The singular readiness with which bookish treasures fell into his way astonished less fortunate buyers. Rare Stevensons dropped into his hand like ripe fruit from a tree. The most inaccessible of pamphlets fawned upon him, begging to be purchased, just as the succulent little roast pigs in The New Paul and Virginia run about with knives and forks in their sides pleading to be eaten. The Bibliotaph said he did not despair of buying Poe’s Tamerlane for twenty-five cents one of these days; and that a rarity he was sure to get sooner or later was a copy of that English newspaper which announced Shelley’s death under the caption Now he Knows whether there is a Hell or Not.
He unconsciously followed Heber in that he disliked large-paper copies. Heber would none of them because they took up too much room; their ample borders encroached upon the rights of other books. Heber objected to this as Prosper Mérimée objected to the gigantic English hoopskirts of 1865,—there was space on Regent Street for but one woman at a time.
Original as the Bibliotaph was in appearance, manners, habits, he was less striking in what he did than in what he said. It is a pity that no record of his talk exists. It is not surprising that there is no such record, for his habits of wandering precluded the possibility of his making a permanent impression. By the time people had fully awakened to the significance of his presence among them he was gone. So there grew up a legend concerning him, but no true biography. He was like a comet, very shaggy and very brilliant, but he stayed so brief a time in a place that it was impossible for one man to give either the days or the thought to the reproduction of his more serious and considered words. A greater difficulty was involved in the fact that the Bibliotaph had many socii, but no fidus Achates. Moreover, Achates, in this instance, would have needed the reportorial powers of a James Boswell that he might properly interpret genius to the public.
This particular genius illustrated the misfortune of having too great facility in establishing those relations which lie midway between acquaintance and friendship. To put the matter in the form of a paradox, he had so many friends that he had no friend. Perhaps this is unjust, but friendship has a touch of jealousy and exclusiveness in it. He was too large-natured to say to one of his admirers, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods save myself;’ but there were those among the admirers who were quite prepared to say to him, ‘We prefer that thou shalt have no other worshipers in addition to us.’
People wondered that he seemed to have no care for a conventional home life. He was taxed with want of sympathy with what makes even a humble home a centre of light and happiness. He denied it, and said to his accusers, ‘Can you not understand that after a stay in your home I go away with much the feeling that must possess a lusty young calf when his well-equipped mother tells him that henceforth he must find means of sustenance elsewhere?’
He professed to have been once in love, but no one believed it. He used to say that his most remarkable experience as a bachelor was in noting the uniformity with which eligible young women passed him by on the other side of the way. And when a married friend offered condolence, with that sleek complacency of manner noteworthy in men who are conscious of being mated for life better than they deserve, the Bibliotaph said, with an admiring glance at the wife, ‘Your sympathy is supererogatory, sir, for I fully expect to become your residuary legatee.’
It is most pleasing to think of this unique man ‘buffeting his books’ in one of those temporary libraries which formed about him whenever he stopped four or five weeks in a place. The shops were rifled of not a few of their choicest possessions, and the spoils carried off to his room. It was a joy to see him display his treasures, a delight to hear him talk of them. He would disarm criticism with respect to the more eccentric purchases by saying, ‘You wouldn’t approve of this, but I thought it was curious,’—and then a torrent of facts, criticisms, quotations, all bearing upon the particular volume which you were supposed not to like; and so on, hour after hour. There was no limit save that imposed by the receptive capacity of the guest. It reminded one of the word spoken concerning a ‘hard sitter at books’ of the last century, that he was a literary giant ‘born to grapple with whole libraries.’ But the fine flavor of those hours spent in hearing him discourse upon books and men is not to be recovered. It is evanescent, spectral, now. This talk was like the improvisation of a musician who is profoundly learned, but has in him a vein of poetry too. The talk and the music strongly appeal to robust minds, and at the same time do not repel the sentimentalist.
It is not to be supposed that the Bibliotaph pleased every one with whom he came in contact. There were people whom his intellectual potency affected in a disagreeable way. They accused him of applying great mental force to inconsidered trifles. They said it was a misfortune that so much talent was going to waste. But there is no task so easy as criticising an able man’s employment of his gifts.