Читать книгу The Book-Hunter at Home - P. B. M. Allan - Страница 9

'Unto their lodgings then his guestes he riddes:

Where when all drownd in deadly sleepe he findes,

He to his studie goes.'— Spenser.

hat magic there is for the book-lover in that word 'library'! Does it not instantly conjure up a vision of happy solitude, a peaceful seclusion where we may lie hidden from our fellow-creatures, an absence of idle chatter to distract our thoughts, and countless books about us on either hand? No man with any pretensions to learning can possibly fail to be impressed when he enters an ancient library, older perhaps by generations than the art of printing itself.

'With awe, around these silent walks I tread,

These are the lasting mansions of the dead:

"The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply,

"These are the tombs of such as cannot die!"

Crowned with eternal fame, they sit sublime,

And laugh at all the little strife of time.'

They are delicious retreats, abodes of seasoned thought and peaceful meditation, these ancient homes of books. 'I no sooner come into the library,' wrote Heinz, that great literary counsellor of the Elzeviers, 'than I bolt the door, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. 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 great men and rich to whom this happiness is unknown.'

Happy indeed are those days when the book-lover has been accorded the freedom of some ancient library. A delicious feeling of tranquillity pervades him as he selects some nook and settles himself to read. Presently the mood takes him to explore, and he wanders about from case to case, now taking down some plump folio and glancing at the title-page and type, now counting the engravings of another and collating it in his mind, now comparing the condition of a third with the copy which he has at home, now searching through the text of some small duodecimo to see whether it contains the usual blanks or colophon. But presently he will chance upon some tome whose appeal is irresistible. So he retires with it to his nook, and is soon absorbed once more with that tranquillity which is better than great riches.

Dearly, however, though we may treasure the benefits and conveniences which these libraries of ancient foundation afford, for most of us there is another library that is nearer to our hearts; that cosy chamber with which we are accustomed to associate warmth, comfort, soft chairs and footrests, a wide writing-table that we may pile high with books, with scribbling-paper, foolscap and marking-slips in plenty. In short, a room so far removed from earthly cares and noise, that the dim occasional sounds of the outside world serve but to accentuate our absolute possession of ease. Here we may labour undisturbed though surrounded by a thousand friends. Or, if the mood take us, we may abandon ourselves to idle meditation

'Where glowing embers through the room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,'

and, lying back at our ease, may gaze contentedly upon the faithful companions of our crowded solitude, gathering inspiration from their silent sympathy.

Each to his taste. Whether we be student, book-hunter, librarian, or precentor,[14] no earthly abode can be compared with that garden of our choice wherein we labour so contentedly. It may be a small room in our own house, it may be an ancient university or college library, but it is all one: it is a library, that haven of refuge from our worldly cares, where troubles are forgotten and sorrows lightened by the gently persuasive experience of the wise men that have gone before us.

But, mark you, it must be literally removed from cares and noise, for it is impossible to study at all deeply while exposed to interruption. How terribly most of us have suffered from this form of mental torture, for it is little else! What trains of lucid thought, what word-pictures have been destroyed by thoughtless breakings of the chain of sequence! 'I have never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant interruption who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last,' wrote Miss Florence Nightingale. Hamerton, quoting her, is equally emphatic upon this point.

'If,' he writes, 'you are reading in the daytime in a house where there are women and children, or where people can fasten upon you for pottering details of business, you may be sure that you will not be able to get to the end of the passage without in some way or other being rudely awakened from your dream, and suddenly brought back into the common world. The loss intellectually is greater than any one who had not suffered from it could imagine. People think that an interruption is merely the unhooking of an electric chain, and that the current will flow, when the chain is hooked on again, just as it did before. To the intellectual and imaginative student an interruption is not that; it is the destruction of a picture.'

Who has not suffered from the idle chatter, or even worse—the lowered voice, that often assails the ear when working in our larger public libraries? Some innocent-looking individual will be reading quietly some paces away, so quietly and decorously in fact that one's heart goes out to him as a sympathetic fellow-bookman. Then enters some one whom he knows. In a flash he becomes a fiend incarnate. A word or two of greeting spoken in an ordinary voice one would pardon; but a long conversation is carried on in a monotonous forced undertone, terrible in its intensity. It is impossible to read so long as the conversation lasts, and murder surges in one's heart. O for the power to drop ten atlas folios in a pile upon their heads! People do not realise the carrying power of a strained and lowered voice. Generally the volume of sound is the same as when speaking aloud, for the tone is merely lowered and the same amount of breath is used. But often more force is required to vibrate the slackened vocal chords, and the maddening sound reaches to every corner of the building.

In the Reading Room of the British Museum one is constantly aware of this buzzing going on all over the room. Would that the rule enforced at one of our older monasteries were applied: 'In the Chafynghowys al brethren schal speke latyn or els keep silence.' This would indeed ensure quietness nowadays. The rule for nuns, however (who, presumably, were not so well acquainted with Latin) would be better still. They were not to speak at all.[15]

So, if it be possible, see to it that your library, study, sanctum, or whatever you may call that one room in the house which is sacred to the daughters of Mnemosyne, is really your own: that it be a close closet to which you (and you alone) may retire at all seasons, certain in the knowledge that by closing the door you may shut out effectually all earthly cares and interruptions. Whether you are engaged in research merely for the gratification of your desire to possess knowledge, or whether literary production be your aim, unless you may study undisturbed your labours will never bear their full fruit. Interrupted, your knowledge will be scanty, diverse, and generally inapplicable, your literary output sketchy, incoherent, and disconnected.

