Chapter 5

It amazes me that a reasoner so shrewd, so clear, and so exacting as Horace Smith did not pursue the proposition further; for without booksellers there would have been no market for books--the author would not have been able to sell, and the reader would not have been able to buy.

The further we proceed with the investigation the more satisfied we become that the original man was three of number, one of him being the bookseller, who established friendly relations between the other two of him, saying: "I will serve you both by inciting both a demand and a supply." So then the author did his part, and the reader his, which I take to be a much more dignified scheme than that suggested by Darwin and his school of investigators.

By the very nature of their occupation booksellers are broad-minded; their association with every class of humanity and their constant companionship with books give them a liberality that enables them to view with singular clearness and dispassionateness every phase of life and every dispensation of Providence. They are not always practical, for the development of the spiritual and intellectual natures in man does not at the same time promote dexterity in the use of the baser organs of the body, I have known philosophers who could not harness a horse or even shoo chickens.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once consumed several hours' time trying to determine whether he should trundle a wheelbarrow by pushing it or by pulling it. A. Bronson Alcott once tried to construct a chicken coop, and he had boarded himself up inside the structure before he discovered that he had not provided for a door or for windows. We have all heard the story of Isaac Newton--how he cut two holes in his study-door, a large one for his cat to enter by, and a small one for the kitten.

This unworldliness--this impossibility, if you please--is characteristic of intellectual progression. Judge Methuen's second son is named Grolier; and the fact that he doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain has inspired both the Judge and myself with the conviction that in due time Grolier will become a great philosopher.

The mention of this revered name reminds me that my bookseller told me the other day that just before I entered his shop a wealthy patron of the arts and muses called with a volume which he wished to have rebound.

"I can send it to Paris or to London," said my bookseller. "If you have no choice of binder, I will entrust it to Zaehnsdorf with instructions to lavish his choicest art upon it."

"But indeed I HAVE a choice," cried the plutocrat, proudly. "I noticed a large number of Grolier bindings at the Art Institute last week, and I want something of the same kind myself. Send the book to Grolier, and tell him to do his prettiest by it, for I can stand the expense, no matter what it is."

Somewhere in his admirable discourse old Walton has stated the theory that an angler must be born and then made. I have always held the same to be true of the bookseller. There are many, too many, charlatans in the trade; the simon-pure bookseller enters upon and conducts bookselling not merely as a trade and for the purpose of amassing riches, but because he loves books and because he has pleasure in diffusing their gracious influences.

Judge Methuen tells me that it is no longer the fashion to refer to persons or things as being "simon-pure"; the fashion, as he says, passed out some years ago when a writer in a German paper "was led into an amusing blunder by an English review. The reviewer, having occasion to draw a distinction between George and Robert Cruikshank, spoke of the former as the real Simon Pure. The German, not understanding the allusion, gravely told his readers that George Cruikshank was a pseudonym, the author's real name being Simon Pure."

This incident is given in Henry B. Wheatley's "Literary Blunders," a very charming book, but one that could have been made more interesting to me had it recorded the curious blunder which Frederick Saunders makes in his "Story of Some Famous Books." On page 169 we find this information: "Among earlier American bards we instance Dana, whose imaginative poem 'The Culprit Fay,' so replete with poetic beauty, is a fairy tale of the highlands of the Hudson. The origin of the poem is traced to a conversation with Cooper, the novelist, and Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet, who, speaking of the Scottish streams and their legendary associations, insisted that the American rivers were not susceptible of like poetic treatment. Dana thought otherwise, and to make his position good produced three days after this poem."

It may be that Saunders wrote the name Drake, for it was James Rodman Drake who did "The Culprit Fay." Perhaps it was the printer's fault that the poem is accredited to Dana. Perhaps Mr. Saunders writes so legible a hand that the printers are careless with his manuscript.

"There is," says Wheatley, "there is a popular notion among authors that it is not wise to write a clear hand. Menage was one of the first to express it. He wrote: 'If you desire that no mistake shall appear in the works which you publish, never send well-written copy to the printer, for in that case the manuscript is given to young apprentices, who make a thousand errors; while, on the other hand, that which is difficult to read is dealt with by the master-printers.'"

The most distressing blunder I ever read in print was made at the time of the burial of the famous antiquary and litterateur, John Payne Collier. In the London newspapers of Sept. 21, 1883, it was reported that "the remains of the late Mr. John Payne Collier were interred yesterday in Bray churchyard, near Maidenhead, in the presence of a large number of spectators." Thereupon the Eastern daily press published the following remarkable perversion: "The Bray Colliery Disaster. The remains of the late John Payne, collier, were interred yesterday afternoon in the Bray churchyard in the presence of a large number of friends and spectators."

