Let Mr. Astor’s door-plate stay on his front door, and let the energetic Mrs. Toodles content herself in buying something less invididual and more adaptable.
book-plate really is of no value except to the owner, as the man says of papers which he has lost. It cannot be utilized to mark the possessions of another. In this respect it is of inferior value to the door-plate, for possibly another Mr. Astor might arise, to whom the orignal door-plate might be sold. A Boston newspaper tells of a peddler of door-plates who contracted to sell a Salem widow a door-plate; and when she gave him her name to be engraved on it, gave only her surname, objecting to any first name or initials, observing: “I might get married again, and if my initials or first name were on the plate, it would be of no use. If they are left off, the plate could be used by my son.”
Thus much about collecting book-plates. One word may be tolerated about the character of one’s own book-plate. To my taste, mere coats-of-arms with mottoes are not the best form.
They simply denote ownership. They might well answer some further purpose, as for example to typify the peculiar tastes of the proprietor in respect to his books. A portrait of the owner is not objectionable, indeed is quite welcome in connection with some device or motto pertaining to books and not to mere family descent. But why, although a collector may have a favorite author, like Hawthorne or Thackeray, for example, should he insert his portrait in his book-plate, as is often done? Mr. Howells would writhe in his grave if he knew that somebody had stuck Thackeray’s portrait or Scott’s in “Silas Lapham,” and those Calvinists who think that the “Scarlet Letter” is wicked, would pronounce damnation on the man who should put the gentle Hawthorne’s portrait in a religious book
To be sure, one might have a variety of book-plates, with portraits appropriate to different kinds of books—Napoleon’s for military, Calvin for religious, Walton’s for angling and a composite portrait of Howells-James for fiction of the photographic school; but this would involve expense and destroy the intrinsic unity desirable in the book-plate. So let the portrait, if any, be either that of the proprietor or a conventional image. If I were to relax and allow a single exception it would be in favor of dear Charles Lamb’s portrait in “Fraser’s,” representing him as reading a book by candle light. (For the moment this idea pleases me so much that I feel half inclined to eat all my foregoing words on this point, and adopt it for myself. At any rate, I hereby preempt the privilege.)
