Happier is the book-collector than he who acquires ancient pieces of furniture, old vases, or pewter mugs. For, unlike the old book, these things can be reproduced in facsimile so that you may not tell the difference between old and new, and the reproduction may be stronger and more serviceable than the original. Moreover he is not troubled with qualms as to their genuineness, undergoing agonies of apprehension while each treasure—or otherwise—is submitted to the scrutiny of friends and experts.
There is a lasting charm about a book of our choice which the antique-collector can never hope to experience. His treasure may be grotesque or it may be beautiful, in either case it may please the eye every time that he behold it, through many years. But beyond pleasure to the eye and perhaps a smug complacency in its possession, there is nothing else. He knows it inside-out, as it were, within a few minutes of its acquisition. Very different, however, is the case with a book. After the attraction exercised by its ancient appearance, the exterior aspect is in reality but a secondary consideration, and when we have expressed ourselves as to whether it be a fine or a poor copy, we turn at once to its contents. The very wording of the title-page gives us an inkling of the writer's character, places us upon his plane, and tunes our thoughts in harmony with his.
What book-lover does not sympathise with that great man Lenglet du Fresnoy? Perhaps few men have come so completely under the spell of books; for he devoted a long life entirely to consuming the fruits of the master minds that had gone before him. In spite of the gossip concerning him, not always to his credit, that has come down to us, it is undeniable that by sheer love and knowledge of books he piled up a monument that will ever keep his name in memory among bibliophiles for he is numbered with such giants as Hain, Brunet, and Lowndes. The 'Methode pour étudier l'Histoire' alone is sufficient to show his extraordinary knowledge of books; indeed, they were the very inspirers of his being and though his paths led him to high places, 'a passion for study for ever crushed the worm of ambition.' Having spent the greater part of his eighty-two years among old books, it was a modern one which caused his end; for, slumbering over its dulness, he fell into the fire and was burned to death!
It is said of him that he refused all the conveniences offered by a rich sister, that he might not endure the restraint of a settled dinner-hour; preferring to browse undisturbed among his beloved tomes. His immense knowledge of ancient books is shown by the vast number of diverse works which he wrote and edited; but so forcible and controversial were his writings that he was sent to the Bastille some ten or twelve times. It is even related of him that he got to know the prison so well, that when Tapin (one of the guards who usually conducted him thither) entered his chamber, he did not wait to hear his commission but began himself by saying 'Ah! Bonjour, Monsieur Tapin,' then turning to the woman who waited on him, 'Allons vite, mon petit paquet, du linge et du tabac,' and went along gaily with M. Tapin to the Bastille. Verily the true bibliophile is not as other men, and a modern world looks upon him askance. Yet his portion is a happiness that riches cannot purchase, for his soul has found lasting comfort and contentment in a knowledge of the innermost recesses of human thought. There is no aspect or phase of the human mind with which he is unacquainted; and it is a knowledge that books alone can impart.
Yet our true book-lover is not of those whose very religion is the preservation of the pristine appearance of their books, who deem it sacrilege to destroy one jot of the contemporary leather in which their treasures are clothed: liking rather to glue, varnish, and patch, preferring even a grotesque effect rather than sacrifice an inch of decayed calf. Their point of view is wholly admirable: that the only form in which we are justified in possessing a book is that in which it was originally issued to the world: that the men who bestowed great thought in giving it birth, to wit, author and publisher, know better what is meet and seemly for it than can any man of a different age: that one man's choice is another man's abhorrence: and so on, and so on. Granted these things are so; but surely he who possesses the volume may have some say in its appearance, since it exists upon his shelf solely for his own delight and for no other man's?
'It is mine,' says Praktikos, 'may I not clothe it in the colours of the rainbow if it please me?'
'Then you are a vandal,' replies Phulax, 'for you will ruin your book, and it will not be worth ten shillings when it returns from the binder.'
And there's the rub: rebind your book and—in nine cases out of ten—you will lower its market value. Therefore, if the book-collector have any eye to the purely commercial value of his library, he will do well to become an 'original-boards-uncut' man at once. Handsome his library will never be, for here there will be a whole set of paper-bound volumes lacking backs, here a folio strangely patched and mended, there a book in rather dirty vellum somewhat cockled by damp, and so on. But he will have the satisfaction of knowing that his volumes retain, in their appearance at least, something of the spirit of the time in which they first saw light. Perhaps they will create for him the more easily that stimulating yet peaceful atmosphere imparted by a collection of old books.
Is there not, then, any alternative to preserving one's volumes in a disreputable condition? Assuredly there is—there are two alternatives. Either the collector will be so wise (and, incidentally, so wealthy) as never to purchase a dilapidated book, or else he must exercise great common sense and much good taste, putting fancy entirely to one side.
You possess a copy of Cotton's translation of the Commentaries of Messire Blaize de Montluc, folio 1674. It is a good, clean, tall copy, but clothed in tattered contemporary brown calf. Half of the back is missing, two of the corners are badly broken, and a piece of the leather upon the under cover is torn off. Perchance you elect to send it to your binder, with strict instructions that it is to be repaired with plain calf. In due course the volume is returned to you, and it now presents a fearful and marvellous appearance. It is the proud possessor of a new back, nearly but not quite matching the sides in colour, and upon this the remaining upper half of the original back has been pasted. The corners bulge strangely, and you can discern new leather underneath the old and wherever the old was deficient. The sides shine with polishing, and a patch—again not quite matching the original, for it is next to impossible to do this—has been inserted on the under cover. The whole volume shines unnaturally, and has rather a piebald appearance. In short, it reminds one of Bardolph's face—'all bubukles and whelks and knobs.'
