HOW ruthlessly Webster strips the word ‘confession’ of the tender associations woven around it by the hand of the gentle essayist! A confession, he informs us, is the acknowledgement of a crime or fault, open declaration of guilt, &c. True, a brighter note is struck in further definitions; but I cannot find in any book at my command a definition of the word as used, for example, by Thomas De Quincey. The fact that De Quincey took opium was, I believe, known long before he wrote his Confessions. He personally avers that his object was to emblazon the power of opium, not over bodily disease and pain, but over the grander and more shadowy world of dreams. He desired
Humbly to confess
A penitential loneliness.
And I take that to mean that he desired to admit us into the innermost recesses of his heart, to speak to us as one speaks to a bosom friend.
I plead, therefore, for a wider definition of the word ‘confession’—a definition that embraces those ‘gentle whisperings’ which pass between bosom friends, the confidence that springs from the very roots of the human heart.
An eminent essayist of our own day has been pleading for more autobiographies of unknown persons. If I read him aright, he wishes that more persons, however humble, however obscure, would set forth their thoughts and experiences. He believes that such writings would make better reading than much that finds its way into print. There is an idea in some quarters that unless a person enjoys peculiar gifts of expression, or has achieved distinction in some walk of life, his thoughts and experiences are of no public interest. But there are, I am certain, many who would rather have the unadorned expression of a man’s innermost feelings than the thoughts that flit so lightly from the mind of the accomplished litterateur. How many are they—men whose names are emblazoned upon the roll of honour—who have confessed to a love for conversing with the ordinary man, ‘the man in the street’! As for your ‘men of letters,’ you are well aware of their love for conversing with unknown and frequently humble persons, ‘casual acquaintances.’ And who shall say to what extent we are indebted to those persons for the thoughts which, having been selected and refined, sparkle like jewels fresh from the cutter’s hands?
How numerous are the men who have read widely and thought deeply, and yet hesitate before expressing an opinion upon the most trivial matters! Fortunate is the person who can induce such men to talk freely, to express their views, their secret thoughts, on this, that, and the other subject—their beloved books, their likes, their dislikes, their aspirations, their fears, their hopes. Such confessions should make good reading. By dint of a little gentle persuasion I have managed to glean ‘copy’ of this description, which I shall hope to set down in these pages, carefully avoiding meanwhile any mention of names. The mere thought of publicity would bring a blush to the cheeks of the good gentlemen I have in mind. I must adopt the plan of those ‘Knights of the Pen’ of whom mention has been made. But here the process will be reversed. Here the rich thought of others will come forth in homely attire.
I would, however, first inquire in what respect the lover of books differs from the rank-and-file? What are his distinctive characteristics? Langford has declared that no matter what his rank or position may be, the lover of books is the richest and happiest of men. But is that entirely true? I confess that I do not find it so. The lover of books is, I fancy, grievously prone to hanker after the moon, or, to put it another way, to build wondrous fairy palaces, which he would fain inhabit and cannot. I fancy he is apt to suffer from a ‘glorious discontent.’ He is too imaginative, too sensitive, to enjoy the distinction of being the happiest of men.
Indeed, is it not a fact that we book-lovers stand in danger of falling out of sympathy with this rough-and-tumble old world? Certainly many of us resent anything that threatens to come between us and our idols. (I have friends, book-lovers, who as strongly resent an intrusion into the sacred nook that holds themselves and a book as they would resent the invasion of a foreign power.) Thus grows upon the book-lover an ever-deepening desire for solitude, for the quiet life. Others may, if they choose, jostle for the gilded things of life. He is for other prizes, treasures of the mind and spirit. He, for his part, prefers to saunter through quiet by-ways, knowing full well that prizes will rest in his path, and that these, which he need but stoop to gather, will prove abiding treasures.
Yes, certainly the lover of books is rich. Every true lover must in the nature of the case be that. Listen to Gibbon: ‘My early and invincible love of reading I would not change for the treasures of India.’ How many have spoken in like manner! ‘You, O Books,’ cried Aungervyle, ‘are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the clerical militia with which missiles of the most wicked are destroyed; fruitful olives, vines of Engedi, fig-trees knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be ever held in hand.’