Irving Browne

“ I no sooner come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance, and melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and rich men that know not this happiness. ”

“ In thirty years’ haunting of the book-shops and print-shops of New York, I have never seen a woman catching a cold in her head by turning over the large prints, nor soiling her dainty gloves by handling the dirty old books. ”

“ Fortunate for us if the library is not condemned to be cleaned twice a year. These beloved objects ought to deny themselves a ring, or a horse, or a gown, or a ball now and then, to atone for their mankind’s debauchery in books; but do they? They ought to encourage the Bibliomania, for it keeps their husbands out of mischief, away from “that horrid club,” and safe at home of evenings. The Book-Worm is always a blameless being. He never has to hie to Canada as a refuge. ”

“ A ponderous or voluminous work lends itself less conveniently to the purpose than a small book in one or two volumes. Great quartos and folios are mere mausoleums or repositories for expensive prints, too huge to handle, and too extensive for any one ever to look through, and therefore they afford little pleasure to the owners or their guests. An illustrated Shakespeare in thirty volumes is theoretically a very grand object, but I should never have the heart to open it, and as for histories, I should as soon think of illustrating a dictionary. ”

“ In very recent days there has arisen a large class who demand the first editions of popular novelists like Dickens, Thackeray and Hawthorne, and will pay large prices for these issues which have no value except that of rarity. I can quite understand the enthusiasm of the collector over the beautiful first editions of the Greek and Latin classics, or for the first “Paradise Lost,” or even for the ugly first folio “Shakespeare,” and why he should prefer the comparatively rude first Walton’s Angler to Pickering’s edition, the handsomest of this century, with its monumental title page. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The power of prying into the mysteries of the earth and the wonders of the heavens should raise one’s thoughts above such petty considerations. So it should be in buying that which enables one to converse with Shakespeare or Milton or scan the works of Raphael or Durer. When the pioneer on the western plains purchases an expensive rifle he does not inquire whether he can sell it for what it costs; his purpose is to defend his house against Indians and other wild beasts. So the true book-buyer buys books to fight weariness, disgust, sorrow and despair ”

“ They generally regard the husband’s or father’s expenditure on books as so much spoil of their gowns and jewels. We book-men are up to all the tricks of getting the books into the house without their knowing it What joy and glee when we successfully smuggle in a parcel from the express, right under our wife’s nose, while she is busy talking scandal to another woman in the drawing-room! The good creatures make us positively dishonest and endanger our eternal welfare. ”

“ There is nothing more pitiful than to see the widow of a poor clergyman or lawyer trying to sell his library, and to witness her disappointment at the shrinkage of value which she had been taught and accustomed to regard as so [Pg 46] great. A woman who has a true and wise sympathy with her husband’s book-buying is an adored object. I recollect one such, who at her own suggestion gave up the largest and best room in her house to her husband’s books, and received her callers and guests in a smaller one—she also received her husband’s blessing. ”

“ Thus there are bibliomaniacs who reprint rare books from their own libraries in limited numbers; authors, like Walpole, who print their own works, and whose fame as printers is better deserved than their reputation as writers; like Thackeray, who design the illustrations for their own romances, or, like Astor, who procure a single copy of their novel to be illustrated at lavish expense by artists; amateurs who bind their own books; lunatics who yearn for books wholly engraved, or printed only on one side of the leaf, or Greek books wholly in capitals, or others in the italic letter ”

“ The excellent bookseller takes it for granted, if he stoops to think about it, that if a man orders a Caxton or a Grolier he will pay for it, at his convenience. It was this unthinking liberality which led a New York bookseller to give credit to a distinguished person—afterwards a candidate for the Presidency—to a considerable amount, and to let the account stand until it was outlawed, and his sensibilities were greviously shocked, when being compelled to sue for his due, his debtor pleaded the statute of limitations! ”

“ Henri Pere Du Bois thus describes the ordinary result: “Of one hundred books extended by the insertion of prints which were not made for them, ninety-nine are ruined; the hundredth book is no longer a book; it is a museum. An imperfect book, built with the spoils of a thousand books; a crazy quilt made of patches out of gowns of queens and scullions.” So Burton compares the Grangerite to Genghis Kahn. Mr. Lang declares the Grangerites are “book ghouls, and brood, like the obscene demons of Arabian superstition, over the fragments of the mighty dead.” ”

“ Probably nearly every collector expects that his treasures will be dispersed at his death, if not sooner. But it is a serious question to the illustrator, what will become of these precious objects upon which he has spent so much time, thought and labor, and for which he has expended so much money. He never cares and rarely knows, and if he knows he never tells, how much they have cost, but he may always be certain that they will never fetch their cost. ”

“ Blades does not include tobacco among the enemies of books. In one sense tobacco may be ranked as a book-enemy, for self-denial in this regard may furnish a man with a good library in a few years. I have known a very pretty collection made out of the ordinary smoke-offerings of twenty years. Undoubtedly there are libraries so fine that smoking in them would be discountenanced, but mine is not impervious to the pipe or cigar, and I entertain the pleasing fancy that tobacco-smoke is good for books, disinfects them, and keeps them free from the destroying worm. ”