Perhaps it is this incubus of interruption that drives so many men to working late at night. Doubtless those whose habit it is to work at that season produce just as good work in those hours as at any other time; possibly better, for habit may have accustomed them to put forth their finest intellectual efforts at that time of day. But the mind that has been brought up to rise at seven and go to bed at ten, is undoubtedly at its best before noon. Night working is not a natural tendency, it is an acquired habit; and though the expression 'burning the midnight oil' is taken to be synonymous with the acquisition of learning, yet in the long run it is but a poor economy of time, for the wisdom so acquired is often obtained at the cost of health and eyesight.

And what is freedom from interruption but another name for solitude? It may be temporary, it may be prolonged, it may be permanent, but for the intellectual man it is absolutely essential. No one would be so foolish as to deny that literary work of the highest rank can be, and has been frequently, accomplished amid the bustle and noise of cities; witness the works of those literary giants who have passed their lives as town-dwellers. Doubtless they obtained the necessary solitude by spiritual detachment. But on the other hand, for intense and prolonged meditation, for the communing with one's innermost soul on the immense principles of life and nature, for the production of such deep soul-searching work as we see in the compositions of à Kempis, Dante, Milton, and Wordsworth, absolute solitude for some seasons is essential. There must be complete freedom from the daily distractions caused by one's fellow-beings.

'Believe me, upon my own experience,' wrote St. Bernard, 'you will find more in the woods than in books; the forests and rocks will teach you what you cannot learn of the greatest masters.' It is not necessary, however, for us to take up our abode in a cave that we may meditate undisturbed. Let us rather follow Wordsworth's example when he pours forth gratitude

'For my own peaceful lot and happy choice;

A choice that from the passions of the world

Withdrew, and fixed me in a still retreat;

Sheltered, but not to social duties lost,

Secluded, but not buried; and with song

Cheering my days, and with industrious thought;

With the ever-welcome company of books;

With virtuous friendship's soul-sustaining aid,

And with the blessings of domestic love.'

It is sufficient if we can withdraw at will into the solitudes. The younger Pliny, moralising to his friend Minutius (I should like to think him the progenitor of Aldo Manuccio), describes the delights of seclusion at his villa on the shore of the Adriatic. 'At such a season,' says he, in a retrospect of the day's work, 'one is apt to reflect how much of my life has been lost in trifles! At least it is a reflection that frequently comes across me at Laurentum, after I have been employing myself in my studies, or even in the necessary care of the animal machine; for the body must be repaired and supported if we would preserve the mind in all its vigour. In that peaceful retreat I neither hear nor speak anything of which I have occasion to repent. I suffer none to repeat to me the whispers of malice; nor do I censure any man, unless myself, when I am dissatisfied with my compositions. There I live undisturbed by rumour, and free from the anxious solicitudes of hope or fear, conversing only with myself and my books. True and genuine life! Pleasing and honourable repose! More, perhaps, to be desired than the noblest employments! Thou solemn lea and solitary shore, best and most retired scene for contemplation, with how many noble thoughts have you inspired me! Snatch then, my friend, as I have, the first occasion of leaving the noisy town with all its very empty pursuits, and devote your days to study, or even resign them to ease. For, as my ingenious friend Attilius pleasantly said, 'It is better to do nothing than to be doing nothings!''

The great Cardinal Ximenes, in the zenith of his power, built with his own hands a hut in a thick unfrequented wood, where he could retire occasionally from the busy world. Here he used to pass a few days, every now and then, in meditation and study. These he was wont to describe as the happiest days of his life, and declared that he would willingly exchange all his dignities for his hut in the chestnut wood. Thomas Aquinas, coming to visit the learned Bonaventura, asked him to point out the books which he used in his studies. The monk led him into his cell and showed him a few common volumes upon his table. Thomas explained that the books he wished to see were those from which the learned master drew so many wonders. Thereupon Bonaventura showed him a small oratory. 'There,' he said, 'are my books; that is the principal book from which I draw all that I teach and write.'

To the thoughtless and those of shallow intellect solitude is inseparable from loneliness. There is, for them, something terrible in the thought of being debarred, even temporarily, from the society of their fellow-beings. 'Retirement,' says Disraeli, 'to the frivolous is a vast desert; to the man of genius it is the enchanted garden of Armida.' And for 'man of genius' I would substitute 'man of literary pursuits.'

There is a pleasant story told of a monk who lived in the monastery of St. Honorat, which is situated on one of the Lerine Islands, off the coast of Provence. Possessed of a mind which, in the larger world, would indubitably have become an influence in the artistic progress of mankind, he found the sole outlet for its expression in the painting of those exquisite miniatures which are at once the delight and the despair of a more modern age. But it was not in the scriptorium nor was it in the bestiaries or the examples of his predecessors that he acquired his art. Every year, in the spring and autumn, he would go alone to one of the delicious islands of Hyères, where there was a small hermitage. Here he would spend the weeks, not altogether in prayer and fasting, but in making friends with the birds and small animals that resorted there; studying their gestures, plumage, and colours, that he might reproduce them faithfully on the vellum of his missals and devotional books. Surely he learnt more on this deserted island than was possible at that time in the richest library in France.

