It is some consolation to realize that we commencing patriarchs are able to get more satisfaction from our comfortable places at the library table than others get from the seats of the mighty at horse-shows, bridge tournaments, automobile contests, and golf competitions. An enthusiastic golfer once confided to me that the most charming adjunct of his sport was the shandygaff and the high ball which otherwise the stern decree of the medical man would have denied to him. Let us say it in all modesty and self-depreciation, we know so much more than is known by the modern smooth-faced devotee of the safety razor, who freely permits the unattractive contour of his mouth to betray the imperfections of his character. I am convinced that if the customary motor-car fiend would shroud his expression in hirsute concealment he would appear far less fierce and domineering. If language was given to us to conceal thought, surely beards were meant to hide brutality. Even these young people will come in time to the consciousness of their present ignorance and the realization of the truth that men learn by experience. Aldrich—not Nelson, the tariff-king, but Thomas, a king of modern American letters—said “I often feel sorry for actresses who are always too old to play Juliet by the time they have learned how to do it. I know how to play Hamlet and Romeo now, but my figure doesn’t fit the parts.” Sad it is to reflect that our figures are unfitted for the roles we would so hugely enjoy. Possibly it would be better for us if we ventured more in the outer world and spent less time at the library table; but we cannot always bestride the galloping horse or trifle with the fascinating brassie. It will be only a few years before riders and golfers alike will meet us in the fields where we will all be reduced to socialistic uniformity, as I am taught to believe. Then, perhaps, I may not regret that I yielded, willingly and lovingly, to the temptations of the library table.
THE DELIBERATIONS OF A DOFOB
In the neighboring city of Chicago they have a club which boasts the name of “The Dofobs”. It is not a pretty name, but it means much to the members. Every two or three years it produces a Year Book and it has printed “The Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne”, a copy of which now and then appears at the auction block and is sold for a fabulous price. Aside from such occasional diversions, these people indulge in pure Dofobery, which is not really as bad as it sounds. It signifies a peculiar relation towards books and bookish things; not a mania for books, but a comfortable enjoyment of them; not a craving for them solely because they happen to be old, or rare, or famous, but a delight in them and in the associations which cluster about them, in talking about them, in scribbling about them, in amusing oneself with them. It does not require much sagacity to read between the letters of the name; for most people know what “d.f.” stands for, and “d.o.f.” is only a variation.
A Dofob does not trouble himself much about what others think of him or of his favorite pursuits, because he has what may be fairly styled the true Dofobian spirit and lives up to the immortal definition of an honest man as enunciated by the philosopher Timothy Toodles. The honest man, according to the dictum of that profound observer, was one who did not care a small Indian copper coin of trifling value—that is to say, a dam; although I think the philosopher added some superfluous words about not caring that for what sort of coat a man wore as long as his heart was in the right place. This sartorial and physiological supplement is immaterial, for the truth of the characterization lies in the primary expression: perhaps the word “continental” prefixed to the name of the coin would impart to the definition a distinctively American flavor.
Mr. Growoll in his interesting account of American Book Clubs tells of a number of these associations, whose laudable purposes are grave, serious and edifying; wrapped in a mantle of dignity which is most becoming but which arouses emotions of awe rather than of sympathy. The Dofob is not as serious as the Grolierite or the Caxtonian. The fact that many of his fellow-beings look upon him as an individual of imperfect intelligence because of his inordinate interest in books, he considers to be equivalent to a patent of nobility; for if he loves a particular book with a passion transcending all others, he is thereby raised, in his own estimation, far above the ordinary level of mankind and looks down from empyrean heights on those who are not sufficiently endowed with intellect or with intuition to comprehend that the veritable Dofob is the only person who possesses the power of recognizing at sight the very best and worthiest of all the books ever printed since the days of Fust and Gutenberg. With a superb self-appreciation and yet with the greatest affection and respect for my companions in Dofobishness, I own that in the depths of my being I consider no individual Dofob to be quite as praiseworthy, deserving and omniscient as I am. I regard myself as preeminently a D.O.F. and all that those letters imply, happy in the contentment which usually results from absolute self conceit. Our chief pleasure is in being regarded as confirmed and irresponsible cranks, defying the contumely of the world, hugging to our bosoms our pet delusions and willing to let other Dofobs hug theirs as closely. I might however be jealous if any one of them should hug too long and affectionately my own sweetheart book, for lovely books are as delightful but often as untrustworthy as lovely women. They are apt to run off with some millionaire. I am sadly conscious of the fact that the much prized Davenant folio or my Beaumont and Fletcher would be as happy in the arms of another as they are in my own. I think that I may as well abandon the metaphor here and now, for I may be unwittingly led into something which is described in the catalogues as “curious” or “facetious”. The man who was arrested for stealing a folio Shakespeare which he was lugging home after the fashion of Charles Lamb and who pleaded that it was a joke, was justly reminded by the wise magistrate that he was carrying the joke too far. (Cf. Joseph Miller’s Reports, passim). There is such a thing as carrying an analogy a little too far.
