“A precious mouldering pleasure ’tis
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore:
A privilege, I think.”
A Dofob, however, does not restrict himself to such dolorous delights as “mouldering pleasures”, and sees no good reason why he should not be fascinated by something fresh from a good press as well as by what writers about books are addicted to calling “musty tomes”. A “tome”, I believe has come to mean “a large book”, but a Dofob does not necessarily prize it above a slender duodecimo, any more than he would prefer a fat friend to a thin one; and while gray hairs may be held dear, blond locks and jetty curls may be just as winning. A thoughtful physician once told me that he never read a book that was less than ten years old; he was not and could never be a Dofob. The rule may be well enough when applied to fiction, and a rigid observance of it would save some valuable time; but why should a man living in the earliest quarter of the last century have delayed for a decade the reading of Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”, or “Rob Roy”, or “The Heart of Midlothian,” or the two precious volumes of “Charles Lamb’s works”, then given to the world? A Dofob cannot be persuaded that any book should be neglected because it is old or condemned merely because it is new. The passion for rare relics of antiquity is one not difficult to comprehend, but it is not exclusive of a passion for the best of modern books. Whether the date upon the title be that of the reign of Elizabeth or of the time of Victoria or Edward, “a book’s a book for a’ that”.
There is a good deal of sameness in the praises of books by book-lovers. In his Anthology called “Book Song”, Mr. Gleeson White says: “friends that never tire, that cannot be scorned or dallied with, is an idea that recurs constantly”, and in regard to those eulogies of special volumes with which most of us are familiar, he remarks justly, “at times the pride of ownership becomes a little irritating and seems deliberately worded to provoke jealousy”. It is a characteristic of Dofobishness that the Dofob does not indulge in panegyrics upon his own property, although he may do a little private bragging among intimates. He may dote upon the book of another, and borrow it too, giving no credence to the common delusion that a borrowed book is never returned. That is where he shows his superiority over the ordinary man. Nor does he glorify his books as “friends who never tire”. I would not care much for any friend who was so devoid of human qualities as not to be tiresome now and then. A companion who was always entertaining would be a cloying sort of person, and even his perfections would grow wearisome in time. The book has an advantage over a friend in this, that it may be thrown in a corner, or thrust in a cabinet, or banished to the back-rows when its allurements begin to pall, and if it experiences any sense of resentment or mortification at such a summary dismissal, it gives no outward or visible signs of dissatisfaction. Moreover books are immensely superior to human friends for they never “call one up” on the telephone, that imperious invader of peace and comfort, a modern affliction more dreadful even than the motor-cycle, that Moloch of the highways, because it has a wider field of operation. One may have some respect for the automobile, king of our roads, but for the vulgar, snorting tyrant, the degradation of a graceful, noiseless bicycle, naught but disgust and horror. No self-respecting horse can meet it without justifiable rebellion. I have found it the Juggernaut of New Jersey.
Few comprehend fully the bookishness of a book, its deserving dignity, and its peculiar sensitiveness. This man will deliberately turn down the corner of a leaf, and that man will cut the sheets with rude, iconoclastic finger or ruthlessly bend open the tender volume until its back is well-nigh broken. There ought to be a constitutional provision against cruel and unusual punishments of books, for surely they are fellow-citizens of worth and as much entitled to protection as the red men of the West who have recently been added to the number of our masters, or the voluble and dagger-loving emigrant from Italy who comes to us with droves of his kind and cheerfully stabs his women or his rivals in our public streets. I shudder when I remember how often I have beheld the shocking spectacle of a Philistine actually pulling a book from the shelf by the top, or wetting his fingers as he turned the pages of a sacred first edition. But it is better not to dwell upon such harrowing subjects.
