And toyed with their stories of France so free,
At Putnam’s and Scribner’s from day to day
I’ve flirted with Saltus and Roe (E. P.):
But weary of all, I have turned with glee
To Bouton’s murk shelves with their wealth untold,
Yearning for Quaritch in Piccadilly
Where the second-hand books are bought and sold.”
This would be more accurate if some of the names were changed. I plead not guilty to Saltus and Roe, and I may perhaps be forgiven for not remembering at the moment who John Delay was or is.
Why do we allow such sordid considerations as prices to influence us in any way? Most of us Dofobs are devoid of a surplus of funds, but we value our possessions all the more because we may have had to make some sacrifices to secure them. If we were indifferent about cost, we would lose much of the pleasure of ownership. I well remember the time when I abstained from luncheon in order to buy a second-hand, shabby volume at Leggatt’s. I do not have to deny now my appetite for midday food, but whenever I come upon one of those old books in my peregrinations about the library, I have the pleasant little throb of the heart which brings back to me the ardor of youth, and those cheap treasures take to themselves a halo which transcends the brilliancy of even an illuminated missal or a noble Caxton. Those long cherished companions speak to me in eloquence scarcely to be comprehended by one who is not a Dofob to the core.
We are grateful to the kindly dealers who send to us catalogues full of temptations for those who are so ready to be tempted. With James Freeman Clarke already quoted, we repeat that “it is a pleasure even to read the description and the title”, and often like Eugene Field of blessed memory we mark the items which are too bewitching to resist as if we were going to acquire them and then either forget about them or resolve that our purse cannot afford the luxury, afterwards confident that we bought them and searching for them in vain in the entrancing regions of the book-cases.