Then what an insane joy there is in arranging the volumes, sometimes lamenting because the shelves are not exactly adapted to the association of fellow-books so that we fear that they will not be as friendly one to another as we would like to have them. If any one needs occupation for a rainy day, what more agreeable work may he find than that of assorting the books, so that not only will their sky-line be less jagged than that of lower New York, but that their contents may be of a nature to make them as sociable as they ought to be: while it must be borne in mind that the colors of their bindings should not be too glaringly inharmonious. And after all have been arranged, it is the joy of the genuine Dofob to arrange them all over again. There are times when the shelves overflow, and then comes the question of a new book-case and a still graver question as to where it shall be placed, leading to a further question about the enlargement of the house, which should be constructed on the Globe-Wernicke principle, for the main use of a house is to store books in it.
But there comes to every Dofob the thought that it will not be long before he must leave them. What is to become of them? No one will ever worship them as he has done all his life. They are interwoven with his existence and it is pitiful to think that he must be parted from them. I fear that in the world of the hereafter there may be no books, but it is not easy for me to imagine a heaven where books are not. I do not mean to be irreverent and I do not know whether I may attain even a bookless heaven, but I am unorthodox enough to own that I might prefer a bookish Hades.
IN A LIBRARY CORNER
I hate an orderly library. It has a formal air which repels familiarity; one cannot ramble in it, stroll aimlessly about it, come upon unexpected “finds”, or pluck a blossom here and there without fear of consequences. It is as devoid of charm as the stiff, uncompromising gardens of the eighteenth century which arouse ill temper by their arrogant right-angles. The card-catalogue itself is an encourager of angry passions; and glass doors are odiously inhospitable. What care I if dust accumulate? It is a blessed privilege to brush it off. What need have I of a card-index, when in hunting for what I want I may discover treasures hitherto lost to memory? When I encounter glass doors, those grudging guardians of the sanctuary, I long to fracture the panes with one mighty kick, for they are offensive with their noli me tangere exclusiveness. I want my books where I need not open a door to get at them or climb a ladder to reach them.
Not that I am averse to a certain method of arrangement, or to a well-defined color-scheme in the matter of bindings. No one wishes to put a tiny 16mo by the side of a towering quarto, or to fill the lower shelves with duodecimos and the upper ones with folios; nor does any one desire to fret his eyes by massing together colors which scream at each other and disturb the peace. I would not have Petroleum V. Nasby or the Orpheus C. Kerr Papers elbowing the “voluminous pages” of Gibbon or the serious dignity of Grote; but Boswell and Trevelyan need not be aggrieved by a close proximity to such inferior productions as Collingwood’s Life of Lewis Carroll or Hallam Tennyson’s disappointing Memoir of his illustrious father. “There are few duller biographies”, says Augustine Birrell, “than those written by wives, secretaries, or other domesticated creatures. Neither the purr of the hearth-rug nor the unemancipated admiration of the private secretary should be allowed to dominate a biography”. True, Trevelyan was Macaulay’s nephew, but he was barely of age when his uncle died, and had not yet been wholly “domesticated”.
It is almost needless to say that these wise utterances are not intended to apply to public libraries, those mausoleums of books, where one may “consult volumes” but never really read them; for how is it possible for anybody who is not endowed with a power of phenomenal self-absorption, to forget that the custodians, although unseen, are perpetually on guard, while the enforced silence of the place is a constant temptation, well-nigh irresistible, to arouse the echoes with defiant yells. In one of those halls of grandeur miscalled “reading rooms”, I am always reminded of “study hour” in school, and am in momentary expectation of hearing some one ask of the grim presiding functionary the old, familiar question, “Please, sir, may I go out?”
