The Bibliotaph, and Other People Part 3

'But this poet is said to abhor Americans.'

'You see that his antipathy has not prevented his writing a stanza in my copy of his most notable volume.'

'And this?'

'I have at divers times contributed the sum of five dollars to divers Fresh Air funds.'

The Bibliotaph could not be convinced that his sin of autograph collecting was not venial. When authors denied his requests, on the ground that they were intrusions, he was inclined to believe that selfishness lay at the basis of their motives. Some men are quite willing to accept great fame, but they resent being obliged to pay the penalties. They wish to sit in the fierce light which beats on an intellectual throne, but they are indignant when the pa.s.sers-by stop to stare at them. They imagine that they can successfully combine the glory of honorable publicity with the perfect retirement enjoyed only by aspiring mediocrity. The Bibliotaph believed that he was a missionary to these people. He awakened in them a sense of their obligations toward their admirers. The principle involved is akin to that enunciated by a certain American philosopher, who held that it is an act of generosity to borrow of a man once in a while; it gives that man a lively interest in the possible success or possible failure of your undertaking.

He levied autographic toll on young writers. For mature men of letters with established reputations he would do extraordinary and difficult services. A famous Englishman, not a novelist by profession, albeit he wrote one of the most successful novels of his day, earnestly desired to own if possible a complete set of all the American pirated editions of his book. The Bibliotaph set himself to this task, and collected energetically for two years. The undertaking was considerable, for many of the pirated editions were in pamphlet, and dating from twenty years back. It was almost impossible to get the earliest in a spotless condition. Quant.i.ties of trash had to be overhauled, and weeks might elapse before a perfect copy of a given edition would come to light.

Books are dirty, but pamphlets are dirtier. The Bibliotaph declared that had he rendered an itemized bill for services in this matter, the largest item would have been for Turkish baths.

Here was a case in which the collector paid well for the privilege of having a signed copy of a well-loved author's novel. He begrudged no portion of his time or expenditure. If it pleased the great Englishman to have upon his shelves, in compact array and in spotless condition, these proofs of what he _didn't_ earn by the publication of his books in America, well and good. The Bibliotaph was delighted that so modest a service on his part could give so apparently great a pleasure. The Englishman must have had the collecting instinct, and he must have been philosophical, since he could contemplate with equanimity these illegitimate volumes.

The conclusion of the story is this: The work of collecting the reprints was finished. The last installment reached the famous Englishman during an illness which subsequently proved fatal. They were spread upon the coverlid of the bed, and the invalid took a great and humorous satisfaction in looking them over. Said the Bibliotaph, recounting the incident in his succinct way, 'They reached him on his death-bed,--and made him willing to go.'

The Bibliotaph was true to the traditions of the book-collecting brotherhood, in that he read but little. His knowledge of the world was fresh from life, not 'strained through books,' as Johnson said of a certain Irish painter whom he knew at Birmingham. But the Bibliotaph was a mighty devourer of book-catalogues. He got a more complete satisfaction, I used to think, in reading a catalogue than in reading any other kind of literature. To see him unwrapping the packages which his English mail had brought was to see a happy man. For in addition to books by post, there would be bundles of sale-catalogues. Then might you behold his eyes sparkle as he spread out the tempting lists; the humorous lines about the corners of his mouth deepened, and he would take on what a little girl who watched him called his 'p.u.s.s.y-cat look.' Then with an indelible pencil in his huge and pudgy left fist (for the Bibliotaph was a Benjaminite), he would go through the pages, checking off the items of interest, rolling with delight in his chair as he exclaimed from time to time, 'Good books! Such good books!' Say to him that you yourself liked to read a catalogue, and his response was pretty sure to be, 'Pleasant, isn't it?' This was expressive of a high state of happiness, and was an allusion. For the Bibliotaph was once with a newly-married man, and they two met another man, who, as the conversation proceeded, disclosed the fact that he also had but recently been wed. Whereupon the first bridegroom, marveling that there could be another in the world so exalted as himself, exclaimed with sympathetic delight, 'And _you_, too, are married.' 'Yes,' said the second, 'pleasant, isn't it?' with much the same air that he would have said, 'Nice afternoon.' This was one of the incidents which made the Bibliotaph skeptical about marriage. But he adopted the phrase as a useful one with which to express the state of highest mental and spiritual exaltation.

People wondered at the extent of his knowledge of books. It was very great, but it was not incredible. If a man cannot touch pitch without being defiled, still less can he handle books without acquiring bibliographical information. I am not sure that the Bibliotaph ever heard of that professor of history who used to urge his pupils to handle books, even when they could not get time to read them. 'Go to the library, take down the volumes, turn over the leaves, read the t.i.tle-pages and the tables of contents; information will stick to you'--this was the professor's advice. Information acquired in this way may not be profound, but so far as it goes it is definite and useful. For the collector it is indispensable. In this way the Bibliotaph had ama.s.sed his seemingly phenomenal knowledge of books. He had handled thousands and tens of thousands of volumes, and he never relinquished his hold upon a book until he had 'placed' it,--until he knew just what its rank was in the hierarchy of desirability.