However boastful, arrogant and censorious these deliberations may appear, I protest that I am not quite as conceited as I pretend to be. The bravado is assumed. I am really humble, conscious of my limitations, and profoundly deferential towards the experts who are masters of book-history and are able to “collate”, while I am, by natural incapacity, utterly unable to share in the collation. I admire these mighty men afar off, and am devoured by envy of their learning. Let me however disclose the miserable truth that I find old Dibdin stupid, that I am dreadfully bored by the tedious catalogues given to us from time to time by some of our non-Dofobian book clubs, and that in fact I abhor all catalogues of things which I can never hope to call my own. It may be a mark of genuine Dofobery to scorn scientific book-description; it always makes me uneasy and discontented. It affects me much in the same way as the formal phrases of what the companion of my childhood, (bookishly speaking) Captain Mayne Reid, used to call “the closet naturalists”—now known as “nature fakirs”—must affect men who pursue the tremendous teddy-bear and the bodacious bob-cat in their native wilds. I am so much in love with my own few books that I would no more dream of regarding them from the cataloguer’s point of view than I would of measuring my Dulcinea’s features in order to ascertain whether or not she comes up to the standard of beauty prescribed by the dull and pedantic persons who reduce everything to formulas.
Candidly, anything hereinbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding, I believe that in our beloved country there are more enthusiastic lovers of books than may be found in any other land. Yet, if I am not sadly mistaken, England is the paradise of Dofobs. She ought to be; she is so much older than we are; she was bookish when we were busy in building an empire and boasted more bears than books. It makes my heart palpitate when I glance over the fascinating lists of Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, and see what the libraries of the well-to-do Britons disgorge without ostentation,—treasures which make the book-lover’s soul thrill with the indescribable tremor which only a long-desired book can bring. I find myself wondering whether it will go on forever, if the resources of the innumerable “gentleman’s libraries” in England will be exhausted in our own time at least. I trust not, although I fear that the insatiable demands of American buyers may ultimately absorb the supply. I am not by any means an Anglomaniac, for our English cousins are fast becoming too socialistic for my taste, but surely their auction-sales are more attractive than ours, and what is more delectable than one of their best “book shops”? Why cannot we have such palaces of joy as those which may be found on the Strand, or in Piccadilly, or in the regions adjacent to the British Museum, or indeed in other places than London, where a Dofob may discover almost everything necessary to sate his appetite. I am affectionately reminiscent of Maggs’s. I am not trying to advertise Maggs’s; the name is not beautiful, euphonious, or seductive; it reminds one of the nomenclature of Dickens. But the shop is a dream, the managers are tactful and considerate, and there one may browse undisturbed and uninterrupted, with no sorrow but that which comes from the fact that while the prices are low when compared with ours, the purse of a plutocrat could never suffice to give us all the jewels preserved in the coffers of those polite and kindly vendors of dainties. I do not know what may be in Chicago, but in New York we have scarcely anything as alluring or as charming. Why are we denied such luxuries? When I am daring enough to enter the precincts of a New York “book-store”—it is never a “shop”—I approach the majestic salesman with fear and trembling, having already left my pocket-book with the gentle cabman. Does the nobleman lead me smilingly to a quiet recess, place a chair and a table at my disposal, and with tender solicitude submit to me the latest acquisition, the first edition, the extra-illustrated treasure, the autograph letter or manuscript which has just “come in” and has not yet been advertised or catalogued? By no means; he regards me with the same contemptuous hauteur which is displayed by the clerk of a popular hotel when I register my name and plead for “a room with bath”. I depart from the chilly halls feeling that I ought to be ashamed for having disturbed the lofty serenity of the supercilious magnate. They do these things better in France and in England: better in almost every other country as those who have had experience well know. They are content, these foreigners, with moderate profits. It is true that an American bookseller is obliged to pay higher rent and is subjected to heavier expenses because of the extravagant exactions of almost every one in this free land of ours—except, of course, the modest and diffident lawyers. Patriotism does not require one to acquiesce uncomplainingly in the exorbitant prices of our own book dealers. Let me however be fair and qualify my sweeping assertions: I know a few very decent book-vendors in New York and in Boston who want to be reasonable and are “not so bad”. I am grateful to them for many favors. In the words of Heron-Allen’s “Ballade of Olde Books”,
“I’ve haunted Brentano and John Delay,