There is another kind of solitude, however, which can afford consolation to the soul as deep and as lasting as that afforded by the woods, the hills, the moors, the islands, those

'Waste

And solitary places; where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be'—

and that is, the solitude engendered by a deep communion with books. For, if our paths lie amid the toil and turmoil of the world, and if it be impossible for us to seek seclusion amid the wastes, where else than in a library can we obtain that mental solitude so necessary for the nourishing of our literary spirit?

Roger Ascham, sick at heart with long parting from his beloved books, writes to Sir William Cecil from Brussels in 1553, to beg that 'libertie to lern, and leysor to wryte,' which his beloved Cambridge alone could afford him. 'I do wel perceyve,' he says, 'their is no soch quietnesse in England, nor pleasur in strange contres, as even in S. Jons Colledg, to kepe company with the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Tullie.' And he goes on to say, 'Thus I, first by myn own natur, … lastly caulled by quietnesse, thought it good to couche myself in Cambridge ageyn.'

Yet although we may seek solitude among our books, how far removed are we from being really alone! 'A man is never less alone than when he is alone,' said the noble Scipio[16]; and this is especially true of the book-lover. What bibliophile does not prefer the companionship of his books to that of all other friends? What friends so steadfast, so reliable in their friendship, so helpful in our difficulties, so apt upon all occasions, as the books which form our library? They are never elated at our mistakes, they are never 'superior' when we display ignorance. Human friendships are limited; but to the number of our most intimate acquaintances in cloth, vellum, and morocco, there is no end.

It is this universal sympathy afforded by our books that makes our sanctum such a delicious retreat. Here we need never be bored, for we can put aside the tedious or insipid at will, and turn to whatever subject or companion our fancy indicates. We are not bound to talk with persons or on themes that have no interest for us. There is no clashing of ideas, and complete harmony reigns amid our comfort.

To the man of literary tastes there are few things more depressing than the conversations of 'small-talk' which an exacting society occasionally demands. Who has not suffered from their enervating effects? We are not all possessed of that mental abstraction which La Fontaine succeeded in carrying with him throughout life, forming a buffer from which all idle talk rebounded. He was once asked to dinner by a 'fermier-général' to amuse the guests. Thoroughly bored, La Fontaine ate much and said little, and rising very early from the table said that he had to go to the Academy. 'Oh,' said his host, 'but you are much too early for it.' 'Oh well,' replied Jean, 'I shall go the longest way to it.' Poor Jean was really very absent-minded. He had a son whom he confided at the age of fourteen to a friend to educate. Not having seen the youth for a long time, he met him one day at the house of a savant without knowing him. Afterwards he happened to mention that he thought him a youth of wit and taste. Some one told him that the lad was his own son. 'Is he indeed,' said Jean, 'well I'm very glad to hear it.'

There is no end to the delightful hobbies that we may cultivate in a library. Here we may go fishing or whaling, fighting battles or exploring new countries, tracing pedigrees or going on crusade, cutting our way through virgin forests or filling herbaceous borders in our mind, or we may even descend into the pyramid of Cheops.

Our book-hunter has a friend whose hobby takes the form of tracing the parentage and posterity of men who lived long years ago. They are mostly unknown to fame, and their names are only to be found in ancient peerages and suchlike books. Whether they were good or bad, religious or wicked, useful to their country or indifferent, handsome or ugly, is immaterial to him. In some cases they founded families that have endured, in others they perished with all their kindred within a century of the Norman Conquest. But to our genealogist they are very living people. He is intimately acquainted with the most of them, no less than with their wives and children, their fathers and grandfathers, their uncles and their aunts. As to the personal characteristics of Reginald Fitz-Ranulf lord of Bosham Castle in Com. Ebor, or his deeds or memorable actions (if, indeed, he ever perpetrated any) this student is unable to enlighten us. But that his wife was called Gunnora and that she was a daughter and co-heir of Richard de Tourville, he is quite positive. Apparently they had two sons, Fulk and Waleran, but our friend is strongly of opinion that Hamon FitzReginald (who had a moiety of the manor of Worthleys and was co-parcener with Payn FitzGeoffrey lord of Buncombe) was really a son of Reginald by a former wife.

The memory of this eager student is little short of marvellous. He can remember not only names and marriages, but at least several of the families which owned any manor that you like to mention. He would certainly have put to the blush Pierre d'Hozier, the great French genealogist whose memory was so wonderful that it was said he must surely have been present at all the marriages and baptisms in Christendom!

The library of this genealogist is a most interesting room. Many of the books necessary for his researches are of folio size and must be ready to hand; so they are ranged round the apartment at the level of one's waist. On entering the room one is struck by this belt of massive volumes, the more so when their owner takes them up casually and turns to page after page without ever troubling to refer to the index.

