, and was in a condition of abject nervous- 
 ness about the handling and conversance of his 
 belongings. 'You will be careful — exceeding care- 
 ful,' he implored; *if one of the boxes were allowed 
 to descend hurriedly to the ground, the result to 
 what is within would be disastrous. I am much 
 afraid that the weight is considerable, but I am ready 
 to assist;' and he got ready. 
 
 "'Dod, man,' remarked Mains to the station- 
 master, examining a truck with eight boxes; *the 
 manse'll no want for dishes at ony rate; but let's 
 start on the furniture; whar hae ye got the rest o' 
 the plenishing? 
 
 "*Naething mair? havers, man, ye dinna mean 
 tae say they pack beds an' tables in boxes; a' doot 
 there's a truck missin'.' Then Mains went over 
 where the minister was fidgeting beside his posses- 
 sions. 
 
 "*No, no,' said Saunderson, when the situation 
 was put before him, *it's all here. I counted the 
 boxes, and I packed every box myself. That top 
 one contains the fathers — deal gently with it; and 
 
 41 
 
the Reformation divines are just below it. Books 
 are easily injured, and they feel it. I do believe 
 there is a certain life in them, and — and — they 
 don't like being ill-used,' and Jeremiah looked 
 wistfully at the ploughmen. 
 
 "*Div ye mean tae say,' as soon as Mains had 
 recovered, *that ye've brocht naethin' for the 
 manse but bukes, naither bed nor bedding.'^ Keep's 
 a',' as the situation grew upon him, *whar are ye 
 tae sleep, and what are ye to sit on.^ An' div ye 
 never eat? This croons a';' and Mains gazed at 
 his new minister as one who supposed that he had 
 taken Jeremiah's measure and had failed utterly. 
 
 "Mrs. Pitillo took the minister into her hands, 
 and compelled him to accompany her to Muirtown, 
 where she had him at her will for some time, so 
 that she equipped the kitchen (fully), a dining-room 
 (fairly), a spare bedroom (amply), Mr. Saunder- 
 son's own bedroom (miserably), and secured a table 
 and two chairs for the study. He explained to 
 Mrs. Pitillo that every inch of space must be rigidly 
 kept for the overflow from the study, which he ex- 
 pected — if he were spared — would reach the garrets. 
 
 **We were not able at all times to see eye to eye, 
 as she had an unfortunate tendency to meddle with 
 my books and papers, and to arrange them after 
 an artificial fashion. This she called tidying, and, 
 in its most extreme form, cleaning. 
 
 "'With all her excellencies, there was also in her 
 what I have noticed in most women, a certain flavor 
 of guile, and on one occasion, when I was making a 
 
 42 
 
brief journey through Holland and France in search 
 of comely editions of the fathers, she had the books 
 carried out to the garden and dusted. It was the 
 space of two years before I regained mastery of my 
 library again, and unto this day I cannot lay my 
 hands on the service book of King Henry VIII, 
 which I had in the second edition, to say nothing of 
 an original edition of Rutherford's Lex Rex. 
 
 *"It does not become me, however, to reflect on 
 the efforts of that worthy matron, for she was by 
 nature a good woman, and if anyone could be saved 
 by good works, her place is assured. I was with her 
 before she died, and her last words to me were, 
 "Tell Jean tae dust yir bukes aince in the sax months, 
 and for ony sake keep ae chair for sittin' on." It 
 was not the testimony one would have desired in the 
 circumstances, but yet, Mr. Carmichael, I have 
 often thought that there was a spirit of . . . 
 unselfishness, in fact, that showed the working of 
 grace.' " 
 
 For all time, perhaps, the prototype of the perfect 
 bibliophile will be associated with the personality 
 of Charles Lamb. He loved books, and he knew 
 books. He loved their material forms, and he loved 
 the souls of them. They brought to him such joy 
 and solace as he knew of life, and he gave back 
 manifold to thousands, in the books he wrote, the 
 joy and solace that books had given him. In his 
 whimsical fashion he tells in the essay "Detached 
 thoughts on books and reading:" "I must confess 
 that I dedicate no inconsiderable portion of my time 
 
 43 
 
to other people's thoughts. I dream away my life 
 in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in 
 other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am 
 reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for 
 me. I have no repugnances, Shaftesbury is not too 
 genteel for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. I can 
 read anything which I call a book.'' 
 
