XII.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARIAN.
here is one species of the Book-Worm which is more pitiable than the Bookseller, and that is the Public Librarian, especially of a circulating library. He is condemned to live among great collections of books and exhibit them to the curious public, and to be debarred from any proprietorship in them, even temporary. But the greater part this does not grieve a true Book-Worm, for he would scorn ownership of a vast majority of the books which he shows, but on the comparatively rare occasions when he is called on to produce a real book (in the sense of Bibliomania), he must be saddened by the reflection that it is not his own, and that the inspection of it is demanded of him as a matter of right
I have often observed the ill concealed reluctance with which the librarian complies with such a request; how he looks at the demandant with a degree of surprise, and then produces the key of the repository where the treasure is kept under guard, and heaving a sigh delivers the volume with a grudging hand. It was this characteristic which led me in my youth, before I had been inducted into the delights of Bibliomania and had learned to appreciate the feelings of a librarian, to define him as one who conceives it to be his duty to prevent the public from seeing the books. I owe a good old librarian an apology for having said this of him, and hereby offer my excuses to one whose honorable name is recorded in the Book of Life