An evening spent with him is quite exciting. He asks the book-hunter's assistance over a knotty point. Several huge sheets of paper are laid upon the table, and each step in the pedigree is debated graphically. Volume after volume is referred to. At the slightest hitch out come Patent Rolls, Close Rolls, Fine Rolls, Pipe Rolls, and records of almost every description. Presently the room has the appearance of having been struck by a tornado. Volumes are lying about everywhere, and in every conceivable position. The floor is covered with them, all the chairs are in use, three Patent Rolls are lying open and face downwards on the mantelpiece, there are several on the hearthrug. In fact it is now impossible to move. Yet our host, accustomed to these things, in his search for a volume jumps from spot to spot with the agility of an antelope. The book-shelves are half-emptied, some of the remaining volumes have fallen down. My coffee cup lies on a pile composed of Rotuli Hundredorum, a Placita Abbreviatio, and a Testa de Nevil. But it is good fun, if exhausting, and a sovereign cure for insomnia. Our book-hunter usually leaves him about one o'clock in the morning, and the genealogist is genuinely sorry when he goes.

But to tell the truth our bookman is not a bit the wiser as to Reginald FitzRanulf!

One day friend Brown (for so he is called) came to see the book-hunter in great distress. He had but lately become a parent, and was still slightly excited about it.

''Pon my word,' said he, 'I don't know what to do. You know how proud I am of my family, and how I hoped all along that it would be a boy so that I could give it the name that generations of my ancestors possessed. And now Mary says she won't hear of it.'

The bookman sympathised with him, but asked what was the proposed name.

'Turchetil,' said he; 'they were all called that for generations. But of course the name wasn't Brown then, Le Brun was the family name in the twelfth century.'

'A fine lofty name,' replied his friend, 'but wouldn't Turchetil Brown sound rather funny nowadays?'

'I don't see why,' said he stiffly; 'they're both good old names.'

The bookman assented, though inwardly he could not but agree with Mrs. Brown. Turchetil Le Brun was one thing, and Turchetil Brown quite another. Perhaps, however, a compromise might be reached.

'Is there no other ancient name in your family that would do?' he suggested.

'Yes,' said the genealogist, 'there are two others, but not so good as Turchetil. They are Baldric and Bigod … '

Truly the study of genealogy has its disadvantages. There must have been great bitterness in the Brown household before its mistress obtained her own way, and even more in the heart of our poor friend as he stood at the font and heard his firstborn son irrevocably named—George.

Another friend and brother collector with whom our book-hunter sometimes passes an evening is a medical man of no small talent. But attached as he is to his profession, archæology is for ever striving with medicine for the first place in his affections, and his knowledge of herbals and the literature of alchemy is immense. His collection of works dealing with these subjects is well known to the booksellers, and the book-hunter sometimes receives a line from him asking him to pay a visit for the purpose of examining some recently acquired treasure.

Of late his hobby has taken a curious turn. A chance conversation induced him to inquire into the death of Queen Anne. He professed to discover, in the accounts of her demise, certain symptoms which indicated a different disease from that usually assigned to her. So now he must needs hold an inquest upon the death of each one of our sovereigns, from the time of King William the Conqueror. He is exceedingly enthusiastic about it, and is preparing a paper to read before the local antiquarian society. In this he hopes to prove conclusively the impossibility of lampreys having had any share in the death of Henry the First, which was clearly due to appendicitis.

Sometimes when the book-hunter visited his medical friend he would find another collector there already, deep in bookish or scientific talk. Like the doctor, the biologist was a specialist in books no less than in science, and his hobby comprised a field till recent times untilled. Keen though he was in his pursuit, it was the sea that claimed his every day of leisure. An active mind, eager in the elucidation of the more abstruse problems of physiology, yet his alert bearing, his quickness of movement and springy step, spoke more of the quarterdeck than the laboratory. Denied the sea as a profession, his heart was for ever in ships; and when at length preferment took him inland to one of the ancient seats of learning, the ordered training of his mind turned his hobby towards the history and evolution of all craft that sail upon the waters.

He is a great authority upon all matters pertaining to the rigging of mediæval ships. The history of their hulls he leaves to the attention of the important societies of nautical research. But on the evolution of the sky-topsail or fore-top-gallant-backstays his word carries much weight. He will travel a hundred miles in a week-end to see an illumination or carving of a ship, and his vacations he spends touring France and Flanders in search of stained glass windows that may throw some light upon his hobby. His collection of seals incised with ancient ships is a fine one, and the proceedings of more than one society are the richer for his researches.

Not long ago I came across another example of the manifold uses to which a private library can be put. A friend had given me a letter of introduction to a collector with whom he desired me to become acquainted. I was given to understand that the fellow-spirit was an exceedingly well-read man, and something of a wanderer.

'He's a great traveller,' said my friend with a laugh, 'there's hardly a country in the world that he has not visited.'

'What an interesting man he must be,' I replied, 'but why do you laugh?'

'Oh, you'll see all right presently,' said he; 'but go and spend an evening with him; you will certainly be entertained—provided you are sympathetic and content to let him do all the talking.'