Between a diligent reading of catalogues and an equally diligent rummaging among the collections of third and fourth rate old book-shops, the Bibliotaph had his reward. He undoubtedly bought a deal of trash, but he also lighted upon nuggets. For example, in Leask's Life of Boswell is an account of that curious little romance ent.i.tled _Dorando_. This so-called _Spanish Tale_, printed for J.

Wilkie at the Bible in St. Paul's Church-Yard, was the work of James Boswell. It was published anonymously in 1767, and he who would might then have bought it for 'one s.h.i.+lling.' It was to be 'sold also by J.

Dodsley in Pall Mall, T. Davies in Russell-Street, Covent Garden, and by the Book-sellers of Scotland.' This T. Davies was the very man who introduced Boswell to Johnson. He was an actor as well as a bookseller. _Dorando_ was a story with a key. Under the names of Don Stocaccio, Don Tipponi, and Don Rodomontado real people were described, and the facts of the 'famous Douglas cause' were presented to the public. The little volume was suppressed in so far as that was possible. It is rare, so rare that Boswell's latest biographer speaks of it as the 'forlorn hope of the book-hunter,' though he doubts not that copies of it are lurking in some private collection. One copy at least is lurking in the Bibliotaph's library. He bought it, not for a song to be sure, but very reasonably. The Bibliotaph declares that this book is good for but one thing,--to shake in the faces of Boswell collectors who haven't it.

The Bibliotaph had many literary heroes. Conspicuous among them were Professor Richard Porson and Benjamin Jowett, the late master of Balliol. The Bibliotaph collected everything that related to these two men, all the books with which they had had anything to do, every newspaper clipping and magazine article which threw light upon their manners, habits, modes of thought. He especially loved to tell anecdotes of Porson. He knew many. He had an interleaved copy of J.

Selby Watson's Life of Porson into which were copied a mult.i.tude of facts not to be found in that amusing biography. The Bibliotaph used to say that he would rather have known Porson than any other man of his time. He used to quote this as one of the best ill.u.s.trations of Porson's wit, and one of the finest examples of the retort satiric to be found in any language. One of Porson's works was a.s.sailed by Wakefield and by Hermann, scholars to be sure, but scholars whose scholars.h.i.+p Porson held in contempt. Being told of their attack Porson only said that 'whatever he wrote in the future should be written in such a way that those fellows wouldn't be able to reach it with their fore-paws if they stood on their hind-legs to get at it!'

The Bibliotaph gave such an air of contemporaneity to his stories of the great Greek professor that it seemed at times as if they were the relations of one who had actually known Porson. So vividly did he portray the marvels of that compound of thirst and scholars.h.i.+p that no one had the heart to laugh when, after one of his narrations, a gentleman asked the Bibliotaph if he himself had studied under Porson.

'Not _under_ him but _with_ him,' said the Bibliotaph. 'He was my coeval. Porson, Richard Bentley, Joseph Scaliger, and I were all students together.'

Speaking of Jowett the Bibliotaph once said that it was wonderful to note how culture failed to counteract in an Englishman that disposition to heave stones at an American. Jowett, with his remarkable breadth of mind and temper, was quite capable of observing, with respect to a certain book, that it was American, 'yet in perfect taste.' 'This,' said the Bibliotaph, 'is as if one were to say, "The guests were Americans, but no one expectorated on the carpet."' The Bibliotaph thought that there was not so much reason for this att.i.tude. The sins of Englishmen and Americans were identical, he believed, but the forms of their expression were different. 'Our sin is a voluble boastfulness; theirs is an irritating, unrestrainable, all-but-constantly manifested, satisfied self-consciousness. The same results are reached by different avenues. We praise ourselves; they belittle others.' Then he added with a smile: 'Thus even in these latter days are the Scriptures exemplified; the same spirit with varying manifestations.'

He was once commenting upon Jowett's cla.s.sification of humorists.

Jowett divided humorists 'into three categories or cla.s.ses; those who are not worth reading at all; those who are worth reading once, but once only; and those who are worth reading again and again and for ever.' This remark was made to Swinburne, who quotes it in his all too brief _Recollections of Professor Jowett_. Swinburne says that the starting-point of their discussion was the _Biglow Papers_, which 'famous and admirable work of American humour' Jowett placed in the second cla.s.s. Swinburne himself thought that the _Biglow Papers_ was too good for the second cla.s.s and not quite good enough for the third.