Far be it from the book-lover and the book-collector to rail at blunders, for not unfrequently these very blunders make books valuable. Who cares for a Pine's Horace that does not contain the "potest" error? The genuine first edition of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" is to be determined by the presence of a certain typographical slip in the introduction. The first edition of the English Scriptures printed in Ireland (1716) is much desired by collectors, and simply because of an error. Isaiah bids us "sin no more," but the Belfast printer, by some means or another, transposed the letters in such wise as to make the injunction read "sin on more."

The so-called Wicked Bible is a book that is seldom met with, and, therefore, in great demand. It was printed in the time of Charles I., and it is notorious because it omits the adverb "not" in its version of the seventh commandment; the printers were fined a large sum for this gross error. Six copies of the Wicked Bible are known to be in existence. At one time the late James Lenox had two copies; in his interesting memoirs Henry Stevens tells how he picked up one copy in Paris for fifty guineas.

Rabelais' printer got the satirical doctor into deep water for printing asne for ame; the council of the Sorbonne took the matter up and asked Francis I. to prosecute Rabelais for heresy; this the king declined to do, and Rabelais proceeded forthwith to torment the council for having founded a charge of heresy upon a printer's blunder.

Once upon a time the Foulis printing establishment at Glasgow determined to print a perfect Horace; accordingly the proof sheets were hung up at the gates of the university, and a sum of money was paid for every error detected.

Notwithstanding these precautions the edition had six uncorrected errors in it when it was finally published. Disraeli says that the so-called Pearl Bible had six thousand errata! The works of Picus of Mirandula, Strasburg, 1507, gave a list of errata covering fifteen folio pages, and a worse case is that of "Missae ac Missalis Anatomia" (1561), a volume of one hundred and seventy-two pages, fifteen of which are devoted to the errata. The author of the Missae felt so deeply aggrieved by this array of blunders that he made a public explanation to the effect that the devil himself stole the manuscript, tampered with it, and then actually compelled the printer to misread it.

I am not sure that this ingenious explanation did not give origin to the term of "printer's devil."

It is frightful to think What nonsense sometimes They make of one's sense And, what's worse, of one's rhymes.

It was only last week, In my ode upon spring, Which I meant to have made A most beautiful thing,

When I talked of the dewdrops From freshly blown roses, The nasty things made it From freshly blown noses.

We can fancy Richard Porson's rage (for Porson was of violent temper) when, having written the statement that "the crowd rent the air with their shouts," his printer made the line read "the crowd rent the air with their snouts." However, this error was a natural one, since it occurs in the "Catechism of the Swinish Multitude." Royalty only are privileged when it comes to the matter of blundering. When Louis XIV. was a boy he one day spoke of "un carosse"; he should have said "une carosse," but he was king, and having changed the gender of carosse the change was accepted, and unto this day carosse is masculine.

That errors should occur in newspapers is not remarkable, for much of the work in a newspaper office is done hastily. Yet some of these errors are very amusing. I remember to have read in a Berlin newspaper a number of years ago that "Prince Bismarck is trying to keep up honest and straightforward relations with all the girls" (madchen).

This statement seemed incomprehensible until it transpired that the word "madchen" was in this instance a misprint for "machten," a word meaning all the European powers.

X

WHEN FANCHONETTE BEWITCHED ME

The garden in which I am straying has so many diversions to catch my eye, to engage my attention and to inspire reminiscence that I find it hard to treat of its beauties methodically. I find myself wandering up and down, hither and thither, in so irresponsible a fashion that I marvel you have not abandoned me as the most irrational of madmen.

Yet how could it be otherwise? All around me I see those things that draw me from the pathway I set out to pursue: like a heedless butterfly I flit from this sweet unto that, glorying and revelling in the sunshine and the posies. There is little that is selfish in a love like this, and herein we have another reason why the passion for books is beneficial. He who loves women must and should love some one woman above the rest, and he has her to his keeping, which I esteem to be one kind of selfishness.

But he who truly loves books loves all books alike, and not only this, but it grieves him that all other men do not share with him this noble passion. Verily, this is the most unselfish of loves!

To return now to the matter of booksellers, I would fain impress you with the excellences of the craft, for I know their virtues. My association with them has covered so long a period and has been so intimate that even in a vast multitude of people I have no difficulty in determining who are the booksellers and who are not.

For, having to do with books, these men in due time come to resemble their wares not only in appearance but also in conversation. My bookseller has dwelt so long in his corner with folios and quartos and other antique tomes that he talks in black-letter and has the modest, engaging look of a brown old stout binding, and to the delectation of discriminating olfactories he exhaleth an odor of mildew and of tobacco commingled, which is more grateful to the true bibliophile than all the perfumes of Araby.