So a few days later I called at the house of the traveller. He welcomed me in his study, a fine large room yet possessed of that cosiness imparted by the presence of many books. The walls were entirely covered with bookcases to a height of about eight feet; and these contained, he told me, about three thousand volumes. At the end of this long room was a wide bay window, and here was placed a comfortable easy chair with twin oak tables, very strong and low, at either arm. Close at hand were a revolving bookcase and a stand containing five or six japanned cylinders about three feet long, and some six inches across, such as are used to contain nautical charts.

'You are fond of travel, are you not?' I remarked, as soon as I was settled. 'Jones told me that there are few countries with which you are unacquainted.'

'That is so,' he replied; 'travel has always been my passion from my youth up, and of all the volumes which you see around you, there are scarcely a hundred that do not treat of some foreign country or voyage.'

'How interesting,' I replied; 'it is a wise old dictum that there is nothing like travel to broaden one's mind. Unless we acquaint ourselves with the opinions held by men of other nations, men whose everyday life differs so widely from our own, who see things consequently from a different standpoint, how can we expect to regard any subject from all its various aspects, which is essential if we are to pronounce an opinion which——'

'Quite so,' he interrupted, eyeing me suspiciously, and obviously fearing from my verbiage that he was about to be beset by a bore. (To tell the truth, I was rather glad of his interruption, for the sentence was beginning to get out of hand.) 'As you say, there's nothing like travel to broaden the mind. Why,' he went on hurriedly, 'before I was eighteen I had been up Aconcagua with Conway.'

'Really?' I said, trying to associate the two with a country and a date. (Of course I knew where Aconcagua was—it was one of the most familiar names in my geography, only for the moment memory was a little refractory. Obviously it was a mountain, because he spoke of having been 'up' it. The name had a Spanish ending—of course! now I knew.) 'A wonderful country, Mexico,' I went on.

'Mexico?' said he; 'yes, I know Mexico too. Been right through it, from Chihuahua to Tehuentepec and Campeachy.' (This was unfortunate, but apparently he didn't notice the mistake, for he went on at once.) 'But as I was saying, I'd been up Aconcagua before I left school.'

'Good gracious,' I replied, amazed at his intrepidity, 'that must have been an experience!'

'Rather,' said he: 'Haven't you read Conway's book? Published in '02, I think.' He strode across the room and brought back a volume. 'Yes, 1902: capital book; well worth reading. But Mexico,' he continued, without giving me time to display the knowledge that I suddenly recollected as I turned the pages of the book, 'Ah! there's a country for you! How I enjoyed my first visit! Ever been there?'

'Alas! no,' I replied; 'but one of my fondest dreams has been to visit the ancient cities of the new world.' (I thought that was rather nicely put.)

'Charnay,' he said; 'you know Charnay, then? It was he who took me there first. Early 'eighties, I think.' He pulled out another volume and turned to the title-page. 'Here we are, "The Ancient Cities of the New World," '87. My copy is only the translation, published two years after the original appeared.'

This puzzled me rather. If he had been eighteen in 1902, he must have been a mere babe in 1885.

'Rather young, were you not, when you were there?' I ventured.

'Young? Why?' he replied.

'Oh, only because you said that you were eighteen when you ascended Aconcagua in 1902, so I thought that you must have been rather young when you were in Mexico in 1885.'

He stood still and stared at me, a puzzled look on his face.

'Good gracious,' he said, 'didn't Jones tell you? Didn't he explain to you about me and my travels?'

'Oh yes,' I hastened to reassure him, fearful that I had given offence; 'he told me that you were a widely-travelled man; and, if you will permit me to say so, I think he understated——'

'Yes, yes,' he went on, 'but didn't he tell you how I travelled? Didn't he tell you that I had never been out of Europe? This is my world,' he continued, waving his arm round the bookcases; 'here are my Americas, my Africa, my Asia, my Europe, and my Australia. There (pointing to a case by the window) is my West Indies, here (indicating another one) is my Polynesia, there my Arctic and Antarctic. Here (patting the back of the big easy chair) is my steamboat, my mule, and my camel. No weather can delay me, no storm prevent my setting out. Though it snow a blizzard, still can I cross the very summits of the Andes: be there a year-old drought, still may I journey from Sydney to Port Darwin overland.'

I could only marvel at the man. No world-wide traveller could have been prouder or have found greater satisfaction in the contemplation of his travels. And a further conversation assured me that, assisted by a good memory, he knew more, far more, of the countries about which he had read so many books than did ninety-nine out of a hundred of the tourists who had actually visited those lands.

'Don't think,' he said, 'that I merely pass my time reading promiscuously all manner of books of travel. I do nothing of the sort. At the beginning of each year I map out the countries I intend to visit during that year. So much time is allotted to each, according to the size of the country and that of its travel literature. Then I compile a list of the books that I intend to read, and the order in which they should be read. I have a fine collection of maps, and those tin cylinders over there contain charts, by means of which I am enabled to follow more accurately and minutely the different journeys and voyages that I make.

