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Or if in life he sells, in sooth, 'Tis parting with a single tooth, A momentary pain; Booksellers, like Sir Walter's Jew, Must this keen suffering renew, Again and yet again.

And so we need not envy him Who sells us books, for stark and grim Remains this torture deep.

This Universalistic hell-- Throughout this life he's bound to sell; He has, but cannot keep.

XII.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARIAN.

There is one species of the Book-Worm which is more pitiable than the Bookseller, and that is the Public Librarian, especially of a circulating library. He is condemned to live among great collections of books and exhibit them to the curious public, and to be debarred from any proprietorship in them, even temporary. But the greater part this does not grieve a true Book-Worm, for he would scorn ownership of a vast majority of the books which he shows, but on the comparatively rare occasions when he is called on to produce a real book (in the sense of Bibliomania), he must be saddened by the reflection that it is not his own, and that the inspection of it is demanded of him as a matter of right. I have often observed the ill concealed reluctance with which the librarian complies with such a request; how he looks at the demandant with a degree of surprise, and then produces the key of the repository where the treasure is kept under guard, and heaving a sigh delivers the volume with a grudging hand. It was this characteristic which led me in my youth, before I had been inducted into the delights of Bibliomania and had learned to appreciate the feelings of a librarian, to define him as one who conceives it to be his duty to prevent the public from seeing the books. I owe a good old librarian an apology for having said this of him, and hereby offer my excuses to one whose honorable name is recorded in the Book of Life. Much is to be forgiven to the man who loves books, and yet is doomed to deal out books that perish in the using, which no human being would ever read a second time nor "be found dead with." These are the true tests of a good book, especially the last. Shelley died with a little aeschylus on his person, which the cruel waves spared, and when Tennyson fell asleep it was with a Shakespeare, open at "Cymbeline." One may be excused for reading a good deal that he never would re-read, but not for owning it, nor for owning a good deal which he would feel ashamed to have for his last earthly companion. But now for my tribute to

THE PUBLIC LIBRARIAN.

His books extend on every side, And up and down the vistas wide His eye can take them in; He does not love these books at all, Their usefulness in big and small He counts as but a sin.

And all day long he stands to serve The public with an aching nerve; He views them with disdain-- The student with his huge round glasses, The maiden fresh from high school classes, With apathetic brain;

The sentimental woman lorn, The farmer recent from his corn, The boy who thirsts for fun, The graybeard with a patent-right, The pedagogue of school at night, The fiction-gulping one.

They ask for histories, reports, Accounts of turf and prize-ring sports, The census of the nation; Philosophy and science too, The fresh romances not a few, Also "Degeneration."

"They call these books!" he said, and throws Them down in careless heaps and rows Before the ticket-holder; He'd like to cast them at his head, He wishes they might strike him dead, And with the reader moulder.

But now as for the shrine of saint He seeks a spot whence sweet and faint A leathery smell exudes, And there behind the gilded wires For some loved rarity inquires Which common gaze eludes.

He wishes Omar would return That vulgar mob of books to burn, While he, like Virgil's hero, Would shoulder off this precious case To some secluded private place With temperature at zero.

And there in that Seraglio Of books not kept for public show, He'd feast his glowing eyes, Forgetting that these beauties rare, Morocco-clad and passing fair, Are but the Sultan's prize.

But then a tantalizing sense Invades expectancy intense, And with extorted moan, "Unhappy man!" he sighs, "condemned To show such treasure and to lend-- I keep, but cannot own!"

XIII.

DOES BOOK COLLECTING PAY.

We now come to the sordid but serious consideration whether books are a "good investment" in the financial sense. The mind of every true Book-Worm should revolt from this question, for none except a bookseller is pardonable for buying books with the design of selling them.

