The inscriptions in the last three volumes are identical, except for the dates. All are written in the large, flowing hand with which we are familiar, and indicate a declining scale of grief. Time heals all wounds, and as these volumes appear at intervals, grief is finally assuaged and Majesty asserts itself.
II
BOOK-COLLECTING AT HOME
IN the preceding chapter I wrote of the amenities of book-collecting in London, of my adventures in the shops of Bond Street and Piccadilly, of Holborn and the Strand—almost as though this paradise of the book-collector were his only happy hunting-ground. But all the good hunting is not found in London: New York has a number of attractive shops, Philadelphia at least two, while there are several in Chicago and in unexpected places in the West.
Where in all the world will you find so free a buyer, always ready to take a chance to turn a volume at a profit, as George D. Smith? He holds the record for having paid the highest price ever paid for a book at auction: fifty thousand dollars for a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, purchased for Mr. Henry E. Huntington at the Hoe sale; and not only did he pay the highest price—he also bought more than any other purchaser of the fine books disposed of at that sale.
I have heard Smith’s rivals complain that he is not a bookseller in the proper sense of the word—that he buys without discretion and without exact knowledge. Such criticism, I take it, is simply the natural result of jealousy. George D. Smith has sold more fine books than perhaps any two of his rivals.