'Let me give you an example.' Here he took a thin octavo book from one of the cases. 'This is Commodore John Byron's narrative of the loss of H.M.S. Wager, one of Anson's squadron, on the coast of Chili, in 1740. It was published in 1768, and is, in my opinion, one of the most thrilling tales of shipwreck and suffering that has ever been written. I dare say you remember Campbell's beautiful lines in "The Pleasures of Hope"; they are pencilled on the fly-leaf of my copy:—

'"And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore

The hardy Byron to his native shore—

In horrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep

Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep,

'Twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock,

Scourg'd by the winds, and cradled on the rock,

To wake each joyless morn and search again

The famish'd haunts of solitary men."

'There is no map in the volume, much less a chart, to show where the ship struck, though we are told that the land was "on the larboard beam, bearing n.w.," and that they landed "in the latitude of between 47 and 48° South." But without charts and maps how can one possibly follow the journey of the four poor sufferers along the coast on that terrible march from Mount Misery (as they named the inhospitable promontory where they landed) to civilisation on the island of Chiloe? With my maps I can follow their every footstep, with my chart I may visit each inlet that their frail canoe entered. Nor need I refer to these aids whenever I may turn to the volume again, for here (he unfolded a beautifully drawn map bound at the end of the volume) I have copied a chart which shows with a red line the whole of their terrible journey. I have done this with several of the older works on travel which I possess, books that were published without maps.'

To me at least it was a new aspect of book-collecting, and an interesting one. But I confess to having been impressed more by its originality and the patient perseverance of its devotee than by the knowledge which it had enabled him to accumulate. His was a vast knowledge, yet limited; for it was confined almost entirely to the topography and early exploration of the countries which he studied, together with such sociology as he would glean midst travellers' accounts of adventures and sport. Development, resources, industry, had little place in it. He was thoroughly conversant with the early history of Australia, could recite the names of all the early pioneers, and could plot Burke's expedition or Phillip's voyage to Botany Bay. But of Melbourne or Sydney to-day, their size, commerce, exports, the principal industries or railways, of these he knew nothing. On the other hand, with those countries which have come less quickly under the hand of civilisation, such as New Guinea or West Africa, he was well acquainted. He had followed the history of this last down to fairly modern times, knew the story of every settlement from Bathurst to the Bight and to Benguela, with their principal exports; and could talk interestedly with any dweller on 'the Coast.'

He is still comparatively a young man. If ever he sets out to see the world for himself, his pleasures will far exceed those of the ordinary tourist. Wherever he may go, he will need no guide-book to instruct him, in history at least. And he will visit out-of-the-way spots unnoticed by these authorities, but dear to him by reason of their mention in the pages of his fireside Mentors, their association with some thrilling though unimportant event of which he has read. Harbours, villages, buildings, will be familiar to him through some old print or coloured engraving; and he will eagerly compare the actual appearance with the mental picture he has borne for so long. Disappointment sometimes there will be, but a delightful anticipation always.

I hope, however, that I shall never be his travelling companion!

And here I cannot forbear to mention one other book-collecting acquaintance. A bosom friend of the genealogist, he was at one time a fellow-worker, and they would sit closeted for hours debating the parentage of Henry ap John. But he lacked that determination which prevented his friend from being constantly side-tracked, and the minutiæ of history had a fatal attraction for him. As to whether Hugo de Beauchamp of Com. Wigorn. (which was their pleasant way of saying that he lived in Worcestershire) held his manor by serjeanty of the condimentum was of small moment to him compared with the price which King Edward paid him for a couple of goshawks or a greyhound; and he wondered of what sort was the tun of wine which he had from that sovereign as a Christmas present. And so his book-buying became more and more confined, for it was restricted now to those curious and uncommon works which treat of the byways of history; such as the Accounts of the Wardrobe and Hanaper, the reports of the lords marchers of the realm, books on feudal customs and offices, and the like.

During the great war our friend busied himself with His Majesty's ordnance. Hitherto he had always associated the term with cast-iron cannon, and had vague recollections of the number of 'ordnance' carried by the Great Harry or fired from the Tower of London during Sir Thomas Wyatt's insurrection. But even when these dreams were dispelled, his thoughts still harped on mediæval equipment and harness while checking cases of boots or mess-tins; and he wondered how such things were managed before the days of railways. Released at length from this employ, his interest increased with leisure to pursue his investigations.

His passion now is the method in which the ancient campaigns of this country were conducted. He is quite an authority upon mediæval transport, by sea as well as by land, and he can tell you at once the quantities of bowstrings and quarrels 'indented for' during the Crécy and Poictiers campaigns. Not long ago, poring over an ancient roll of parchment in the Record Office, he came across a list of the ships requisitioned for the Agincourt expedition, with their names, ports, and tonnage, inscribed on the back of one of the membranes. Great was his delight, and it will be some time before his friends will be allowed to forget this important discovery.

How valuable are these researches of our book-collecting friends! Do they not add a zest to those delightful evenings when, with curtains drawn and blazing fire, our favourite pipe aglow, a tall glass at our elbow, we hunt our treasures o'er again in comfort, roaming the bookstalls of our fancy? It is well, however, that our humours in book-lore are not all alike, else how tedious would some of these conferences become. Elation and jealousy would be hard to banish at times when we held some coveted volume in our hands. But with divergence of tastes such feelings cannot exist, and we eagerly share our friends' enthusiasm in their treasures and their delight in some newly-found gem.

