Passing now to those who, in one way or another, are to meet with and handle the completed book, we may begin with a class of literary barnacles who stick about the libraries of their friends and of the public institutions, and feed their bibliophilistic appetites on what others have spent much time and money in collecting. These may perhaps more appropriately be called biblio-spongers, and are of all ranks in the community, many even owning beautiful homes, and having ample resources at command; but while enjoying the congenial atmosphere of a well-furnished library, and the delights of caressing the precious and wisely selected tomes of others, they are still of such temperaments that they would no more think of buying books than would another of buying an opera-house in order to satisfy theatre-going propensities. These people should be taught that fine books, like friends, are not loanable or exchangeable chattels. They will argue that there is no use spending money for books, because they reside within easy reach of a public library where such books as they desire are readily obtainable, or perhaps suggest that "I have free access to my friend Smith's library; he scarcely ever uses it;" without reflecting that Smith would probably use it more, if his friends used it less. And yet such folk will still incur the needless expense of providing their own homes with chairs, unless, haply, such homes may chance to be within convenient reach of some park or public institution where free seats are provided.
Most of us are disposed to idealize a besotted bibliomaniac as a harmless being whose companionship and favor are neither to be courted nor particularly avoided,—a sort of shellfish basking on the bank of life's flow in whatever sunshine it may absorb, and paying little heed to the thoughts or actions of others.
The following curious inscription which is found on an old copperplate print of the famous bibliomaniac, John Murray, will illustrate one of the varieties:—
Hoh Maister John Murray of Sacomb,
The Works of old Time to collect was his pride,
Till Oblivion dreaded his Care:
Regardless of Friends, intestate he dy'd,
So the Rooks and the Crows were his Heir.
Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole, President of The Bibliophile Society, aptly describes a miserly bibliomaniac as a
Victim of a frenzied passion,
He is lean and lank and crusty;
Naught he cares for dress or fashion
And his rusty coat smells musty;
while in characterizing the natural impulses of true bibliophilism, he says that
Bibliophiles take pride in showing
All the gems of their collections;
They are generous in bestowing,
They have genuine affections.
Peignot says a bibliomaniac is one who has "a passion for possessing books; not so much to be instructed by them as to gratify the eye by looking on them." This presumption is about as reasonable as it would be to say that a man is a monomaniac because he gets married when he is in no special need of a house-servant, or body-guard.
In his Bibliomania Dibdin enumerates eight symptoms of this "darling passion or insanity," in the following order: "A passion for large-paper copies, uncut copies, extra-illustrated copies, unique copies, copies printed on vellum, first editions, true editions, and black-letter copies."