Within the church two companies are met.
The one is sad and bears an infant's bier,
A woman following; slow steals the tear
On her pale cheek, where grief his mark has set.
The other, a baptism. Protecting arm
Held close, a nurse upbears the precious mite;
Comes the young mother, whose proud looks invite
Praise and allegiance to her baby's charm.
They christen, they absolve; the chapels clear.
Then the two women, crossing in the aisle,
Exchange a single glance at joining there;
And—wondrous mystery to inspire a prayer—
The young wife weeps in gazing on the bier,
The mourner throws the newborn child a smite!
ONE NIGHT AT HEALY'S
We recall many a charming tale, done in the most Lamb-like of accents, regarding the rare and curious old volumes picked up at the farthing stalls. Le Gallienne has reminisced most delightfully and incredibly in this fashion, as have others; but I, for one, long ago decided that these degenerate days never witnessed such discoveries as those recorded in le temps jadis.
Many and many an hour have I spent delving along dusty shelves in grimy shops, or by the less alluring ways of the spick-and-span, rebound and furbished, dustless and listed Olde Book Shoppe whose displays are priced at their weight in carets. In both have I been disappointed. Many a catalog have I pored over, only to decide that all catalogs are supplied from publishers' remainders.
One concludes that the old book trade is a thing of the past, at least so far as we none too affluent consumers are concerned. The dealers know too much about their wares and are too eager after excess profits. They fatten upon the rich manufacturer who seeks scholarly polish, or the scholar who has inherited the price of gratification. If they find an Elzevir, however mean, they placard it at a rare price, and await the victim who thinks that all Elzevirs are treasures.
Once, indeed, I found a little shop in New Orleans, off the tourist lanes, where I encountered over a score of delightful volumes in French, filled with hand-tinted plates, at some very low figure. Alas! I had just been entrapped in Royal street and had but little money left. I bought a number of the sweet tooled-morocco volumes at some little sacrifice, and went my way. Later, in funds, I returned for the remainder of the set, only to find that a famous playwright had discovered the treasure—and all were vanished.
With this exception, luck was seldom mine. Old book shops were many, bargains few. From city to city it was the same old story; until, upon a cold and foggy night in San Francisco, I chanced to pass the forbidding and grimy portal of a shop kept by one Healy.
I merely sniffed and turned to catch a jitney; I had come from a survey of certain downtown shops and felt that I had no more time to waste. Then I saw the proprietor, sitting in an easy-chair in his window, which framed dull old spectacles within a luxuriant and mighty fringe of reddish-grey whiskers. Fascinated, I turned again. Once more to try my luck! Hopeless though I knew it to be, I would still essay the impossible—and I entered.
Truth to tell, my entry was compelled less by hope than by that curious spectacle in the window. In the doorway I came to a pause, aghast before a dim array of shelves which at some prior day had been assorted, but were now jumbled and heaped in a most erratic madness of confusion.