'I would suggest that a fourth might be provided, to include such examples as are worth, let us say, two or three readings in a life-time.'

The Bibliotaph made a variety of comments on this, but I remember only the following; it is a reason for not including the _Biglow Papers_ in Jowett's third and crowning cla.s.s. 'Humor to be popular permanently must be general rather than local, and have to do with a phase of character rather than a fact of history; that is, it must deal in a great way with what is always interesting to all men. Humor that does not meet this requirement is not likely, when its novelty has worn off, to be read even occasionally save by those who enjoy it as an intellectual performance or who are making a critical study of its author.' The observation, if not profound, is at least sensible, and it ill.u.s.trates very well the Bibliotaph's love of alliteration and ant.i.thesis. But it is easier to remember and to report his caustic and humorous remarks.

The Country Squire had a card-catalogue of the books in his library, and he delighted to make therein entries of his past and his new purchases. But it was not always possible to find upon the shelves books that were mentioned in the catalogue. The Bibliotaph took advantage of a few instances of this sort to prod his moneyed friend.

He would ask the Squire if he had such-and-such a book. The Squire would say that he had, and appeal to his catalogue in proof of it.

Then would follow a search for the volume. If, as sometimes happened, no book corresponding to the entry could be found, the Bibliotaph would be satirical and remark:--

'I'll tell you what you ought to name your catalogue.'

'What?'

'Great expectations!'

Another time he said, 'This is not a list of your books, this is a list of the things that you intend to buy;' or he would suggest that the Squire would do well to christen his catalogue _Vaulting Ambition_. Perhaps the variation might take this form. After a fruitless search for some book, which upon the testimony of the catalogue was certainly in the collection, the Bibliotaph would observe, 'This catalogue might not inappropriately be spoken of as the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.'

Another time the Bibliotaph said to the Squire, calling to mind the well-known dictum as to the indispensableness of certain books, 'Between what one sees on your shelves and what one reads in your card-catalogue one would have reason to believe that you were a gentleman.'

Once the Bibliotaph said to me in the presence of the Squire: 'I think that our individual relation to books might be expressed in this way.

You read books but you don't buy them. I buy books but I don't read them. The Squire neither reads them nor buys them,--only card-catalogues them!'

To all this the Squire had a reply which was worldly, emphatic, and adequate, but the object of this study is not to exhibit the virtues of the Squire's speech, witty though it was.

One of the Bibliotaph's friends began without sufficient provocation to write verse. The Bibliotaph thought that if the matter were taken promptly in hand the man could be saved. Accordingly, when next he gave this friend a book he wrote upon a fly-leaf: 'To a Poet who is nothing if not original--and who is not original!' And the injured rhymester exclaimed when he read the inscription: 'You deface every book you give me.'

He could pay a compliment, as when he was dining with a married pair who were thought to be not yet disenchanted albeit in the tenth year of their married life. The lady was speaking to the Bibliotaph, but in the eagerness of conversation addressed him by her husband's first name. Whereupon he turned to the husband and said: 'Your wife implies that I am a repository of grace and a bundle of virtues, and calls me by your name.'

He once sent this same lady, apropos of the return of the s.h.i.+rt-waist season, a dozen neckties. In the box was his card with these words penciled upon it: 'A contribution to the man-made dress of a G.o.d-made woman.'

The Squire had great skill in imitating the cries of various domestic fowl, as well as dogs, cats, and children. Once, in a moment of social relaxation, he was giving an exhibition of his power to the vast amus.e.m.e.nt of his guests. When he had finished, the Bibliotaph said: 'The theory of Henry Ward Beecher that every man has something of the animal in him is superabundantly exemplified in _your_ case. You, sir, have got the whole Ark.'

There was a quaint humor in his most commonplace remarks. Of all the fruits of the earth he loved most a watermelon. And when a fellow-traveler remarked, 'That watermelon which we had at dinner was bad,' the Bibliotaph instantly replied: 'There is no such thing as a _bad_ watermelon. There are watermelons, and _better_ watermelons.'

I expressed astonishment on learning that he stood six feet in his shoes. He replied: 'People are so preoccupied in the consideration of my thickness that they don't have time to observe my height.'

Again, when he was walking through a private park which contained numerous monstrosities in the shape of painted metal deer on pedestals, pursued (also on pedestals) by hunters and dogs, the Bibliotaph pointed to one of the dogs and said, 'Cave cast-iron canem!'

He once accompanied a party of friends and acquaintances to the summit of Mt. Tom. The ascent is made in these days by a very remarkable inclined plane. After looking at the extensive and exquisite view, the Bibliotaph fell to examining his return coupon, which read, 'Good for one Trip Down.' Then he said: 'Let us hope that in a post-terrestrial experience our tickets will not read in this way.'

