On Books and the Housing of Them [4]
scale, not too vast for some amount of personal survey, some would multiply subdivision, and some restrain it. An acute friend asks me under what and how many general headings subjects should be classified in a library intended for practical use and reading, and boldly answers by suggesting five classes only: (1) science, (2) speculation, (3) art, (4) history, and (5) miscellaneous and periodical literature. But this seemingly simple division at once raises questions both of practical and of theoretic difficulty. As to the last, periodical literature is fast attaining to such magnitude, that it may require a classification of its own, and that the enumeration which indexes supply, useful as it is, will not suffice. And I fear it is the destiny of periodicals as such to carry down with them a large proportion of what, in the phraseology of railways, would be called dead weight, as compared with live weight. The limits of speculation would be most difficult to draw. The diversities included under science would be so vast as at once to make sub- classification a necessity. The olog-ies are by no means well suited to rub shoulders together; and sciences must include arts, which are but country cousins to them, or a new compartment must be established for their accomodation. Once more, how to cope with the everlasting difficulty of 'Works'? In what category to place Dante, Petrarch, Swedenborg, Burke, Coleridge, Carlyle, or a hundred more? Where, again, is Poetry to stand? I apprehend that it must take its place, the first place without doubt, in Art; for while it is separated from Painting and her other 'sphere-born harmonious sisters' by their greater dependence on material forms they are all more inwardly and profoundly united in their first and all-enfolding principle, which is to organize the beautiful for presentation to the perceptions of man.
But underneath all particular criticism of this or that method of classification will be found to lie a subtler question -- whether the arrangement of a library ought not in some degree to correspond with and represent the mind of the man who forms it. For my own part, I plead guilty, within certain limits, of favoritism in classification. I am sensible that sympathy and its reverse have something to do with determining in what company a book shall stand. And further, does there not enter into the matter a principle of humanity to the authors themselves? Ought we not to place them, so far as may be, in the neighborhood which they would like? Their living manhoods are printed in their works. Every reality, every tendency, endures. Eadem sequitur tellure sepultos.
I fear that arrangement, to be good, must be troublesome. Subjects are traversed by promiscuous assemblages of 'works;' both by sizes; and all by languages. On the whole I conclude as follows. The mechanical perfection of a library requires an alphabetical catalogue of the whole. But under the shadow of this catalogue let there be as many living integers as possible, for every well-chosen subdivision is a living integer and makes the library more and more an organism. Among others I plead for individual men as centres of subdivision: not only for Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, but for Johnson, Scott, and Burns, and whatever represents a large and manifold humanity.
The question of economy, for those who from necessity or choice consider it at all, is a very serious one. It has been a fashion to make bookcases highly ornamental. Now books want for and in themselves no ornament at all. They are themselves the ornament. Just as shops need no ornament, and no one will think of or care for any structural ornament, if the goods are tastefully disposed in the shop-window. The man who looks for society in his books will readily perceive that, in proportion as the face of his bookcase is occupied by ornament, he loses that society; and conversely, the more that face approximates to a sheet of bookbacks, the more of that society he will enjoy. And so it is that three great advantages come hand in hand, and, as will be
But underneath all particular criticism of this or that method of classification will be found to lie a subtler question -- whether the arrangement of a library ought not in some degree to correspond with and represent the mind of the man who forms it. For my own part, I plead guilty, within certain limits, of favoritism in classification. I am sensible that sympathy and its reverse have something to do with determining in what company a book shall stand. And further, does there not enter into the matter a principle of humanity to the authors themselves? Ought we not to place them, so far as may be, in the neighborhood which they would like? Their living manhoods are printed in their works. Every reality, every tendency, endures. Eadem sequitur tellure sepultos.
I fear that arrangement, to be good, must be troublesome. Subjects are traversed by promiscuous assemblages of 'works;' both by sizes; and all by languages. On the whole I conclude as follows. The mechanical perfection of a library requires an alphabetical catalogue of the whole. But under the shadow of this catalogue let there be as many living integers as possible, for every well-chosen subdivision is a living integer and makes the library more and more an organism. Among others I plead for individual men as centres of subdivision: not only for Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, but for Johnson, Scott, and Burns, and whatever represents a large and manifold humanity.
The question of economy, for those who from necessity or choice consider it at all, is a very serious one. It has been a fashion to make bookcases highly ornamental. Now books want for and in themselves no ornament at all. They are themselves the ornament. Just as shops need no ornament, and no one will think of or care for any structural ornament, if the goods are tastefully disposed in the shop-window. The man who looks for society in his books will readily perceive that, in proportion as the face of his bookcase is occupied by ornament, he loses that society; and conversely, the more that face approximates to a sheet of bookbacks, the more of that society he will enjoy. And so it is that three great advantages come hand in hand, and, as will be