“ Books should be made to read, or at all events to look at, and in this view comfort and ease should be consulted. Any one who has ever undertaken to read a huge quarto or folio will sympathize with this view. The older and lazier the Book-Worm grows the more he longs for little books, which he can hold in one hand without getting a cramp, or at least support with arms in an elbow chair without fatigue. ”

“ I would rather have more books on top In short, it is pleasant to have the collection remind one in a way of Topsy—not that it was “born,” but “growed” and is expected to grow more There is a modern notion of considering a library as a room rather than as a collection of books, and of making the front drawing-room the library, which is heretical in the eyes of a true Book-Worm. This is probably an invention of the women of the house to prevent any additions to the books without their knowledge, and to discourage book-buying. ”

“ But why a first edition of a popular novel should be more desirable than a late one, which is usually the more elegant, I confess I cannot understand. It is one of those things which, like the mystery of religion, we must take on trust. ”

“ Large margins are very pleasant in a library as well as in Wall Street, and much more apt to be permanent. There are some favorite books of which the possessor longs in vain for a large copy, as for instance, the Pickering “Walton and Cotton.”
great deal of fun is made of the Book-Worm because of his desire for large paper and of his insistence on uncut edges, but his reasons are sound and his taste is unimpeachable. The tricks of the book-trade to catch the inexperienced with the bait of large paper are very amusing. ”

“ Sir Roger de Coverley and his squire life are much more probable to us than Sir William Temple in his gardens There is no character in romance who has not or might not have lived, but we are thrown into grave doubts of the saintly Washington and the devilish Napoleon depicted three quarters of a century ago. We cast history aside in scepticism and disgust; we cling to romance with faith and delight “The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.” ”

“ V. BINDING.
he binding of books for several centuries has held the dignity of a fine art, quite independent of printing. This has been demonstrated by exhibitions in this country and abroad. But every collector ought to observe fitness in the binding which he procures to be executed. True fitness prevails in most old and fine bindings; seldom was a costly garb bestowed on a book unworthy of it. But in many a luxurious library we see a modern binding fit for a unique or rare book given to one that is comparatively worthless or common. ”

“ 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 Much is to be forgiven to the man who loves books, and yet is doomed to deal out books that perish in the using, which no human being would ever read a second time nor “be found dead with.” ”

“ There is no just distinction in an ugly large-paper issue, and sometimes it is not nearly so beautiful as the small, especially when the latter has uncut edges. The independence of the collector who prefers the small in such circumstances is to be commended and imitated.
Too great inequality in uncut edges is also to be shunned as an ugliness. It seems that some French books are printed on paper of two different sizes, the effect of which is very grotesque, and the device is a catering to a very crude and extravagant taste. ”

“ Darwin remorselessly split big books in two. Mr. Slater says in “Book Collecting:” “When the library at Sion College took fire the attendants, at the risk of their lives, rescued a pile of books from the flames, and it is said that the librarian wept when he found that the porters had taken it for granted that the value of a book was in exact proportion to its size.” Few of us, I suspect, ever read our family Bible, and all of us probably groan when we lift out the unabridged dictionary. The “Century Dictionary” is a luxury because it is published in small and convenient parts. ”

“ If a man in business wants to excite the suspicion of the sleek gentlemen who sit around the discount board with him, or yell like lunatics at the stock exchange with him, or talk with him about the tariff or free silver, or any other subject on which no two men ever agree unless it is for their interest, let it leak out that he has put a few thousand dollars [Pg 90] into a Mazarine Bible, or a Caxton, or a first folio Shakespeare or some other rare book No matter if he can afford it, most of his associates regard him as they do a Bedlamite who goes about collecting straws. ”

“ It must be worse than acting Hamlet or Humpty Dumpty a hundred consecutive nights Dante had no punishment for the Book-Worm in hell, if I remember right, but if he deserved any pitiless reprobation, it would be found in compelling him to cry off books to all eternity Grant that the auctioneer is a person of sensibility and acquainted with good books, then his calling must give him many a pang as he observes the ignorance and carelessness of his audience. It is better and more fitting that he should know little of his wares. ”

“ So I should say, as a rule, that books are not a good financial investment in the business sense, and speaking of most books and most buyers Give a man the same experience in buying books that renders [Pg 91] him expert in buying other personal property, the mere gross objects of trade, and let him set out with the purpose of accumulating a library that shall be a remunerative financial investment, and he may succeed, indeed, has often succeeded, certainly to the extent of getting back his outlay with interest, and sometimes making a handsome profit. ”

“ Henry printed a few copies of his book against Luther on vellum Cicero, who possessed a superb library, especially rich in Greek, at his villa in Tusculum, thus describes his favorite acquisitions: “Books to quicken the intelligence of youth, delight age, [Pg 12] decorate prosperity, shelter and solace us in adversity, bring enjoyment at home, befriend us out-of-doors, pass the night with us, travel with us, go into the country with us.” ”