Il choisit pour son aire une cime isolée,
Et c’est de là qu’il part, libre et capricieux.
Le poète est semblable à l’aigle magnanime:
Il aime les hauteurs où l’air vif le ranime,
Où, plus loin de la terre, il est plus près des cieux.
A friend and Tom Folio, who devours the old book catalogues, saw this advertisement a short time since in an English pamphlet: “Machiavelli (Nicolo). Opere, 11 vols., 4to, whole-bound russia extra, gilt edges, with portrait, printed throughout on blue paper (only eight copies so made), a most superb set. Milan, 1810.... £4.” He cabled for it and secured it. It proved a blue diamond. Within a week after receiving it he was offered two hundred dollars for the work. Within a fortnight he disposed of it for three hundred dollars, a sufficient advance to make a large addition to his library.
Many tempting and deceptive titles occur under the heading of “Curious” and “Facetiæ,” but experience will cause one to fight shy of catching titles and annotations unless one knows the work to be meritorious. Frequently the gold is in the tooling, and the pure ore concealed beneath an unattractive cover. Perhaps the windfalls are more than offset by the disappointments. Inviting volume after inviting volume will present itself when one is not in the humor, thrusting itself before you in the book-stalls and auction sales, mutely appealing to you to become its possessor, only to elude you when you earnestly desire it.
But auction sales are dangerous, and are apt to lead to lapses and excesses that one would not commit in calmer moments. There it is difficult to decide dispassionately, while the lots invariably bring far higher prices than if obtained in the ordinary way. Even those of stern judgment are led into purchases they afterward regret, carried away by the excitement of the moment. The seductive voice of the auctioneer, the passion for possession, the rivalry of the bidders, and the excitement of the hour, all exert their influence and combine to weaken even the most stoical and wary. The fly is placed temptingly upon the current, and instantly it is seized.
Again, you dive into the foreign book pamphlets, where a coveted treasure is catalogued, almost inevitably upon application to find it “sold,” the prize is so far out of reach. But how elated you are when you do secure a long-sought prize, and after repeated attempts a tall old copy in perfect condition and in lovely first letterpress rewards your endeavors!
Sainte-Beuve speaks of “the smiling and sensible grace of Charles Lamb.” I am inclined to think the latter’s characteristic good humor was in part due to the facility with which he procured the rare old editions he loved. They were easier to lift from the shelves in Lamb’s days than now, and the old book-dealer possessed far less “Imperfect Sympathies” than the hardened modern Autolycus.