here is one figure that stands in a very unpleasant relation to books
If anybody has any curiosity to know what I consider the most undesirable occupation of mankind, I will answer candidly—that of an auctioneer of private libraries. It does not seem to have fallen into disrepute like that of the headsman or hangman, and perhaps it is as unpleasantly essential as that of the undertaker. But it generally thrives on the unhappiness of those who are compelled to part with their books, on the rivalries of the rich, and the strifes of the trade
It was urged against Mr. Cleveland, on his first canvass for the Presidency, that when he was sheriff he had hanged a murderer. For my own part, I admired him for performing that solemn office himself rather than hiring an underling to do it. But if he had been a book-auctioneer, I might have been prejudiced against him
Not so ignoble and inhuman perhaps as that of the slave-seller, still the business must breed a sort of callousness which is abhorrent to the genial Book-Worm. How I hate the glib rattle of his tongue, the mouldiness of his jests and the transparency of his puffery! I should think he would hate himself. It must be worse than acting Hamlet or Humpty Dumpty a hundred consecutive nights
Dante had no punishment for the Book-Worm in hell, if I remember right, but if he deserved any pitiless reprobation, it would be found in compelling him to cry off books to all eternity