 There are things in that shape, he adds, which 
 he cannot allow for such, and he names in this 
 catalogue of books which are no books: 
 Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books, 
 Draught Boards, bound and lettered on the back. 
 Scientific Treatises, Almanacs, Statutes at Large; 
 the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, 
 and generally, all those volumes which no gentle- 
 man's library should be without. 
 
 "With these exceptions," he adds, "I can read 
 almost anything. I bless my stars for a taste so 
 catholic, so unexcluding. I confess that it moves 
 my spleen to see these things in books' clothing 
 perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of 
 true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting 
 out the legitimate occupants. To reach down a 
 well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it 
 some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what 
 * seems its leaves,' to come bolt upon a withering 
 Population Essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farqu- 
 har, and find — Adam Smith. To view a well- 
 arranged assortment of blockheaded Encyclopedias 
 (Anglicans or Metropolitans) set out in an array 
 of Russia, or morocco, when a tithe of that good 
 
 44 
 
leather would comfortably reelothe my shivering 
 folios; would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable 
 old Raymund Lully to look like himself again in the 
 world. I never see these impostors, but I long to 
 strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their 
 spoils." 
 
 And Charles Lamb knew his books well, and he 
 loved them well. He had, too, the courage of his 
 convictions. 
 
 "Shall I be thought fantastical," he asks, "if I 
 confess, that the names of some of our poets sound 
 sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear — to mine, 
 at least — than that of Milton or of Shakespeare? 
 It may be, that the latter are more staled and rung 
 upon in common discourse. The sweetest names, 
 and which carry a perfume in the mention, are. Kit 
 Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, 
 and Cowley. 
 
 "Much depends upon when and where you read 
 a book. In five or six impatient minutes before 
 dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking 
 up the Faerie Queene for a stop-gap, or a volume of 
 Bishop Andre wes' Sermons? 
 
 "Milton almost requires a solemn service of music 
 to be played before you enter upon him. But he 
 brings his music, to which, who listens, had need 
 bring docile thoughts, and purged ears. Winter 
 evenings — the world shut out — with less of cere- 
 mony the gentle Shakespeare enters. At such a 
 season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale — " 
 
 How well Lamb expressed the unspoken feelings 
 
 45 
 
of many a bibliophile, poor in purse but rich in a 
 few shelves of books, when he wrote in reminiscent 
 mood: 
 
 "Do you remember the brown suit, which you 
 made to hang upon you till all your friends cried 
 shame upon you, it grew so threadbare, and all 
 because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which 
 you dragged home late at night, from Barker's in 
 Covent Garden? Do you remember how you eyed 
 it for weeks before we could make up our minds to 
 the purchase, and had not come to a determination 
 till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, 
 when you set off from Islington, fearing you should 
 be late — and when the old bookseller, with some 
 grumbling, opened his shop, and by the twinkling 
 taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the 
 relic from his dusty treasures — and when you lugged 
 it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome — and 
 when you presented it to me — and when we were 
 exploring the perfectness of it (collating, you called 
 it), and while I was repairing some of the loose 
 leaves with paste, which your impatience would not 
 suffer to be left till day-break, was there no pleasure 
 in being a poor man?" 
 
 It is well to know many books even though 
 slightly, but it is better to know a few intimately 
 well. There was Tam Fleck at Peebles in Scotland 
 of whom William Chambers tells in his fascinating 
 autobiography. He went about from house to 
 house with a translation of Josephus. 
 
 "Weel, Tam, what's the news the nicht?" one 
 
 46 
 
of the neighbors would say as Tarn entered with the 
 ponderous volume under his arm. 
 
 "Bad news, bad news," replied Tam. "Titus 
 has begun to besiege Jerusalem — its gaun to be 
 a terrible business." 
 
 At any rate Tam knew one book well, which is 
 more than can be said of many a bookseller, and 
 perhaps of some librarians, too. 
 
 The intimate knowledge of books may embrace 
 but a limited shelf-full; the love of books must be 
 universal. He who would pass on the torch must 
 keep the flame aglow. Only when one has fervor and 
 passion for what is finest and best in the literature 
 of all time can there be implanted in others the love 
 of books which leads to the knowledge of books. 
 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 For the gift without the giver is bare. 
 
 The Thought Beautiful in the Book Beautiful is 
 but the symbol of the Life Beautiful in the World 
 Beautiful. 
 
 47 
 
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