He does not include women, borrowers, or thieves. Perhaps he considers them rather as enemies of the book-owners
The worm is not always to be considered an enemy to authors, although he may be to books. James Payn, in speaking of the recent discovery, in the British Museum, of a copy on papyrus of the humorous poems of the obscure Greek poet, Herodles, says: “The humorous poems of Herodles possess, however, the immense advantage of being ‘seriously mutilated by worms’; wherever therefore an hiatus occurs, the charitable and cultured mind will be enabled to conclude that (as in the case of a second descent upon a ball supper) the ‘best things’ have been already devoured.” It was doubtless to guard against thieves that the ancient books were chained up in the monasteries, but the practice was effectual also against borrowers. De Bury, in his “Philobiblon” has a chapter entitled “A Provident Arrangement by which his Books may be lent to Strangers,” in which the utmost leniency is to lend duplicate books upon ample security. Not to adopt the harsh judgment of an ancient author, who says, “to lend a book is to lose it, and borrowing but a hypocritical pretense for stealing,” we may conclude, in a word, that to lend a book is like the Presidency of the United States, to be neither desired nor refused. Collectors are not so much exposed to the ravages of thieves as book-sellers are, and a book-thief ought to be regarded with leniency for his good taste and his reliance on the existence of culture in others. After all, it is one’s own fault if he lends a book
One should as soon think of lending one of his children, unless he has duplicate or triplicate daughters. It would be difficult to foretell what would happen to a man who should propose to borrow a rare book. Perhaps death by freezing would be the safest prediction. Although Grolier stamped “et amicorum” on his books, that did not mean that he would lend them, but only that his friends were free of them at his house. It is amusing to note, in Mr. Castle’s monograph on Book-Plates, how many of them indicate a stern purpose not to lend books. Mr. Gosse regards book-plates as a precaution not only against thieves, but against borrowers. He observes of the man who does not adopt a book-plate: “Such a man is liable to great temptations. He is brought face to face with that enemy of his species, the borrower, and does not speak with him in the gate. If he had a book-plate he would say, ‘Oh! certainly I will lend you this volume, if it has not my book-plate in it; of course one makes it a rule never to lend a book that has.’ He would say this and feign to look inside the volume, knowing right well that this safeguard against the borrower is there already.” One may make a gift of a book to a friend, but there is as much difference between giving a book and lending one as there is between indorsing a note and giving the money. I have considerable respect for and sympathy with a good honest book-thief. He holds out no false hopes and makes no false pretences. But the borrower who does not return adds hypocrisy and false pretences to other crime. He ought to be committed to the State prison for life, and put at keeping the books of the institution. In a buried temple in Cnidos, in 1857, Mr. Newton found rolls of lead hung up, on which were inscribed spells devoting enemies to the infernal gods for sundry specified offenses, among which was the failure to return a borrowed garment
On which Agnes Repplier says: “Would that it were given to me now to inscribe, and by inscribing doom, all those who have borrowed and failed to return our books; would that by scribbling some strong language on a piece of lead we could avenge the lamentable gaps on our shelves, and send the ghosts of the wrong-doers howling dismally into the eternal shades of Tartarus.”
have spoken of a certain amount of sympathy as due from a magnanimous book-owner toward a pilferer of such wares. This is always on the condition that he steals to add to his own hoard and not for mere pecuniary gain. The following is suggested as a Christian mode of dealing with
THE BOOK-THIEF.