I have studied the craft so diligently that by merely clapping my eyes upon a bookseller I can tell you with certainty what manner of books he sells; but you must know that the ideal bookseller has no fads, being equally proficient in and a lover of all spheres, departments, branches, and lines of his art. He is, moreover, of a benignant nature, and he denies credit to none; yet, withal, he is righteously so discriminating that he lets the poor scholar have for a paltry sum that which the rich parvenu must pay dearly for. He is courteous and considerate where courtesy and consideration are most seemly.

Samuel Johnson once rolled into a London bookseller's shop to ask for literary employment. The bookseller scrutinized his burly frame, enormous hands, coarse face, and humble apparel.

"You would make a better porter," said he.

This was too much for the young lexicographer's patience. He picked up a folio and incontinently let fly at the bookseller's head, and then stepping over the prostrate victim he made his exit, saying: "Lie there, thou lump of lead!"

This bookseller was Osborne, who had a shop at Gray's Inn Gate. To Boswell Johnson subsequently explained: "Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him."

Jacob Tonson was Dryden's bookseller; in the earlier times a seller was also a publisher of books. Dryden was not always on amiable terms with Tonson, presumably because Dryden invariably was in debt to Tonson. On one occasion Dryden asked for an advance of money, but Tonson refused upon the grounds that the poet's overdraft already exceeded the limits of reasonableness. Thereupon Dryden penned the following lines and sent them to Tonson with the message that he who wrote these lines could write more:

With leering looks, bull-faced and freckled fair With two left legs, with Judas-colored hair, And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air.

These lines wrought the desired effect: Tonson sent the money which Dryden had asked for. When Dryden died Tonson made overtures to Pope, but the latter soon went over to Tonson's most formidable rival, Bernard Lintot. On one occasion Pope happened to be writing to both publishers, and by a curious blunder he inclosed to each the letter intended for the other. In the letter meant for Tonson, he said that Lintot was a scoundrel, and in the letter meant for Lintot he declared that Tonson was an old rascal. We can fancy how little satisfaction Messrs. Lintot and Tonson derived from the perusal of these missent epistles.

Andrew Millar was the publisher who had practical charge of the production of Johnson's dictionary. It seems that Johnson drew out his stipulated honorarium of eight thousand dollars (to be more exact, L1575) before the dictionary went to press; this is not surprising, for the work of preparation consumed eight years, instead of three, as Johnson had calculated. Johnson inquired of the messenger what Millar said when he received the last batch of copy. The messenger answered: "He said 'Thank God I have done with him.'" This made Johnson smile. "I am glad," said he, quietly, "that he thanks God for anything."

I was not done with my discourse when a book was brought in from Judge Methuen; the interruption was a pleasant one. "I was too busy last evening," writes the judge, "to bring you this volume which I picked up in a La Salle street stall yesterday. I know your love for the scallawag Villon, so I am sure you will fancy the lines which, evidently, the former owner of this book has scribbled upon the fly-leaf." Fancy them? Indeed I do; and if you dote on the "scallawag" as I dote on him you also will declare that our anonymous poet has not wrought ill.

FRANCOIS VILLON

If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I, What would it matter to me how the time might drag or fly? HE would in sweaty anguish toil the days and nights away, And still not keep the prowling, growling, howling wolf at bay! But, with my valiant bottle and my frouzy brevet-bride, And my score of loyal cut-throats standing guard for me outside, What worry of the morrow would provoke a casual sigh If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I?

If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I, To yonder gloomy boulevard at midnight I would hie; "Stop, stranger! and deliver your possessions, ere you feel The mettle of my bludgeon or the temper of my steel!" He should give me gold and diamonds, his snuff-box and his cane-- "Now back, my boon companions, to our bordel with our gain!" And, back within that brothel, how the bottles they would fly, If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I!

If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I, We both would mock the gibbet which the law has lifted high; HE in his meagre, shabby home, _I_ in my roaring den-- HE with his babes around him, _I_ with my hunted men! His virtue be his bulwark--my genius should be mine!-- "Go, fetch my pen, sweet Margot, and a jorum of your wine!

. . . . . . .

So would one vainly plod, and one win immortality-- If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I!

My acquaintance with Master Villon was made in Paris during my second visit to that fascinating capital, and for a while I was under his spell to that extent that I would read no book but his, and I made journeys to Rouen, Tours, Bordeaux, and Poitiers for the purpose of familiarizing myself with the spots where he had lived, and always under the surveillance of the police. In fact, I became so infatuated of Villonism that at one time I seriously thought of abandoning myself to a life of crime in order to emulate in certain particulars at least the example of my hero.