Booksellers are a necessary evil, as purveyors for the Book-Worm. I regard them as the old woman regarded the thirty-nine articles of faith; when inquired of by her bishop what she thought of them, she said, "I don't know as I've anything against them." So I don't know that I have anything against booksellers, although I must concede that they generally have something against me. As no well regulated man ever grudges expense on the house that forms his home, or on its adornment, and rarely cares or even reflects whether he can get his money back, so it is with the true bibliomaniac. He never intends to part with his books any more than with his homestead. Then again the use and enjoyment of books ought to count for something like interest on the capital invested. Many times, directly or indirectly, the use of a library is worth even more than the interest on the outlay. It is singular how expenditure in books is regarded as an extravagance by the business world. One may spend the price of a fine library in fast or showy horses, or in travel, or in gluttony, or in stock speculations eventuating on the wrong side of his ledger, and the money-grubbing community think none the worse of him. But let him expend annually a few thousands in books, and these sons of Mammon pull long faces, wag their shallow heads, and sneeringly observe, "screw loose somewhere," "never get half what he has paid for them," "too much of a Book-Worm to be a sharp business man." A man who boldly bets on stocks in Wall Street is a gallant fellow, forsooth, and excites the admiration of the business community (especially of those who thrive on his losses) even when he "comes out at the little end of the horn." As Ruskin observes, we frequently hear of a bibliomaniac, never of a horse-maniac. It is said there is a private stable in Syracuse, New York, which has cost several hundred thousand dollars. The owner is regarded as perfectly sane and the building is viewed with great pride by the public, but if the owner had expended as much on a private library his neighbors would have thought him a lunatic. If a man in business wants to excite the suspicion of the sleek gentlemen who sit around the discount board with him, or yell like lunatics at the stock exchange with him, or talk with him about the tariff or free silver, or any other subject on which no two men ever agree unless it is for their interest, let it leak out that he has put a few thousand dollars into a Mazarine Bible, or a Caxton, or a first folio Shakespeare or some other rare book. No matter if he can afford it, most of his associates regard him as they do a Bedlamite who goes about collecting straws. Fortunate is he if his wife does not privately call on the family attorney and advise with him about putting a committee over the poor man.

But if we must regard book-buying in a money sense, and were to admit that books never sell for as much as they cost, it is no worse in respect to books than in respect to any other species of personal property. What chattel is there for which the buyer can get as much as he paid, even the next day? When it is proposed to transform the seller himself into the buyer of the same article, we find that the bull of yesterday is converted into the bear of to-day. Circumstances alter cases. I have bought a good many books and "objects of bigotry and virtue," and have sold some, and the nearest I ever came to getting as much as I paid was in the case of a rare print, the seller of which, after the lapse of several years, solicited me to let him have it again, at exactly what I paid for it, in order that he might sell it to some one else at an advance. I declined his offer with profuse thanks, and keep the picture as a curiosity.

So I should say, as a rule, that books are not a good financial investment in the business sense, and speaking of most books and most buyers. Give a man the same experience in buying books that renders him expert in buying other personal property, the mere gross objects of trade, and let him set out with the purpose of accumulating a library that shall be a remunerative financial investment, and he may succeed, indeed, has often succeeded, certainly to the extent of getting back his outlay with interest, and sometimes making a handsome profit. But this needs experience. Just as one must build at least two houses before he can exactly suit himself, so he must collect two libraries before he can get one that will prove a fair investment in the vulgar sense of trade.

I dare say that one will frequently pay more for a fine microscope or telescope than he can ever obtain for it if he desires or is pressed to sell it, but who would or should stop to think of that? The power of prying into the mysteries of the earth and the wonders of the heavens should raise one's thoughts above such petty considerations. So it should be in buying that which enables one to converse with Shakespeare or Milton or scan the works of Raphael or Durer. When the pioneer on the western plains purchases an expensive rifle he does not inquire whether he can sell it for what it costs; his purpose is to defend his house against Indians and other wild beasts. So the true book-buyer buys books to fight weariness, disgust, sorrow and despair; to loose himself from the world and forget time and all its limitations and besetments. In this view they never cost too much. And so when asked if book-collecting pays, I retort by asking, does piety pay? "Honesty is the best policy" is the meanest of maxims. Honesty ought to be a principle and not a policy; and book-collecting ought to be a means of education, refinement and enjoyment, and not a mode of financial investment.

