Enemies of Books [29]
smooth calf, by which your heart and eye, as well as your book, will be wounded.
"Helps" are very apt to fill the shelves too tightly, so that to extract a book you have to use force, often to the injury of the top-bands. Beware of this mistake. It frequently occurs through not noticing that one small book is purposely placed at each end of the shelf, beneath the movable shelf-supports, thus not only saving space, but preventing the injury which a book shelf-high would be sure to receive from uneven pressure.
After all, the best guide in these, as in many other matters, is "common sense," a quality which in olden times must have been much more "common" than in these days, else the phrase would never have become rooted in our common tongue.
Children, with all their innocence, are often guilty of book-murder. I must confess to having once taken down "Humphrey's History of Writing," which contains many brightly-coloured plates, to amuse a sick daughter. The object was certainly gained, but the consequences of so bad a precedent were disastrous. That copy (which, I am glad to say, was easily re-placed), notwithstanding great care on my part, became soiled and torn, and at last was given up to Nursery martyrdom. Can I regret it? surely not, for, although bibliographically sinful, who can weigh the amount of real pleasure received, and actual pain ignored, by the patient in the contemplation of those beautifully-blended colours?
A neighbour of mine some few years ago suffered severely from a propensity, apparently irresistible, in one of his daughters to tear his library books. She was six years old, and would go quietly to a shelf and take down a book or two, and having torn a dozen leaves or so down the middle, would replace the volumes, fragments and all, in their places, the damage being undiscovered until the books were wanted for use. Reprimand, expostulation and even punishment were of no avail; but a single "whipping" effected a cure.
Boys, however, are by far more destructive than girls, and have, naturally, no reverence for age, whether in man or books. Who does not fear a schoolboy with his first pocket-knife? As Wordsworth did not say:--
"You may trace him oft By scars which his activity has left Upon our shelves and volumes. * * * He who with pocket-knife will cut the edge Of luckless panel or of prominent book, Detaching with a stroke a label here, a back-band there." _Excursion III, 83_.
Pleased, too, are they, if, with mouths full of candy, and sticky fingers, they can pull in and out the books on your bottom shelves, little knowing the damage and pain they will cause. One would fain cry out, calling on the Shade of Horace to pardon the false quantity--
"Magna movet stomacho fastidia, si puer unctis Tractavit volumen manibus." _Sat. IV_.
What boys CAN do may be gathered from the following true story, sent me by a correspondent who was the immediate sufferer:--
One summer day he met in town an acquaintance who for many years had been abroad; and finding his appetite for old books as keen as ever, invited him home to have a mental feed upon "fifteeners" and other bibliographical dainties, preliminary to the coarser pleasures enjoyed at the dinner-table. The "home" was an old mansion in the outskirts of London, whose very architecture was suggestive of black-letter and sheep-skin. The weather, alas! was rainy, and, as they approached the house, loud peals of laughter reached their ears. The children were keeping a birthday with a few young friends. The damp forbad all outdoor play, and, having been left too much to their own devices, they had invaded the library. It was just after the Battle of Balaclava, and the heroism of the combatants on that hard-fought field was in everybody's mouth. So the mischievous young imps divided themselves into two opposing camps-- Britons and Russians. The Russian division was just inside the door, behind ramparts formed of old folios and quartos taken from the bottom shelves and piled to the height of about
"Helps" are very apt to fill the shelves too tightly, so that to extract a book you have to use force, often to the injury of the top-bands. Beware of this mistake. It frequently occurs through not noticing that one small book is purposely placed at each end of the shelf, beneath the movable shelf-supports, thus not only saving space, but preventing the injury which a book shelf-high would be sure to receive from uneven pressure.
After all, the best guide in these, as in many other matters, is "common sense," a quality which in olden times must have been much more "common" than in these days, else the phrase would never have become rooted in our common tongue.
Children, with all their innocence, are often guilty of book-murder. I must confess to having once taken down "Humphrey's History of Writing," which contains many brightly-coloured plates, to amuse a sick daughter. The object was certainly gained, but the consequences of so bad a precedent were disastrous. That copy (which, I am glad to say, was easily re-placed), notwithstanding great care on my part, became soiled and torn, and at last was given up to Nursery martyrdom. Can I regret it? surely not, for, although bibliographically sinful, who can weigh the amount of real pleasure received, and actual pain ignored, by the patient in the contemplation of those beautifully-blended colours?
A neighbour of mine some few years ago suffered severely from a propensity, apparently irresistible, in one of his daughters to tear his library books. She was six years old, and would go quietly to a shelf and take down a book or two, and having torn a dozen leaves or so down the middle, would replace the volumes, fragments and all, in their places, the damage being undiscovered until the books were wanted for use. Reprimand, expostulation and even punishment were of no avail; but a single "whipping" effected a cure.
Boys, however, are by far more destructive than girls, and have, naturally, no reverence for age, whether in man or books. Who does not fear a schoolboy with his first pocket-knife? As Wordsworth did not say:--
"You may trace him oft By scars which his activity has left Upon our shelves and volumes. * * * He who with pocket-knife will cut the edge Of luckless panel or of prominent book, Detaching with a stroke a label here, a back-band there." _Excursion III, 83_.
Pleased, too, are they, if, with mouths full of candy, and sticky fingers, they can pull in and out the books on your bottom shelves, little knowing the damage and pain they will cause. One would fain cry out, calling on the Shade of Horace to pardon the false quantity--
"Magna movet stomacho fastidia, si puer unctis Tractavit volumen manibus." _Sat. IV_.
What boys CAN do may be gathered from the following true story, sent me by a correspondent who was the immediate sufferer:--
One summer day he met in town an acquaintance who for many years had been abroad; and finding his appetite for old books as keen as ever, invited him home to have a mental feed upon "fifteeners" and other bibliographical dainties, preliminary to the coarser pleasures enjoyed at the dinner-table. The "home" was an old mansion in the outskirts of London, whose very architecture was suggestive of black-letter and sheep-skin. The weather, alas! was rainy, and, as they approached the house, loud peals of laughter reached their ears. The children were keeping a birthday with a few young friends. The damp forbad all outdoor play, and, having been left too much to their own devices, they had invaded the library. It was just after the Battle of Balaclava, and the heroism of the combatants on that hard-fought field was in everybody's mouth. So the mischievous young imps divided themselves into two opposing camps-- Britons and Russians. The Russian division was just inside the door, behind ramparts formed of old folios and quartos taken from the bottom shelves and piled to the height of about