The Love Affairs Of A Bibliomaniac [41]
shining shield Suspended in the hall and full in sight, While secret longings for the lost delight Of tourney or adventure in the field Came over him, and tears but half concealed Trembled and fell upon his beard of white; So I behold these books upon their shelf My ornaments and arms of other days; Not wholly useless, though no longer used, For they remind me of my other self Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways In which I walked, now clouded and confused.
If my friend O'Rell's theory be true, how barren would be Age! Lord Bacon tells us in his ``Apothegms'' that Alonzo of Aragon was wont to say, in commendation of Age, that Age appeared to be best in four things: Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and old authors to read. Sir John Davys recalls that ``a French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of companions: Men, women and books,'' and my revered and beloved poet-friend, Richard Henry Stoddard, has wrought out this sentiment in a poem of exceeding beauty, of which the concluding stanza runs in this wise:
Better than men and women, friend, That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, Are the books their cunning hands have penned, For they depart, but the books remain; Through these they speak to us what was best In the loving heart and the noble mind; All their royal souls possessed Belongs forever to all mankind! When others fail him, the wise man looks To the sure companionship of books.
If ever, O honest friends of mine, I should forget you or weary of your companionship, whither would depart the memories and the associations with which each of you is hallowed! Would ever the modest flowers of spring-time, budding in pathways where I no longer wander, recall to my failing sight the vernal beauty of the Puritan maid, Captivity? In what reverie of summer-time should I feel again the graciousness of thy presence, Yseult?
And Fanchonette--sweet, timid little Fanchonette! would ever thy ghost come back from out those years away off yonder ? Be hushed, my Beranger, for a moment; another song hath awakened softly responsive echoes in my heart! It is a song of Fanchonette:
In vain, in vain; we meet no more, Nor dream what fates befall; And long upon the stranger's shore My voice on thee may call, When years have clothed the line in moss That tells thy name and days, And withered, on thy simple cross, The wreaths of Pere la Chaise!
XVI
THE MALADY CALLED CATALOGITIS
Judge Methuen tells me that one of the most pleasing delusions he has experienced in his long and active career as a bibliomaniac is that which is born of the catalogue habit. Presuming that there are among my readers many laymen,--for I preach salvation to the heathen,--I will explain for their information that the catalogue habit, so called, is a practice to which the confirmed lover of books is likely to become addicted. It is a custom of many publishers and dealers to publish and to disseminate at certain periods lists of their wares, in the hope of thereby enticing readers to buy those wares.
By what means these crafty tradesmen secure the names of their prospective victims I cannot say, but this I know full well--that there seems not to be a book-lover on the face of the earth, I care not how remote or how secret his habitation may be, that these dealers do not presently find him out and overwhelm him with their delightful temptations.
I have been told that among booksellers there exists a secret league which provides for the interchange of confidences; so that when a new customer enters a shop in the Fulham road or in Oxford street or along the quays of Paris, or it matters not where (so long as the object of his inquiry be a book), within the space of a month that man's name and place of residence are reported to and entered in the address list of every other bookseller in Christendom, and forthwith and forever after the catalogues
If my friend O'Rell's theory be true, how barren would be Age! Lord Bacon tells us in his ``Apothegms'' that Alonzo of Aragon was wont to say, in commendation of Age, that Age appeared to be best in four things: Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and old authors to read. Sir John Davys recalls that ``a French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of companions: Men, women and books,'' and my revered and beloved poet-friend, Richard Henry Stoddard, has wrought out this sentiment in a poem of exceeding beauty, of which the concluding stanza runs in this wise:
Better than men and women, friend, That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, Are the books their cunning hands have penned, For they depart, but the books remain; Through these they speak to us what was best In the loving heart and the noble mind; All their royal souls possessed Belongs forever to all mankind! When others fail him, the wise man looks To the sure companionship of books.
If ever, O honest friends of mine, I should forget you or weary of your companionship, whither would depart the memories and the associations with which each of you is hallowed! Would ever the modest flowers of spring-time, budding in pathways where I no longer wander, recall to my failing sight the vernal beauty of the Puritan maid, Captivity? In what reverie of summer-time should I feel again the graciousness of thy presence, Yseult?
And Fanchonette--sweet, timid little Fanchonette! would ever thy ghost come back from out those years away off yonder ? Be hushed, my Beranger, for a moment; another song hath awakened softly responsive echoes in my heart! It is a song of Fanchonette:
In vain, in vain; we meet no more, Nor dream what fates befall; And long upon the stranger's shore My voice on thee may call, When years have clothed the line in moss That tells thy name and days, And withered, on thy simple cross, The wreaths of Pere la Chaise!
XVI
THE MALADY CALLED CATALOGITIS
Judge Methuen tells me that one of the most pleasing delusions he has experienced in his long and active career as a bibliomaniac is that which is born of the catalogue habit. Presuming that there are among my readers many laymen,--for I preach salvation to the heathen,--I will explain for their information that the catalogue habit, so called, is a practice to which the confirmed lover of books is likely to become addicted. It is a custom of many publishers and dealers to publish and to disseminate at certain periods lists of their wares, in the hope of thereby enticing readers to buy those wares.
By what means these crafty tradesmen secure the names of their prospective victims I cannot say, but this I know full well--that there seems not to be a book-lover on the face of the earth, I care not how remote or how secret his habitation may be, that these dealers do not presently find him out and overwhelm him with their delightful temptations.
I have been told that among booksellers there exists a secret league which provides for the interchange of confidences; so that when a new customer enters a shop in the Fulham road or in Oxford street or along the quays of Paris, or it matters not where (so long as the object of his inquiry be a book), within the space of a month that man's name and place of residence are reported to and entered in the address list of every other bookseller in Christendom, and forthwith and forever after the catalogues