XIV.

THE BOOK-WORM'S FAULTS.

This is not a case of "Snakes in Iceland," for the Book-Worm has faults.

One of his faults is his proneness to regard books as mere merchandise and not as vehicles of intellectual profit, that is to say, to be read. Too many collectors buy books simply for their rarity and with too little regard to the value of their contents. The Circassian slave-dealer does not care whether his girls can talk sense or not, and too many men buy books with a similar disregard to their capacity for instructing or entertaining. It seems to me that a man who buys books which he does not read, and especially such as he cannot read, merely on account of their value as merchandise, degrades the noble passion of bibliomania to the level of a trade. When I go through such a library I think of what Christ said to the traders in the Temple. Another fault is his lack of independence and his tendency to imitate the recognized leaders. He is too prone to buy certain books simply because another has them, and thus even rare collections are apt to fall into a tiresome routine. The collector who has a hobby and independence to ride it is admirable. Let him addict himself to some particular subject or era or "ana," and try to exhaust it, and before he is conscious he will have accumulated a collection precious for its very singularity. It strikes me that the best example of this idea that I have ever heard of is the attempt, in which two collectors in this country are engaged, to acquire the first or at least one specimen of every one of the five hundred fifteenth century printers. If this should ever succeed, the great libraries of all the world would be eager for it, and the undertaking is sufficiently arduous to last a lifetime.

Sometimes out of this fault, sometimes independently of it, arises the fault by which book collecting degenerates into mere rivalry--the vulgar desire of display and ambition for a larger or rarer or costlier accumulation than one's neighbor has. The determination not to be outdone does not lend dignity or worth to the pursuit which would otherwise be commendable. During the late civil war in this country the chaplain of a regiment informed his colonel, who was not a godly person, that there was a hopeful revival of religion going on in a neighboring and rival regiment, and that forty men had been converted and baptized.

"Dashed if I will submit to that," said the swearing colonel: "Adjutant, detail fifty men for baptism instantly!" So Mr. Roe, hearing that Mr. Doe has acquired a Caxton or other rarity of a certain height, and absolutely flawless except that the corners of the last leaf have been skillfully mended and that six leaves are slightly foxed, cannot rest night or day for envy, but is like the troubled sea until he can find a copy a sixteenth of an inch taller, the corners of whose leaves are in their pristine integrity, and over whose brilliant surface the smudge of the fox has not been cast, and then how high is his exaltation! Not that he cares anything for the book intrinsically, but he glories in having beaten Doe. Now if any speaks to him of Doe's remarkable copy, he can draw out his own and create a surprise in the bosom of Doe's adherent. The laurels of Miltiades no longer deprive him of rest. He has overcome in this trivial and childish strife concerning size and condition, and he holds the champion's belt for the present. He not only feels big himself but he has succeeded in making Doe feel small, which is still better. I don't know whether there will be any book-collecting in Mr. Bellamy's Utopia, but if there is, it will not be disfigured by such meanness, but collectors will go about striving to induce others to accept their superior copies and everything will be as lovely as in Heine's heaven, where geese fly around ready cooked, and if one treads on your corn it conveys a sensation of exquisite delight.

It has been several times remarked by moralists that human nature is selfish. One of course does not expect another to relinquish to him his place in a "queue" at a box-office or his turn at a barber's shop, but in the noble and elegant pursuit of book-collecting it would be well to emulate the politeness of the French at Fontenoy, and hat in hand offer our antagonist the first shot. But I believe the only place where the Book-Worm ever does that is the auction room.

I no sooner come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance, and melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and rich men that know not this happiness.

--Heinsius.

