Books and Bookmen [41]
works, where it kept company
with an Elzevir Tacitus and the Aldine 'Hypnerotomachia.' The
auctioneer put up lot after lot, and Blinton plainly saw that the
whole affair was a "knock-out." His most treasured spoils were
parted with at the price of waste paper. It is an awful thing to be
present at one's own sale. No man would bid above a few shillings.
Well did Blinton know that after the knock-out the plunder would be
shared among the grinning bidders. At last his 'Adonais,' uncut,
bound by Lortic, went, in company with some old 'Bradshaws,' the
'Court Guide' of 1881, and an odd volume of the 'Sunday at Home,'
for sixpence. The Stranger smiled a smile of peculiar malignity.
Blinton leaped up to protest; the room seemed to shake around him,
but words would not come to his lips.
Then he heard a familiar voice observe, as a familiar grasp shook
his shoulder,--
"Tom, Tom, what a nightmare you are enjoying!"
He was in his own arm-chair, where he had fallen asleep after
dinner, and Mrs. Blinton was doing her best to arouse him from his
awful vision. Beside him lay 'L'Enfer du Bibliophile, vu et decrit
par Charles Asselineau.' (Paris: Tardieu, MDCCCLX.)
If this were an ordinary tract, I should have to tell how Blinton's
eyes were opened, how he gave up book-collecting, and took to
gardening, or politics, or something of that sort. But truth
compels me to admit that Blinton's repentance had vanished by the
end of the week, when he was discovered marking M. Claudin's
catalogue, surreptitiously, before breakfast. Thus, indeed, end all
our remorses. "Lancelot falls to his own love again," as in the
romance. Much, and justly, as theologians decry a death-bed
repentance, it is, perhaps, the only repentance that we do not
repent of. All others leave us ready, when occasion comes, to fall
to our old love again; and may that love never be worse than the
taste for old books! Once a collector, always a collector. Moi qui
parle, I have sinned, and struggled, and fallen. I have thrown
catalogues, unopened, into the waste-paper basket. I have withheld
my feet from the paths that lead to Sotheby's and to Puttick's. I
have crossed the street to avoid a book-stall. In fact, like the
prophet Nicholas, "I have been known to be steady for weeks at a
time." And then the fatal moment of temptation has arrived, and I
have succumbed to the soft seductions of Eisen, or Cochin, or an old
book on Angling. Probably Grolier was thinking of such weaknesses
when he chose his devices Tanquam Ventus, and quisque suos patimur
Manes. Like the wind we are blown about, and, like the people in
the AEneid, we are obliged to suffer the consequences of our own
extravagance.
BALLADE OF THE UNATTAINABLE
The Books I cannot hope to buy,
Their phantoms round me waltz and wheel,
They pass before the dreaming eye,
Ere Sleep the dreaming eye can seal.
A kind of literary reel
They dance; how fair the bindings shine!
Prose cannot tell them what I feel,--
The Books that never can be mine!
There frisk Editions rare and shy,
Morocco clad from head to heel;
Shakspearian quartos; Comedy
As first she flashed from Richard Steele;
And quaint De Foe on Mrs. Veal;
And, lord of landing net and line,
Old Izaak with his fishing creel,--
The Books that never can be mine!
Incunables! for you I sigh,
Black letter, at thy founts I kneel,
Old tales of Perrault's nursery,
For you I'd go without a meal!
For Books wherein did Aldus deal
And rare Galliot du Pre I pine.
The watches of the night reveal
The Books that never can be mine!
ENVOY.
Prince, bear a hopeless Bard's appeal;
Reverse the rules of Mine and Thine;
Make it legitimate to steal
The Books that never can be mine!