In every true library, there are sacred corners. In their cosy precincts you do not usually come upon the dress-parade volumes, imposing in their garb of polished calf or of velvety morocco, addressing you in solemn accents, reminding you of the aristocracy of their long descent, forbidding you to disturb them by casual pullings-down or thoughtless turning of their chilly pages. Their glacial aspect appals the ardent lover and freezes the founts of affection. These are seldom to be found in corners; they demand the showy places on the shelves where they may intimidate the beholder and turn him away abashed at their impressive array. They are as much shut off from the admirer’s fond touch as are the alleged crown-jewels in the Tower or the priceless manuscripts in the British Museum. My ideal library is composed chiefly of corners where one may linger in morning-jacket and slippers, and not be conscious of the need of attiring himself in the evening garments which conventionality decrees to be necessary for those who take part in stately functions. I often long to disarrange the symmetry of some “gentleman’s library”, just as when reading Johnson, or Gibbon, or Hamilton W. Mabie I have a fiendish propensity to split an infinitive or to end a sentence with a preposition.
Now if I were bent on making a foolish pretense of what is known as “good taste”, which I have no right or disposition to boast of, I would assert untruthfully, but no one could disprove it, that in these snug retreats I feast upon “The Proficience and Advancement of Learning”, or Evelyn’s Diary, or Pepys, or Sir Thomas Browne, or Elia. Every one who affects a literary “pose” is given to praising Elia; and there are few more precious books in the world. Yet if those immortal essays should appear to-day for the first time, they would have only what the newspapers style a “limited circulation”. A dinosaurus would have just as much popularity in the annual Horse Show, for they belong to the era of the stage-coach when people did not “do the Lake Country” in an escorted tour on a Hodgman car, and the Venetian gondola had not been crowded out of the Grand Canal by snorting motor-boats; when there were great men; poets, novelists, essayists, historians and statesmen. To the question, “Why have we no great men?” Mr. Chesterton rejects the answer that it is because of “advertisement, cigarette smoking, the decay of religion, the decay of agriculture, too much humanitarianism, too little humanitarianism, the fact that people are educated insufficiently, the fact that they are educated at all”. But his own answer, “We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them”, may be smart, but it is not convincing. The fact is that we do not have great men chiefly because we think we have no need of them.
The craze for equality has so possessed our minds that if one of us is presumptuous enough to thrust his head above the struggling mob that surrounds him, we set to work with one accord to pull him down, for who is he, forsooth, that he should assume to know more than we do or to be more than we are? In the days when the ignorant and the mediocre had not come to understand the might of their power, there were leaders; but however greatly they may need wise leaders now, they have become the leaders themselves and the ambitious are only astute and adroit followers. The state of the times is reflected in our literature; and as every man has arrived at the belief that he is an infallible judge upon questions of politics and of government, so he fancies that he is divinely endowed as a judge of all things literary. Thus it has come to pass that the guerdon of fame is bestowed, not upon the best book but upon the best seller. It has also come to pass that the only individual who is allowed to dominate his race is the editor of a newspaper. Great is the power of humbug; there is but one god, which is “the people”,—and the editor is his prophet. Every one from the cardinal to the curate, from the President to the postmaster, trembles before the majesty of a malicious monkey who by some mischance has contrived to get hold of a printing-press; for his penny compendium of slander and of crimes reaches the sons of manual toil who go to their work in the early morning, filled with envy of the well-to-do, grumbling at the fate which condemns them to labor while men whom they regard as no better than themselves enjoy sports and luxuries denied to them, ready to drink in the flattery addressed to them and rejoicing in the bitterest of assaults upon wealth and vested interests. No one is great to them except the crafty demagogue who ministers to their self-importance.
The mild and gentle Thomas Bailey Aldrich said in a moment of unusual irritation: “American newspapers are fearfully and wonderfully made. If about twenty thousand of them could be suppressed, the average decency of the world would be increased from twenty-five to fifty per cent.” This is no new cry; but it does not avail much to us soured old sufferers from their multitudinous lies and libels, to retire to our library corners and scold at them. In spite of our complaints, we think it a hardship if we cannot peer at them through our glasses over the matutinal coffee and enjoy their lies—about other people.