Confessions of a book-lover

by E. Walter Walters

Still, I, for one, am ready enough to confess that old calf-bound volumes as such leave me unmoved. Too often have I, together with other lovers of books, found them dry, as well as dusty. I respect their age. I consider the mellowed calf in which they are bound admirable material. I admire their durability. But such features do not greatly tempt me. I am for volumes of homely appearance. My own coat being of simple homespun, I am more at home with volumes bound in cloth. Give me for my daily companions unpretentious books. Many in my possession cost no more than from two to three pence. For I, too, am of the company of book-lovers who dip at times into the ‘lucky-tubs’ to be found outside booksellers’ shops. I confess, moreover, that I belong to the class ‘of street reader who, not having the wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls.’ Often and often have I been tempted by the well-worn volumes—so unpretentious without, so rich within—that await the attention of the leisurely passer-by. Two humble pence, and a mine of wisdom becomes one’s own.

So much, then, for old volumes. Now, what of the new? What of the many dainty volumes sent out daily by modern makers of books? I am thinking at the moment of the men whose business it is to bind and print, who with amazing ingenuity send forth volumes having the appearance of jewel caskets—wondrous designs of every tint to be found on a painter’s palette. I confess that I find such productions exceedingly attractive. I confess that I am frequently tempted by them. It would be good, I feel, to be the possessor of a volume of Selected English Essays bound in ‘leather soft as velvet.’ I am more fanciful in my tastes than that friend of mine who insists upon seeing his old comrades in well-worn attire. I like to see Charles Lamb strutting forth in purple and gold. I am touched when I behold the great men who reign in the ‘world of the classics’ standing shoulder to shoulder, arrayed in ‘gorgeous confections’ upon a shelf in a bookseller’s window.

But I have no desire to possess the large and weighty volume that falls under the title Edition de Luxe. I am not tempted by bulky volumes, however elaborately they may be adorned. I have no desire to undergo the painful experience of a certain gentleman pictured in Punch, who, after making valiant efforts to handle one such volume, was finally reduced to an abject state of exhaustion. Give me volumes of convenient size. Give me, I pray, volumes I can master.

IV
‘OUTSIDE THEIR BOOKS’

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend.—Goldsmith.

I HAVE confessed that I like to feel the heart, the humanity, of an author. How natural, then, if I desire to know something about his home-life, his family, his manner of living, his favourite means of recreation. Surely such curiosity is free from censure. Of what stuff are the fine gentlemen made who tell us that we have no business with the private affairs of our great writers? Does not our curiosity spring from respect, from admiration—from love? Am I to be blamed if I desired to know how the affairs of this world went with the writer who has charmed and instructed me, who has led me into new worlds of thought and feeling? If I have learned to love an author through his books, may I not be permitted to ask whether he was happily situated? We speak glibly enough of the ‘friendship of books,’ and what, pray, does that mean but the friendship of authors? I have still to learn that it is no part of a man’s duty to take an interest in the home-life of his friends.

‘We are not all hero-worshippers,’ says Alexander Smith, ‘but most of us are so to a large extent. A large proportion of mankind feel a quite peculiar interest in famous writers. Concerning such men no bit of information is too trifling; everything helps to make out the mental image we have dimly formed for ourselves. And this kind of interest is heightened by the artistic way in which Time occasionally groups them. We think of the wild geniuses who came up from the Universities to London in the dawn of the English drama. Greene, Nash, Marlowe—our professional men of letters—how they cracked their satirical whips, how pinched they were at times; how, when they possessed money, they flung it from them as if it was poison; with what fierce speed they wrote, how they shook the stage.’

Wherefore I say let the fine gentlemen who boast of their superiority to the so-called trivialities of life go their way, whilst I go mine. Let them stand upon their lofty pedestals, whilst I inquire how my favourite authors lived, how they spent their days, how they divided their time, how many hours were given to work and how many to recreation. I have no fear that such knowledge will lessen my admiration for my heroes. I look up, it is true, with feelings akin to awe at the great men who have influenced me. But I desire at times to have a clearer view, I like to walk round and about them, to peer through the brilliant glow by which they are surrounded, to see the men, to feel their humanity, to learn how they met the ‘common daily round.’

And I confess that it matters little to me how I glean the desired information. But for preference give me the records of a trained observer. For how much better to see with the eyes of one whose vision is clear, keen, and penetrating! How good, for instance, to accompany Alexander Smith on a visit to the ‘Mermaid’ in session, and there behold the great ‘Shakespeare’s bland oval face, the light of a smile spread over it, and Ben Jonson’s truculent image, and Beaumont and Fletcher sitting together in their beautiful friendship!’ And how good to think that we may go in the company of the same gracious guide, to the famous Literary Club, and there find Burke and Johnson and Garrick and Goldsmith. ‘The Doctor has been talking there for a hundred years, and there will talk for many a hundred more.’ And then, so highly are we favoured, we may go (and who would not?) to Charles Lamb’s snug little room in Inner Temple Lane, and there find ‘the hush of a whist-table in one corner, the host stuttering puns as he deals the cards, and sitting about; Hunt, whose every sentence is flavoured with the hawthorn and the primrose, and Hazlitt maddened by Waterloo and St. Helena, and Goodwin with his wild theories, and Kemble with his Roman look. And before the morning comes, and Lamb stutters yet more thickly—for there is a slight flavour of punch in the apartment—what talk there has been of Hogarth’s prints, of Izaak Walton, of the old dramatists, of Sir Thomas Browne’s Urn Burial, with Elia’s quaint humour breaking through every interstice, and flowing in every fissure and cranny of the conversation.’

Ah, yes! it is good to have such glimpses as these, to find the authors who have charmed and instructed us free from the ‘fetters of the pen’—their own good or bad, sweet or petulant, always brilliant selves. And how true it is that such glimpses lend peculiar interest to written words! The book-lovers who like to feel the humanity of an author must surely form a vast and ever-increasing company.