The modern Book-Worm is not the simple and absent-minded creature who went by this name a century ago or more. He is no mere antiquarian, Dryasdust or Dominie Sampson, but he is a sharp merchant, or a relentless broker, or a professional railroad wrecker, or a keen lawyer, or a busy physician, or a great manufacturer--a wide awake man of affairs, quite devoid of the conventional innocency and credulity which formerly made the name of Book-Worm suggestive of a necessity for a guardian or a committee in lunacy. No longer does he inquire, as Becatello inquired of Alphonso, King of Naples, which had done the better--Poggius, who sold a Livy, fairly writ in his own hand, to buy a country home near Florence, or he, who to buy a Livy had sold a piece of land? No longer is the scale turned in the negotiation of a treaty between princes by the weight of a rare book, as when Cosimo dei Medici persuaded King Alphonso of Naples to a peace by sending him a codex of Livy. No longer does the Book-Worm sit in his modest book-room, absorbed in his adored volumes, heedless of the waning lamp and the setting star, of hunger and thirst, unmindful of the scent of the clover wafted in at the window, deaf to the hum of the bees and the low of the kine, blind to the glow of sunsets and the soft contour of the blue hills, and the billowy swaying of the wheat field before the gentle breath of the south. No longer can it be said that

THE BOOK-WORM DOES NOT CARE FOR NATURE.

I feel no need of nature's flowers-- Of flowers of rhetoric I have store; I do not miss the balmy showers-- When books are dry I o'er them pore.

Why should I sit upon a stile And cause my aged bones to ache, When I can all the hours beguile With any style that I would take?

Why should I haunt a purling stream, Or fish in miasmatic brook?

O'er Euclid's angles I can dream, And recreation find in Hook.

Why should I jolt upon a horse And after wretched vermin roam, When I can choose an easier course With Fox and Hare and Hunt at home?

Why should I scratch my precious skin By crawling through a hawthorne hedge, When Hawthorne, raking up my sin, Stands tempting on the nearest ledge?

No need that I should take the trouble To go abroad to walk or ride, For I can sit at home and double Quite up with pain from Akenside.

The modern Book-Worm deals in sums of six figures; he keeps an agent "on the other side;" he cables his demands and his decisions; his name flutters the dovecotes in the auction-room; to him is proffered the first chance at a rarity worth a King's ransom; too busy to potter in person with such a trifle as the purchase of a Mazarine Bible, he hires others to do the hunting and he merely receives the game; the tiger skin and the elephant's tusk are laid at his feet to order, but he misses all the joy and ardor of the hunt. How different is all this from Sir Thomas Urquhart's account of his own library, of which he says: "There were not three works therein which were not of mine own purchase, and all of them together, in the order wherein I had ranked them, compiled like to a complete nosegay of flowers, which in my travels I had gathered out of the gardens of sixteen several kingdoms."

Another fault of the Book-Worm is the affectation of collecting books on subjects in which he takes no practical interest, simply because it is the fashion or the books are intrinsically beautiful. Many a man has a fine collection on Angling, for example, who hardly knows how to put a worm on a hook, much less attach a fly. I fear I am one of these hypocritical creatures, for this is

HOW I GO A-FISHING.

Tis sweet to sit in shady nook, Or wade in rapid crystal brook, Impervious in rubber boots, And wary of the slippery roots, To snare the swift evasive trout Or eke the sauntering horn-pout; Or in the cold Canadian river To see the glorious salmon quiver, And them with tempting hook inveigle, Fit viand for a table regal; Or after an exciting bout To snatch the pike with sharpened snout; Or with some patient ass to row To troll for bass with motion slow.

Oh! joy supreme when they appear Splashing above the water clear, And drawn reluctantly to land Lie gasping on the yellow sand!

But sweeter far to read the books That treat of flies and worms and hooks, From Pickering's monumental page, (Late rivalled by the rare Dean Sage), And Major's elder issues neat, To Burnand's funny "Incompleat."

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