Parenthetically, one is moved to inquire why it is that we Dofobs who write about books are accustomed to adopt a style of labored facetiousness, for books are serious things. It is like the fashion of those who relate the history of old New York and who assume the tone of “Knickerbocker”: or of the delineator of life in the far west who cannot help imitating Bret Harte as the novelist of adventure in knighthood days imitates Sir Walter Scott. Books ought to be worthy of pure Johnsonese, the only dialect of dignity enough to deal with so solemn a subject.
A Dofob would not assert with offensive pride that the majority of people in this prosperous country are devoid of a real affection for books, but he is sorry for some of those who fondly imagine that they are bookish, occasionally reveal their inmost thoughts about books, and unconsciously disclose their sad incapacity to understand the essential nature of book-loving. In the matter of bindings, for example, there is commonly a lamentable ignorance. A few years ago I fortunately discovered a book printed in the latter part of the eighteenth century, produced in New York, and bound in the fine old calf of the period: a little dilapidated by the ravages of time and the bookseller’s shelves, but by no means in a state of ruin. That very binding made it cost me a goodly sum, for the contents were of no general interest; the book itself, the entity, binding and all, gave it value. I honored that book and after petting it properly, gladly gave it to a dear old gentleman, the only man in the city who knew anything about the subject dealt with in the book. A few weeks later he proudly brought it back to me in order that I might inscribe a few words on the fly leaf, and he said with considerable satisfaction, “You see, sir, that I have it neatly rebound!” And so he had, to my horror. The splendid old calf—I am referring to the binding—in which a Dofob would have rejoiced greatly, had been replaced by smug, cheap and modern cloth. Then it was that I grieved because my vocabulary was limited to the few thousand words which the devotee of statistics allows to the average man. All the languages of Mezzofanti could not have done justice to the situation; but the heroic self-restraint of a Dofob came into play and I suffered in silence. The honest but misguided friend will never know the full extent of the crime, and as the book is more to his liking in its present garb than it was in what he was pleased to call its “shabby” dress, it would have been needlessly cruel to undeceive him; and, after all, the matter was beyond remedy.
The kind friend who understands the intricacies of the stock-market and who tells me much that I care not for, about my garden, where I should buy my clothes, and what I should have in my library; who enlightens me, as many of our merciless fellow-beings love to do, about all questions of religion or of politics; the dear creature who is fond of saying “Now, what you ought to do is”—whatever in the plentitude of his self-contentment he ardently believes to be what every one else should do, because he does it; this one, I say, seldom knows anything about bindings. “I buy books to read”, he brags, as if one could not read comfortably a well-bound book. If you mention Tout, or Rivière, or Hayley, or Zaehnsdorf, to say nothing of Lortic, Prideaux, De Sauty or Cobden-Sanderson, he stares at you with glassy eyes of indifference and perhaps he calls your attention to a Barrie “edition de looks”, or to some of the paralyzing productions which the simple-minded are deluded into purchasing by the influence of alluring advertisements and insinuating circulars designed to mislead the ambitious but unwary buyers of books in the market-place.
I plead guilty to the charge of being a dreary old fool over books, but chiefly over old books, for they have a settled and permanent character which no one may impeach. We may be tolerably sure about them; they are generally what they seem to be, with their broad margins, their solid, substantial type, and their charming air of dignity. Most of the books of our day are unworthy of absolute confidence, and their paper, their binding, and their typography are a source of grief to the judicious. The man whose literary pabulum is sufficiently supplied by his daily newspaper may ask why an old book, with aged and decayed covers, is better than a new one with that outward adornment of gilt which some publishers delight to lavish upon us. The sagacious Dofob will not undertake the task of breaking his way into the solid density of such a mind or of explaining to him the reason, for the game is not worth the candle. When I was a boy I rashly attempted to convince a likely colored lad that slavery was right and should never be abolished, but to my fervid eloquence he invariably responded “Well, I doan’ know ’bout that”. It was an effective rejoinder and I now believe that he was fairly entitled to his name of Solomon. The smart individual of these times is beyond the reach of argument, and all one can do is to say to him, “Go to your newspaper, buy subscription editions of ‘standard authors’, fill your shelves with ‘the best sellers’, and be as happy as you may”.
But notwithstanding what I have just said, it is a favorite fallacy quite prevalent among the uninitiated that a book must be old in order to attract the bibliolater. True, as Emily Dickinson, with a magnificent disregard of rhyme, sings: