‘Here is a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, “hooked” in the deep waters of a “penny tub.” It is calf-bound, mark you, and in fairish condition, though much stained with the passing of years. My heart leaps; it is very old—a first edition possibly! But no, it is anything but that.... Many of the pages are entirely missing, and others partially so. Judged by the books that surround me it is dear at a penny ... Paradise Lost!’
The word-play is not unworthy of Mr. Zangwill; but when Mr. Walters writes, ‘I have frequently trodden snow-covered ground with my nose a few inches from an open book,’ I wish him, for the time being, ‘Good afternoon’ and seek other company, preferably that of some lover of the Emerson who wrote:
See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books,
Leave authors’ eyes, and fetch your own
To brave the landscape’s looks.
Or, better still:
Canst thou copy in verse one chime
Of the woodbell’s peal and cry?
Write in a book the morning’s prime?