III
BOOKS THAT TEMPT
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.—Bacon.
WHAT are the books that tempt? Are they the old, familiar volumes, old friends in old clothes—well-worn editions of the classics? Or are they those same old friends decked in rich and fanciful bindings? I am acquainted with a book-lover who confesses that he has no taste for the fanciful modern reprint. You may show him Lamb, or Hazlitt, or Hunt, or Jefferies, or Stevenson in the richest of binding, and tempt him not. He is not, he declares, to be caught that way. As well might the reader go arrayed in frills and furbelows to a masculine friend and expect to be received with decorum. This friend of mine, I say, is as contemptuous of the modern, richly-bound classic as of any other form of foppery. He insists on meeting his friends, whether it be in print or in the flesh, in unaffected, homely attire.
He will tell you that the ‘gentle Elia’ was of the same way of thinking, and that he wrote in effect: ‘How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves and worn-out appearance, nay, the very odour (beyond Russia) if we would not forget the kind feeling in fastidiousness, of old circulating library volumes! How they speak of the thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages with delight! of the lone seamstress, whom they cheered (milliner or hard-working mantua-maker) after her long day’s needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a whit less soiled? What better condition could you desire to see them in?’
Fastidious readers who insist upon having new books, or books ‘good as new,’ must, I fancy, feel a ‘twinge of guilt’ in the face of such humane sentiments. I confess, to my shame, that I am of the guilty company; that I am fastidious as regards the condition of a book; that torn, well-thumbed books do not tempt me, whatever their contents. And not only am I guilty, but would seek to defend my guilt. I protest that it is the pleasurable duty of the book-lover to keep his treasured volumes in goodly condition; that a cover is but a new home, and that when the old one has served its purpose it should be replaced as readily as one would find a worthy dwelling-place for a beloved relative. I like to see my friends in the best possible circumstances. I like to see them bearing a well-cared-for, well-favoured appearance.
I do not forget the ‘lone sempstress’ spoken of so tenderly by Lamb. I would have torn volumes repaired and shabby ones replaced in all circulating libraries. In no circumstances would I permit a treasured classic to go forth in a shabby condition. I would place new volumes, or volumes good as new, within the reach of all.
But it cannot be denied that many tender associations are woven around numerous aged, well-preserved volumes. Where is the true book-lover who could not give a list of such? ‘Their very odour,’ he will tell you, ‘is beyond Russia.’ How sacred their well-preserved pages! Your up-to-date reprints, with their fanciful covers, are no company for such. Their gaiety is shamed by stately calf-bound volumes.
Yes, there is a grave and sober dignity about old well-preserved books. It matters not whether they be bound in morocco, calf, or russia. The sacred associations of old age are theirs. If we do not love them, at least we reverence them. ‘What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of the Bodleians were reposing here as in some dormitory or middle state.... I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of the old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grow amid the happy orchard.’
Yes, to many the old ‘moth-scented’ volumes are the books that tempt. I have a friend who has placed a standing order with a bookseller to supply him with all old calf-bound volumes to be procured at a certain sum. Dare I state the sum fixed? It is counted in pence—pence only, mark you! But as my friend has made no stipulations as regards the contents of the desired volumes, he has a goodly array of books, each one ‘moth-scented,’ each one a model of dignity.
My friend, however, is not a great reader. He is not, I venture to assert, a book-lover. I fancy he should be called an antiquarian. Certainly his liking for antiquities is greater than his love for the contents of books. Books to him are rather furniture for rooms than for minds. Show him an example of skilfully ‘tooled’ calf, and you will please him better than if you had voiced an inspiring thought. But wait! I must hold my pen. Who can say to what depths of thought and feeling my friend is moved by the sight of his well-filled shelves? Has it not been said that there is inspiration in a mere glance at old volumes; that they seem to exhale learning?