It is a very serious business, this book-collecting. Whether we are contented now to let our library be slow of growth, or whether we are still imbued with the ardour of our early youth, we are none the less under the spell of books. Our paths may lie outside the pale of book-land for years, but the chance handling of a valuable or scarce volume will instantly awaken all our bibliophilic desires. Book-collecting is not like other pursuits. In after years we may realise that many of our hobbies are but vanities, but the love of good books is something far beyond all these ephemeral pursuits.

Doubtless few of us realised at the outset of our careers as book collectors how completely we should be mastered by this love of books. Who did not think that it comprised but occasional visits to the book-shops and bookstalls, perhaps even to an auction-room, and the reading of nondescript catalogues? But it is like all other hobbies: ridden at first with too little restraint, it soon gets the upper hand, and off it goes, bit between teeth, carrying its rider ever farther and farther afield. And no man of spirit would think of seeking to curb his hobby's gallop. We have mounted of our own free will, determined to pursue the chase, and never shall it be said that we were too timid to face the difficulties of the country ahead. The greater the difficulties the greater the sport, and in our enthusiasm we are determined to overcome all obstacles. So that, though our hobby may at length become our master, so enthralled are we in the pursuit that there is little danger of it assuming the semblance of a nightmare.

The farther we go, the wider the fields which open to our view, and there is interest for us in all of them. We roam at our pleasure over vast fields of literature, digressing here and there just as our fancy takes us. There is no danger, moreover, in being side-tracked, for such divagations in the realms of bibliography as we may make will serve but to increase our knowledge of books in the right direction. The only risk that we shall incur is that of becoming specialists, which is precisely what we should most desire.

And how delightful are these digressions in the world of books! There is no other occupation in which one may wander so innocuously. In most of the learned professions digressions are fatal to success. Anthony Despeisses was a lawyer who used frequently to digress. Beginning one day in Court to talk of Ethiopia, an attorney who sat behind him remarked 'Heavens! He is got into Ethiopia, he will never come back.' Despeisses, we are told, was so abashed with the ridicule that he chose rather to leave off pleading than to correct himself of this unfortunate habit, and quitted the Bar for ever. Doubtless he found solace among his books, for here at least he could digress to his heart's content.

Although, from a worldly point of view, side-tracks are fatal to success, yet they are as necessary a part of our literary education as is the application to study itself. Without digressing as we applied ourselves to books, narrow indeed would be the views that we acquired. Of what value is a vast acquaintance with the material details of a war, if we are ignorant as to the causes which brought it about, or the reasons why the nations were warring? 'Ah yes,' perhaps you may exclaim, 'but politics and history are all one, for the former creates the latter.' Precisely: so that in order to obtain a knowledge of the one, we must deviate to the other. Sharon Turner in his 'History of England during the Middle Ages' passes abruptly from the death of King Henry the Second to the military spirit of Mohammedanism, from the Troubadours to the early dissipations of King John, and devotes two of his five volumes to the Literature of England with copious examples of early poetry. It is all history, yet how indispensable are the side-tracks.

It is a subtle art, however, this knowledge of how and when to digress, and not easy to be learnt. Gerard de St. Amand died of grief in his middle age because Louis xiv. could not bear his reading of a poem on the Moon, in which he praised the King for his skill in swimming. On the other hand Madame de Staël obtained almost all the material for her literary work by a consummate skill in directing the digressions of conversation. Upon whatever subject her pen was engaged, that was the theme to which she led all talk.

Sir Thomas Browne's famous letter 'To a friend upon occasion of the death of his intimate friend' is a masterpiece of the art of digressing. Surely it is one of the quaintest letters of condolence ever written, if indeed it were ever intended to be such, for it has that stamp of careful literary composition which is usually so apparent in all letters written with a view to publication. The friend in question died of a consumption, and Sir Thomas recapitulates his disease, symptoms and death; contrasting each feature with the celebrated examples of history; moralising and discussing the opinions of the ancients upon these points as he goes along; and showing by his own experience that a man 'after a cough of almost fifty years, in whom all the lobes adhered unto the Pleura,' might yet die of stone in the bladder. Doubtless the friend to whom the letter was indited was highly edified by the aged doctor's learning, yet one cannot conceive that he would be greatly consoled by being informed, when discussing the patient's cough, that 'in cetaceous Fishes, who have large and strong lungs, the same is not observed; nor yet in oviparous Quadrupeds.' Digressing in this manner is a risky business, and if the grief were still fresh, it is more than likely that the bereaved one would exclaim 'A fig for your fishes, Sir.' But Sir Thomas was a wise and worldly man, and would know from experience precisely when to administer his soothing draught.

The attractions of digressing are far more insidious than would appear at first sight. It is so easy, one finds such delightful things, it is all in the daily task of gathering knowledge, it may be useful to us some day, and so on. But, unwisely employed, it is a more terrible thief of time even than Young's 'procrastination.' Worse still, it is a waster; for the scrappy knowledge so often acquired by this means becomes invariably the 'little learning' which is so dangerous—and useless—a thing. So that unless we are strongly imbued with the spirit of scholarly research, determined that we will not deviate one iota from the particular side-track which we are exploring, we are in grave danger of becoming lost in the maze of paths. Digressions in conversation and books can be of immense value, but he must be a man of iron will who can utilise to permanent advantage his resources in this direction. Constant and purposeless digressions, in reading no less than in talk, are just as injurious as interruptions. The mind is switched from one subject to another, and an entire sequence of reasoning which we may have been building up by the study of some days is destroyed in a few moments by the opening up of an unexplored tract of thought.