He was once ascending in the unusually commodious and luxurious elevator of a new ten-story hotel and remarked to his companion: 'If we can't be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, we can at least start in that direction under not dissimilar conditions.' He also said that the advantage of stopping at this particular hotel was that you were able to get as far as possible from the city in which it was located.

He studied the dictionary with great diligence and was unusually accurate in his p.r.o.nunciation. He took an amused satisfaction in p.r.o.nouncing exactly certain words which in common talk had s.h.i.+fted phonetically from their moorings. This led a gentleman who was intimate with the Bibliotaph to say to him, 'Why, if I were to p.r.o.nounce that word among my kinsfolk as you do they'd think I was crazy.' 'What you mean,' said the Bibliotaph, 'is, that they would look upon it in the light of supererogatory supplementary evidence.'

He himself indulged overmuch in alliteration, but it was with humorous intent; and critics forgave it in him when they would have reprehended it in another. He had no notion that it was fine. Taken, however, in connection with his emphatic manner and sonorous voice he produced a decided and original effect. Meeting the Squire's wife after a considerable interval, I asked whether her husband had been behaving well. She replied 'As usual.' Whereupon the Bibliotaph said, 'You mean that his conduct in these days is characterized by a plethora of intention and a paucity of performance.'

He objected to enlarging the boundaries of words until they stood for too many things. Let a word be kept so far as was reasonable to its earlier and authorized meaning. Speaking of the word 'symposium,'

which has been stretched to mean a collection of short articles on a given subject, the Bibliotaph said that he could fancy a honey-bee which had been feasting on pumice until it was unable to make the line characteristic of its kind, explaining to its queen that it had been to a symposium; but that he doubted if we ought to allow any other meaning.

The Bibliotaph got much amus.e.m.e.nt from what he insisted were the ill-concealed anxieties of his friend the actor on the subject of a future state. 'He has acquired,' said the Bibliotaph, 'both a pathetic and a prophetic interest in that place which begins as heaven does, but stops off monosyllabically.'

The two men were one day discussing the question of the permanency of fame, how ephemeral for example was that reputation which depended upon the living presence of the artist to make good its claim; how an actor, an orator, a singer, was bound to enjoy his glory while it lasted, since at the instant of his death all tangible evidence of greatness disappeared; he could not be proven great to one who had never seen and heard him. Having reached this point in his philosophizing the Bibliotaph's player-friend became sentimental and quoted a great comedian to the effect that 'a dead actor was a mighty useless thing.' 'Certainly,' said the Bibliotaph, 'having exhausted the life that now is, and having no hope of the life that is to come.'

Sometimes it pleased the Bibliotaph to maintain that his friend of the footlights would be in the future state a mere homeless wanderer, having neither positive satisfaction nor positive discomfort. For the actor was wont to insist that even if there were an orthodox heaven its moral opposite were the desirable locality; all the clever and interesting fellows would be down below. 'Except yourself,' said the Bibliotaph. 'You, sir, will be eliminated by your own reasoning. You will be denied heaven because you are not good, and h.e.l.l because you are not great.'

On the whole it pleased the Bibliotaph to maintain that his friend's course was downward, and that the sooner he reconciled himself to his undoubted fate the better. 'Why speculate upon it?' he said paternally to the actor, 'your prospective comparisons will one day yield to reminiscent contrasts.'

The actor was convinced that the Bibliotaph's own past life needed looking into, and he declared that when he got a chance he was going to examine the great records. To which the Bibliotaph promptly responded: 'The books of the recording angel will undoubtedly be open to your inspection if you can get an hour off to come up. The probability is that you will be overworked.'

The Bibliotaph never lost an opportunity for teasing. He arrived late one evening at the house of a friend where he was always heartily welcome, and before answering the chorus of greetings, proceeded to kiss the lady of the mansion, a queenly and handsome woman. Being asked why he--who was a large man and very shy with respect to women, as large men always are--should have done this thing, he answered that the kiss had been sent by a common friend and that he had delivered it at once, 'for if there was anything he prided himself upon it was a courageous discharge of an unpleasant duty.'

Once when he had been narrating this incident he was asked what reply the lady had made to so uncourteous a speech. 'I don't remember,' said the Bibliotaph, 'it was long ago; but my opinion is that she would have been justified in denominating me by a monosyllable beginning with the initial letter of the alphabet and followed by successive sibilants.'

One of the Bibliotaph's fellow book-hunters owned a chair said to have been given by Sir Edwin Landseer to Sir Walter Scott. The chair was interesting to behold, but the Bibliotaph after attempting to sit in it immediately got up and declared that it was not a genuine relic: 'Sir Edwin had reason to be grateful to rather than indignant at Sir Walter Scott.'