Sessler studies his customer’s weaknesses—that’s where his strength lies. When I came back from Europe some years ago, I discovered that he had bought for me, in my absence, at the Lambert sale, one item which he knew I could not resist. It was a little pen-and-ink drawing by Thackeray, the first sketch, afterwards more fully elaborated, illustrating “Vanity Fair,” where, at the end of the first chapter, the immortal Becky, driving away from Miss Pinkerton’s school, throws Dr. Johnson’s “Dixonary” out of the window of the carriage as it drives off.
I think that all who knew him will agree with me that Luther S. Livingston was too much of a gentleman, too much of a scholar,—perhaps I should add, too much of an invalid,—to take high rank as a bookseller.
His knowledge was profound. He was an appreciative bibliographer, witness the work he did on Lamb for Mr. J. A. Spoor of Chicago; but I always felt a trifle embarrassed when I asked him the price of anything he had to sell; one could ask him anything else, but to offer money to Livingston seemed rather like offering money to your host after an excellent dinner.
