Probably nearly every collector expects that his treasures will be dispersed at his death, if not sooner. But it is a serious question to the illustrator, what will become of these precious objects upon which he has spent so much time, thought and labor, and for which he has expended so much money. He never cares and rarely knows, and if he knows he never tells, how much they have cost, but he may always be certain that they will never fetch their cost. Let us not indulge in any false dreams on this subject. The time may have been when prints were cheap and when the illustrator may have been able to make himself whole or even reap a profit, but that day I believe has gone by
One can hardly expect that his family will care for these things; the son generally thinks the Book-Worm a bore, and the wife of one’s bosom and the daughter of one’s heart usually affect more interest than they feel, and if they kept such objects would do so from a sense of duty alone, as the ancient Romans preserved the cinerary urns of their ancestors. For myself, I have often imagined my grandson listlessly turning over one of my favorite illustrated volumes, and saying, “What a funny old duffer grandad must have been!” Such a book-club, as the “Grolier,” of New York, is a fortunate avenue of escape from these evils. There one might deposit at least some of his peculiar treasures, certain that they would receive good care, be regarded with permanent interest, and keep alive his memory.
o augment his books by inserting prints is ordinarily just the one thing which the Book-Worm can do to render them in a deeper sense his own, and to gain for himself a peculiar proprietorship in them. Generally he cannot himself bind them, but by this means he may render himself a coadjutor of the author, and place himself on equal terms with the printer and the binder
After he has illustrated a favorite book once, it is an enjoyable occupation for the Book-Worm to do it over again, in a different spirit and with different pictures. “Second thoughts are best,” it has been said, and I have more than once improved my subject by a second treatment
There is another form of illustration, of which I have not spoken, and that is the insertion of clippings from magazines and newspapers in the fly leaves. Sometimes these are of intense interest. My own Dickens, Thackeray and Hawthorne, in particular have their porticoes and posterms plentifully supplied with material of this sort