18. Lost Patterns
COLLESTAMORE was showing me his library, but a summons to the telephone had drawn him from the room and I was standing before the set of shelves between the cases containing rarities and those which held fine bindings, frankly puzzled. There were not many books ranged here and I could not make out the distinction that grouped them together. It might have been no distinction but mere accident in the case of anyone less methodical than Collestamore. With him, no; some thought or queer intention must underlie the choosing. Fiction and non-fiction, new books and some old ones, some volumes of attractive format and design and others whose homely plainness was possibly compensated by the fact of their being first editions—it meant nothing. Alphabetical arrangement by authors hadn’t been attempted and was, indeed, scarcely worth while until the little assembly grew larger. Then he returned and met my look of inquiry with:
“You’ve discovered my Lost Patterns.”
“Lost Patterns?”
“Oh,” he said, “there aren’t many of them, as yet. The fact is, I only thought of it a week ago. It rained all afternoon, so I spent a couple of hours amusing myself with them—with a beginning of them.”
“‘Lost’? But some of them are new enough.”
“It’s the only name I could think of that I rather liked,” was his explanation. “A Lost Pattern—the idea I was trying to express—may be either old or new. It has nothing to do with the edition or the binding, but everything to do with the contents of a book. Novel or essay or biography, the text ought to represent something we have not had before or since and aren’t likely to have again; something individual in the scheme or the style; something wholly personal in the flavour—in short, unique, I suppose. What James Huneker would have called a unicorn. By the way, he is a Lost Pattern, probably.”
“Probably.” I was not unsympathetic to his idea. “You are anxious to get together a collection for the collection’s sake, I take it.”
“No, for the reader’s sake. It wouldn’t have any value as a collection, other than the curious, and I swear it could have no value for the person of literary practices.” I glanced at him but could detect nothing in his expression. I have always suspected Collestamore of secret literary practices, concealed efforts to put his freakish self into words. My idea is that he attempts essays and that so far he is like a fellow fond of cigarettes and learning to roll his own. He went on, more meditatively: “A fellow desiring to be a writer would waste his time if he aped these people.” All the same, I thought, I will bet that you——
“I began with a few new books,” he was saying. “New or comparatively so. The thing that started me, I guess, was Elinor Wylie’s novel.” He fingered his copy of Jennifer Lorn.