The most striking picture of a bookseller that I recall in all literature is one drawn by M. Uzanne, in the charming book mentioned above, which I will endeavor to transmute and transmit under the title of
THE PROPHETIC BOOK.
a Croix,” said the Emperor, “cease to beguile;
These bookstalls must go from my bridges and quays;
No longer shall tradesmen my city defile
With mouldering hideous scarecrows like these.”
While walking that night with the bibliophile,
On the Quai Malaquais by the Rue de Saints Peres,
The Emperor saw, with satirical smile,
Enkindling his stove, in the chill evening air,
With leaves which he tore from a tome by his side,
A bookseller ancient, with tremulous hands;
And laying aside his imperial pride,
“What book are you burning?” the Emperor demands.
For answer Pere Foy handed over the book,
And there as the headlines saluted his glance,
Napoleon read, with a stupefied look,
“Account of the Conquests and Victories of France.”
The dreamer imperial swallowed his ire;
Pere Foy still remained at his musty old stand,
Till France was environed by sword and by fire,
And Germans like locusts devoured the land.
oubtless the occupation of bookseller is generally regarded as a very pleasant as well as a refined one. But there is another side, in the estimation of a true Book-Worm, and it is not agreeable to him to contemplate the life of
THE BOOK-SELLER.
e stands surrounded by rare tomes
Which find with him their transient homes,
He knows their fragrant covers;
He keeps them but a week or two,
Surrenders then their charming view
To bibliomaniac lovers.
An enviable man, you say,
To own such wares if but a day,
And handle, see and smell;
But all the time his spirit shrinks,
As wandering through his shop he thinks
He only keeps to sell.
The man who buys from him retains
His purchase long as life remains,
And then he doesn’t mind
If his unbookish eager heirs,
Administering his affairs,
Shall throw them to the wind.
Or if in life he sells, in sooth,
’Tis parting with a single tooth,
A momentary pain;
Booksellers, like Sir Walter’s Jew,
Must this keen suffering renew,
Again and yet again.
And so we need not envy him
Who sells us books, for stark and grim
Remains this torture deep.
This Universalistic hell—
Throughout this life he’s bound to sell;
He has, but cannot keep.