For many years there was a learned man at work in one of our ancient abbey libraries, cataloguing the manuscripts and monastic charters of the ancient foundation. Their number runs into many thousands, and at the outset the Keeper[17] realised that if this task of providing an index and précis of the entire collection (which would be of incalculable value to the historical students who came after him) were to be accomplished in his lifetime, it would be necessary to adhere rigidly to his plan. Any deviation, however slight, would mean the loss of valuable time. To the historian and antiquary such a determination must have cost more than we can imagine; for every now and again he came across some charter of great historical interest. 'Ah,' he would sigh, reading it through, 'and now I suppose you must go back again into the obscurity in which you have lain for eight hundred years.' He quietly made his précis, indexed the document, and replaced it in the oaken press. There, thanks to his labours, it will be turned to at some future date to add laurels to the 'researches' of another man.

Perhaps the most innocuous way in which we may digress is by compiling one of those delectable literary hotch-potches known as 'commonplace books.' Here, with careful selection, we may garner those delightful thoughts, those gay conceits or pithy stories, that strike our fancy as we read. And though perhaps it may be urged that such collections resemble a casket of loose jewels plucked from their settings, yet they are jewels none the less. We may store all our collections within one cover, or we may preserve separately our extracts from the poets, our biographies, our meditations, or our anecdotes.

The first 'commonplacer' of whom I have seen mention was one Photius, a colonel in the Life Guards at Constantinople during the ninth century, or—as he was then called—Protospatharius. Later he became ambassador to the court of Baghdad, and amused himself by compiling a volume which he called Myriobiblon, a collection of extracts of the authors which he had read. He was a man, we are told, of extraordinary vigour of mind, and of encyclopædical knowledge, and he was so devoted to reading that he passed whole nights without sleep. Accordingly we are not surprised to find that the Myriobiblon, with its Latin translation, forms a folio volume of some 1500 pages. When on an embassy to Assyria, he carried his library—some 300 rolls—with him, presumably on camels. Thus, we suppose, he could bestride his dramatic camel, his poetic camel, or his theological camel as the mood took him. The Myriobiblon was compiled merely as a handbook for his brother Tarasius, that the latter might enjoy a brief synopsis of what the ambassador read on his travels. Several authors are now known only by the extracts in this book; and among them may be mentioned a writer named Conon, who is said to have written fifty novels, which Photius condensed to his liking. All this, of course, was merely pour passer le temps; the really important works of this bookworm being a lexicon and a number of books on theology. Needless to say in due course he became Patriarch of Constantinople.

Who nowadays keeps a commonplace book? Doubtless a good many readers of to-day have neither time nor inclination to indulge this pleasing fashion, at one time so popular; but to anyone whose delight is the reading of good books as opposed to modern novels, there can be no more interesting amusement.

It can be a risky thing, however, this commonplacing, and he would be a bold man who dared to assign unto any one writer a popular phrase for no other reason than that this one has first expressed it in writing. There is no new thing under the sun, and by continued expression a familiar maxim becomes at last a proverb. Ask at a dinner-table who first wrote 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.' The knowing ones will puzzle their brains in silence; some lady with religious tendencies will claim it for the Holy Writ, inclining towards Isaiah; but the quiet bookish man at the end of the table will smile in a superior way, and offer to wager that he can name the author. You may safely accept his bet, for it is a hundred pounds to a penny that he will proclaim Laurence Sterne to have written it—he may even quote the context. Granted that Sterne did write it, but Sterne was a widely-read man and a plagiarist of no mean ability. So you may ask the bookish man how he doth account for this saying occurring in that quaint collection of 'Outlandish Proverbs' entitled 'Jacula Prudentum,' by Master George Herbert, compiled from ancient sources full a hundred years before the birth of the 'Sentimental Journey.'[18]

Sometimes in ancient literature one comes across an expression which is in the vocabulary of everybody to-day, and one realises how very ancient some of these popular aphorisms must be. 'It is not alle golde that glareth,' wrote Chaucer, and the same theme was sung in Provençal by Amanieu des Escas near a hundred years before. But, like 'A bird in the hand,' it is so applicable to the failings to which mankind is prone, that its origin must surely have been far beyond even the classics of the old world, back in the dim ages of man's history. Common also to all nations must some at least of these primitive sayings be, for there is a primæval simplicity about them that knows nothing of race or civilisation. 'A soft answer turns away wrath,' 'Pride goes before a fall,' 'Spare the rod and spoil the child,' are not all these and many others, collected by King Solomon from the wisdom of the East, as applicable to our everyday life in this age as they have ever been in the whole history of mankind?[19] Enough of moralising, however; or else, convinced of the futility of attempting to assign originality to any man, you will come to agree with the young lady of fifteen who, priding herself on the possession of a literary flair, once remarked to the writer: 'In fact there is little doubt that Junius never wrote the letters attributed to him at all!'