Old lamps for new

by E. V. Lucas

“Yes,” he added meditatively. “‘The scent of Elia’s garden’! That is the best essay, if you like, and ‘Charles (and Mary) Lamb’ its title.”

A Friend of the Town

Londoners know much, but not all. A few secrets are still to be learned only in the provinces, and one of them is the true value of the bookstall man. In London a bookstall man is a machine; you throw pennies at him and in return he throws papers at you. Now and then he asks you to buy something that you don’t want or recommends the new sevenpenny; but for the most part he treats you as a stranger, if not as a foe, and expects for himself treatment no better.

But in the country....

Make your home in a small country town and see how long you can manage without becoming friendly with the bookstall man. For in the country he is a power. There is no longer any casual flinging of pennies; there is the weather to discuss, and a remark to drop on the headlines in the contents bill. “Another all-night sitting,” you say, from the security given by eight good hours in bed: “ah well, if people like to be Members of Parliament, let them!” Then you both laugh. Or, “What’s this?—another new Peer? Well, it will be your turn soon,” you say, and then you both laugh again. But there is something more important than persiflage and gossip—there is the new novel to choose from the circulating library. For in the country the bookstall man is also the librarian and adviser; he not only sells papers but he controls the reading of the neighbourhood. His advice is sound. His instinct dictates wisely. “Jacobs’s latest,” he says, “is splendid. I read it on Sunday.” Not, of course, that he has any need to read a story to know that it is splendid; that would be too mechanical. He knows because he possesses the sixth sense with which successful handlers of books are gifted. “What’s new?” he replies, “well, here’s something good. Take that. You can’t go wrong.” Or, when in a dissuading mood (and nowadays librarians have to dissuade as much as recommend, poor doomed varmints), “That one? Oh! I don’t think she would like that. That’s a little bit—well, it’s strong, that’s what it is. I don’t recommend that. But here’s a charming story by the author of “Milk and Water....” And so forth.

What some simple country people would do without their bookstall man I can’t imagine. Take Peter, for instance. Peter was the friend of three old ladies who lived in a southern seaport—a sleepy forgotten town with quiet, narrow, Georgian streets and vast stretches of mud in its harbour which the evening sun turned to gold. These three old ladies—sisters and unmarried—lived together in a tiny red brick house where their several personalities dovetailed perfectly, different as they were. One was the practical managing sister, one was the humorous commentator, and one was the kindly dreamer. All were generous and philanthropic; indeed their benefactions of thought and deed were the principal business of their placid lives, while the principal recreation was reading. And herein lay the value of Peter, the bookstall man, for it was through his library that all their books came to them. He too divined the character of the books that he circulated by the mere process of touch; and he was rarely wrong. He knew to a grain exactly what was to be found in every book he recommended or did not recommend to these old ladies. In so far as his recommendations went, Peter was always right; and probably his dissuasions were rightly based too, although that of course we shall never know, since his advice was duly taken.

But it is no light matter, is it, to pick out suitable stories for three old-fashioned old ladies with very decided views as to what is fitting and nice, and what not, when the books (and here is the real difficulty) were to be read aloud? For this meant of course that the three personalities had to be taken into consideration. Each book had to please, or at any rate not offend, an old lady who was of a practical managing turn, and an old lady who was herself a bit of a quiz (as all good novelists must be), and an old lady who had Utopian dreams.

Peter, you see, must have been rather remarkable. “No,” he would say, “I don’t think Miss Dorcas would like that ... the gambling passages.... I’d recommend this if it weren’t for Miss Kate. But she’d never like the divorce proceedings....” And so on.

Reading aloud was to these old ladies a kind of ritual. They looked forward to it all day, and then as each chapter was finished they discussed it and approved or disapproved. When it comes to analyzing the pleasures of life, the privilege of approving and disapproving in conversation must be ranked very high, and reading aloud makes it so very harmless an amusement, since no tale-bearing is involved. This they did, and not only during the reading but at meals too, and often they would come down to breakfast after a rather wakeful night with new theories as to the conduct of hero or heroine. Happy Peter, to set so much gentle machinery in motion!