LADY BOOK-LOVERS
The biographer of Mrs. Aphra Behn refutes the vulgar error that "a
Dutchman cannot love." Whether or not a lady can love books is a
question that may not be so readily settled. Mr. Ernest Quentin
Bauchart has contributed to the discussion of this problem by
publishing
with an Elzevir Tacitus and the Aldine 'Hypnerotomachia.' The
auctioneer put up lot after lot, and Blinton plainly saw that the
whole affair was a "knock-out." His most treasured spoils were
parted with at the price of waste paper. It is an awful thing to be
present at one's own sale. No man would bid above a few shillings.
Well did Blinton know that after the knock-out the plunder would be
shared among the grinning bidders. At last his 'Adonais,' uncut,
bound by Lortic, went, in company with some old 'Bradshaws,' the
'Court Guide' of 1881, and an odd volume of the 'Sunday at Home,'
for sixpence. The Stranger smiled a smile of peculiar malignity.
Blinton leaped up to protest; the room seemed to shake around him,
but words would not come to his lips.
Then he heard a familiar voice observe, as a familiar grasp shook
his shoulder,--
"Tom, Tom, what a nightmare you are enjoying!"
He was in his own arm-chair, where he had fallen asleep after
dinner, and Mrs. Blinton was doing her best to arouse him from his
awful vision. Beside him lay 'L'Enfer du Bibliophile, vu et decrit
par Charles Asselineau.' (Paris: Tardieu, MDCCCLX.)
If this were an ordinary tract, I should have to tell how Blinton's
eyes were opened, how he gave up book-collecting, and took to
gardening, or politics, or something of that sort. But truth
compels me to admit that Blinton's repentance had vanished by the
end of the week, when he was discovered marking M. Claudin's
catalogue, surreptitiously, before breakfast. Thus, indeed, end all
our remorses. "Lancelot falls to his own love again," as in the
romance. Much, and justly, as theologians decry a death-bed
repentance, it is, perhaps, the only repentance that we do not
repent of. All others leave us ready, when occasion comes, to fall
to our old love again; and may that love never be worse than the
taste for old books! Once a collector, always a collector. Moi qui
parle, I have sinned, and struggled, and fallen. I have thrown
catalogues, unopened, into the waste-paper basket. I have withheld
my feet from the paths that lead to Sotheby's and to Puttick's. I
have crossed the street to avoid a book-stall. In fact, like the
prophet Nicholas, "I have been known to be steady for weeks at a
time." And then the fatal moment of temptation has arrived, and I
have succumbed to the soft seductions of Eisen, or Cochin, or an old
book on Angling. Probably Grolier was thinking of such weaknesses
when he chose his devices Tanquam Ventus, and quisque suos patimur
Manes. Like the wind we are blown about, and, like the people in
the AEneid, we are obliged to suffer the consequences of our own
extravagance.
BALLADE OF THE UNATTAINABLE
The Books I cannot hope to buy,
Their phantoms round me waltz and wheel,
They pass before the dreaming eye,
Ere Sleep the dreaming eye can seal.
A kind of literary reel
They dance; how fair the bindings shine!
Prose cannot tell them what I feel,--
The Books that never can be mine!
There frisk Editions rare and shy,
Morocco clad from head to heel;
Shakspearian quartos; Comedy
As first she flashed from Richard Steele;
And quaint De Foe on Mrs. Veal;
And, lord of landing net and line,
Old Izaak with his fishing creel,--
The Books that never can be mine!
Incunables! for you I sigh,
Black letter, at thy founts I kneel,
Old tales of Perrault's nursery,
For you I'd go without a meal!
For Books wherein did Aldus deal
And rare Galliot du Pre I pine.
The watches of the night reveal
The Books that never can be mine!
ENVOY.
Prince, bear a hopeless Bard's appeal;
Reverse the rules of Mine and Thine;
Make it legitimate to steal
The Books that never can be mine!
LADY BOOK-LOVERS
The biographer of Mrs. Aphra Behn refutes the vulgar error that "a
Dutchman cannot love." Whether or not a lady can love books is a
question that may not be so readily settled. Mr. Ernest Quentin
Bauchart has contributed to the discussion of this problem by
publishing