The Bibliotaph, and Other People

by Leon H. Vincent

There was yet another friend, the Country Squire, who revels in wealth, buys large-paper copies, reads little but deeply, and raises chickens. His library (the room itself, I mean) is a gentleman’s library, with much cornice, much plate-glass, and much carving; whereof a wit said, ‘The Squire has such a beautiful library, and no place to put his books.’

These books are of a sort to rejoice the heart, but their tenure of occupancy is uncertain. Hardly one of them but is liable to eviction without a moment’s notice. They have a look in their attitude which indicates consciousness of being pilgrims and strangers. They seem to say, ‘We can tarry, we can tarry but a night.’ Some have tarried two nights, others a week, others a year, a few even longer. But aside from a dozen or so of volumes, not one of the remaining three thousand dares to affirm that it holds a permanent place in its owner’s heart of hearts. It is indeed a noble procession of books which has passed in and out of those doors. A day will come in which the owner realizes that he has as good as the market can furnish, and then banishments will cease. One sighs not for the volumes which deserved exile, but for those which were sent away because their master ceased to love them.

There was no friend with whom the Bibliotaph lived on easier terms than with the Country Squire. They were counterparts. They supplemented one another. The Bibliotaph, though he was born and bred on a farm, had fled for his salvation to the city. The Squire, a man of city birth and city education, had fled for his soul’s health to the country; he had rendered existence almost perfect by setting up an urban home in rural surroundings. It was well said of that house that it was finely reticent in its proffers of hospitality, and regally magnificent in its kindness to those whom it delighted to honor.

It was in the Country Squire’s library that the Bibliotaph first met that actor with whom he became even more intimate than with the Squire himself. The closeness of their relation suggested the days of the old Miracle plays when the theatre and the Church were as hand in glove. The Bibliotaph signified his appreciation of his new friend by giving him a copy of a sixteenth-century book ‘containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth.’ The Player in turn compiled for his friend of clerical appearance a scrap-book, intended to show how evil associations corrupt good actors.

This actor professed that which for want of a better term might be called parlor agnosticism. The Bibliotaph was sturdily inclined towards orthodoxy, and there was from time to time collision between the two. It is my impression that the actor sometimes retired with four of his five wits halting. But he was brilliant even when he mentally staggered. Neither antagonist convinced the other, and after a while they grew wearied of traveling over one another’s minds.

It fell out on a day that the actor made a fine speech before a large gathering, and mindful of stage effect he introduced a telling allusion to an all-wise and omnipotent Providence. For this he was, to use his own phrase, ‘soundly spanked’ by all his friends; that is, he was mocked at, jeered, ridiculed. To what end, they said, was one an agnostic if he weakly yielded his position to the exigencies of an after-dinner speech. The Bibliotaph alone took pains to analyze his late antagonist’s position. He wrote to the actor congratulating him upon his success. ‘I wondered a little at this, remembering how inconsiderable has been your practice; and I infer that it has been inconsiderable, for I am aware how seldom an actor can be persuaded to make a speech. I, too, was at first shocked when I heard that you had made a respectful allusion to Deity; but I presently took comfort, remembering that your gods, like your grease-paints, are purely professional.’

He was always capital in these teasing moods. To be sure, he buffeted one about tremendously, but his claws were sheathed, and there was a contagiousness in his frolicsome humor. Moreover one learned to look upon one’s self in the light of a public benefactor. To submit to be knocked about by the Bibliotaph was in a modest way to contribute to the gayety of nations. If one was not absolutely happy one’s self, there was a chastened comfort in beholding the happiness of the on-lookers.

A small author wrote a small book, so small that it could be read in less time than it takes to cover an umbrella, that is, ‘while you wait.’ The Bibliotaph had Brobdingnagian joy of this book. He sat and read it to himself in the author’s presence, and particularly diminutive that book appeared as its light cloth cover was outlined against the Bibliotaph’s ample black waistcoat. From time to time he would vent ‘a series of small private laughs,’ especially if he was on the point of announcing some fresh illustration of the fallibility of inexperienced writers. Finally the uncomfortable author said, ‘Don’t sit there and pick out the mistakes.’ To which the Bibliotaph triumphantly replied, ‘What other motive is there for reading it at all?’

He purchased every copy of this book which he could find, and when asked by the author why he did so, replied, ‘In order to withdraw it from circulation.’ A moment afterwards he added reflectively, ‘But how may I hope to withdraw a book from that which it has never had?’

He was apt to be severe in his judgment of books, as when he said of a very popular but very feeble literary performance that it was an argument for the existence of God. ‘Such intensity of stupidity was not realized without Infinite assistance.’