When I came home that fateful night, I found within my sacred room The wretched maid had wreaked her spite With mop and pail and witch's broom.
The books were there, but oh how changed!
They startled me with rare surprises, For they had all been rearranged, And less by subjects than by sizes.
Some volumes numbered right to left, And some were standing on their heads, And some were of their mates bereft, And some behind for refuge fled.
The women brave attempts had made At placing cognate books together;-- They looked like strangers close arrayed Under a porch in stormy weather.
She watched my face--that spouse of mine-- Some approbation there to glean, But seeing I did not incline To praise, remarked, "I've got it clean."
And so she had--and also wrong; She little knew--she was but thirty-- I entertained a preference strong To have it right, though ne'er so dirty.
That wife of mine has much good sense, To chide her would have been inhuman, And it would be a great expense To graft the book-sense on a woman.
Such are my reflections when I consider a fire in my own little library.
But when I regard the great and growing mass of books with which the earth groans, and reflect how few of them are necessary or original, and how little the greater part of them would be missed, I sometimes am led to believe that a general conflagration of them might in the long run be a blessing to mankind, by the stimulation of thought and the deliverance of authors from the influence of tradition and the habit of imitation. When I am in this mood I incline to think that much is
ODE TO OMAR.
Omar, who burned (or did not burn) The Alexandrian tomes, I would erect to thee an urn Beneath Sophia's domes.
So many books I can't endure-- The dull and commonplace, The dirty, trifling and obscure, The realistic race.
Would that thy exemplary torch Could bravely blaze again, And many manufactories scorch Of book-inditing men.
The poets who write "dialect,"
Maudlin and coarse by turns, Most ardently do I expect Thou'lt wither up with Burns.
All the erratic, yawping class Condemn with judgment stern, Walt Whitman's awful "Leaves of Grass"
With elegant Swinburne.
Of commentators make a point, The carping, blind, and dry; Rend the "Baconians" joint by joint, And throw them on to fry.
Especially I'd have thee choke Law libraries in sheep With fire derived from ancient Coke, And sink in ashes deep.
Destroy the sheep--don't save my own-- I weary of the cram, The misplaced diligence I've shown-- But kindly spare my Lamb.
Fear not to sprinkle on the pyre The woes of "Esther Waters"; They'll only make the flame soar higher, And warn Eve's other daughters.
But 'ware of Howells and of James, Of Trollope and his rout; They'd dampen down the fiercest flames And put your fire out.
XVIII.
LIBRARY COMPANIONS.
As a rule I do not care for any constant human companion in my library, but I do not object to a cat or a small dog. That picture of Montaigne, drawn by himself, amusing his cat with a garter, or that other one of Doctor Johnson feeding oysters to his cat Hodge, is a very pleasing one.
In my library hangs Durer's picture of St. Jerome in his cell, busy with his writing, and a dog and a lion quietly dozing together in the foreground. As I am no saint I have never been able to keep a lion in my library for any great length of time, but I have maintained a dog there.
Lamb even contended that his books were the better for being dog's-eared, but I do not go so far as that. Nor do I pretend that his presence will prevent the books from becoming foxed. Here is a portrait of
MY DOG.
He is a trifling, homely beast, Of no use, or the very least; To shake imaginary rat Or bark for hours at china cat; To lie at head of stairs and start, Like animated, woolly dart, Upon a non-existent foe; Or on hind legs like monkey go, To beg for sugar or for bone; Never content to be alone; To bask for hours in the sun.
Rolled up till head and tail are one; Usurping all the softest places And keeping them with doggish graces; To sneak between the housemaid's feet And scour unnoticed on the street; Wag indefatigable tail; Cajole with piteous human wail; To dance with dainty dandy air When nicely parted is his hair, And look most ancient and dejected When it has been too long neglected; To sleep upon my book-den rug And dream of battle with a pug; To growl with counterfeited rabies; To be more trouble than twin babies;-- These are the qualities and tricks That in my heart his image fix; And so in cursory, doggerel rhyme I celebrate him in his time, Nor wait his virtues to rehearse In cold obituary verse.
There is one other speaking companion that I would tolerate in my library, and that is a clock. I have a number of clocks in mine, and if it were not for their unanimous and warning voice I might forget to go to bed.
Perhaps my reader would like to hear an account of
MY CLOCKS.
Five clocks adorn my domicile And give me occupation, For moments else inane I fill With their due regulation.
Four of these clocks, on each Lord's Day, As regular as preaching, I wind and set, so that they may The flight of time be teaching.
My grandfather's old clock is chief, With foolish moon-faced dial; Procrastination is a thief It always brings to trial.
Its height is as the tallest men, Its pendulum beats slow, And when its awful bell booms ten, Young men get up and go.
Another clock is bronze and gilt, Penelope sits on it, And in her fingers holds a quilt-- How strange 'tis not a bonnet!
Memorial of those weary years When she the web unravelled, While Ithacus choked down his fears And slow from Ilium travelled.
Ceres upon the third, with spray Of grain, in classic gown, Seems sadly to recall the day Proserpine sank down,
With scarcely time to say good-bye, Unto the world of Dis; And keeps account, with many a sigh, Of harvest time in this.
Another clock is rococo, Of Louis Sept or Seize, With many a dreadful furbelow An artist's hair to raise,
Suggestions of a giddy court, With fan and boufflant bustle, When silken trains made gallant sport And o'er the floor did rustle.
The fourth was brought, in foolish trust From Alpland far away, A baby clock, and so it must Be tended every day.
Importunate and trivial thing!
Thou katydid of clocks!
Defying all my skill to bring Right time from out thy box.
With works of wood and face of brass On which queer cherubs play, The tedious hours thou well dost pass, And none thy chirp gainsay.
Among the silent companions in my study are the effigies of the four greatest geniuses of modern times in the realms of literature, art, music and war--a print of Shakespeare; one of Michael Angelo's corrugated face with its broken nose; a bust of Beethoven, resembling a pouting lion; and a print of Napoleon at St. Helena, representing him dressed in a white duck suit, with a broad-brimmed straw hat, and sitting looking seaward, with those unfathomable eyes, a newspaper lying in his lap. Unhappy faces all except the first--his cheerful, probably because he has effected an arrangement with an otherwise idle person, named Bacon, to do all his work for him. But there is another portrait, at which I look oftener, the original of which probably takes more interest in me, but is unknown to every visitor to my study. I myself have not seen her in half a century.
I call it simply
A PORTRAIT.
A gentle face is ever in my room, With features fine and melancholy eyes, Though young, a little past life's freshest bloom, And always with air of sad surmise.