There were, however, hindrances to this scheme, first of which was my inability to find associates whom I wished to attach to my cause in the capacity in which Colin de Cayeulx and the Baron de Grigny served Master Francois. I sought the companionship of several low-browed, ill-favored fellows whom I believed suited to my purposes, but almost immediately I wearied of them, for they had never looked into a book and were so profoundly ignorant as to be unable to distinguish between a folio and a thirty-twomo.

Then again it befell that, while the Villon fever was raging within and I was contemplating a career of vice, I had a letter from my uncle Cephas, apprising me that Captivity Waite (she was now Mrs. Eliphalet Parker) had named her first-born after me! This intelligence had the effect of cooling and sobering me; I began to realize that, with the responsibility the coming and the christening of Captivity's first-born had imposed upon me, it behooved me to guard with exceeding jealousy the honor of the name which my namesake bore.

While I was thus tempest-tossed, Fanchonette came across my pathway, and with the appearance of Fanchonette every ambition to figure in the annals of bravado left me. Fanchonette was the niece of my landlady; her father was a perfumer; she lived with the old people in the Rue des Capucins. She was of middling stature and had blue eyes and black hair. Had she not been French, she would have been Irish, or, perhaps, a Grecian. Her manner had an indefinable charm.

It was she who acquainted me with Beranger; that is why I never take up that precious volume that I do not think, sweetly and tenderly, of Fanchonette. The book is bound, as you see, in a dainty blue, and the border toolings are delicate tracings of white--all for a purpose, I can assure you. She used to wear a dainty blue gown, from behind the nether hem of which the most immaculate of petticoats peeped out.

If we were never boys, how barren and lonely our age would be. Next to the ineffably blessed period of youth there is no time of life pleasanter than that in which serene old age reviews the exploits and the prodigies of boyhood. Ah, my gay fellows, harvest your crops diligently, that your barns and granaries be full when your arms are no longer able to wield the sickle!

Haec meminisse--to recall the old time--to see her rise out of the dear past--to hear Fanchonette's voice again--to feel the grace of springtime--how gloriously sweet this is! The little quarrels, the reconciliations, the coquetries, the jealousies, the reproaches, the forgivenesses--all the characteristic and endearing haps of the Maytime of life--precious indeed are these retrospections to the hungry eyes of age!

She wed with the perfumer's apprentice; but that was so very long ago that I can pardon, if not forget, the indiscretion. Who knows where she is to-day? Perhaps a granny beldame in a Parisian alley; perhaps for years asleep in Pere la Chaise. Come forth, beloved Beranger, and sing me the old song to make me young and strong and brave again!

Let them be served on gold-- The wealthy and the great; Two lovers only want A single glass and plate! Ring ding, ring ding, Ring ding ding-- Old wine, young lassie, Sing, boys, sing!

XI

DIAGNOSIS OF THE BACILLUS LIBRORUM

For a good many years I was deeply interested in British politics. I was converted to Liberalism, so-called, by an incident which I deem well worth relating. One afternoon I entered a book-shop in High Holborn, and found that the Hon. William E. Gladstone had preceded me thither. I had never seen Mr. Gladstone before. I recognized him now by his resemblance to the caricatures, and by his unlikeness to the portraits which the newspapers had printed.

As I entered the shop I heard the bookseller ask: "What books shall I send?"

To this, with a very magnificent sweep of his arms indicating every point of the compass, Gladstone made answer: "Send me THOSE!"

With these words he left the place, and I stepped forward to claim a volume which had attracted my favorable attention several days previous.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the bookseller, politely, "but that book is sold."

"Sold?" I cried.

"Yes, sir," replied the bookseller, smiling with evident pride; "Mr. Gladstone just bought it; I haven't a book for sale--Mr. Gladstone just bought them ALL!"

The bookseller then proceeded to tell me that whenever Gladstone entered a bookshop he made a practice of buying everything in sight. That magnificent, sweeping gesture of his comprehended everything--theology, history, social science, folk-lore, medicine, travel, biography--everything that came to his net was fish!

"This is the third time Mr. Gladstone has visited me," said the bookseller, "and this is the third time he has cleaned me out."

"This man is a good man," says I to myself. "So notable a lover of books surely cannot err. The cause of home rule must be a just one after all."

From others intimately acquainted with him I learned that Gladstone was an omnivorous reader; that he ordered his books by the cart-load, and that his home in Hawarden literally overflowed with books. He made a practice, I was told, of overhauling his library once in so often and of weeding out such volumes as he did not care to keep. These discarded books were sent to the second-hand dealers, and it is said that the dealers not unfrequently took advantage of Gladstone by reselling him over and over again (and at advanced prices, too) the very lots of books he had culled out and rejected.

Every book-lover has his own way of buying; so there are as many ways of buying as there are purchasers. However, Judge Methuen and I have agreed that all buyers may be classed in these following specified grand divisions:

The reckless buyer.

The shrewd buyer.

The timid buyer.