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<pre>

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bibliotaph, by Leon H. Vincent

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The Bibliotaph
       and Other People

Author: Leon H. Vincent

Release Date: May 2, 2007 [EBook #21272]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BIBLIOTAPH ***




Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






</pre>

	<div id="the_beginning">
		&nbsp;
	</div>
	<div id="title_page">
		<h1 id="title">THE BIBLIOTAPH</h1>
		<p id="book_subtitle">And Other People</p>
		<p>BY</p>
		<p class="author">LEON H. VINCENT</p>
		<img src="images/device.png" width="154" height="202" alt="" id="device"/>
		<p id="publish_info"><span class="publisher_city">BOSTON AND NEW YORK</span><br />
			<span class="publisher">HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY</span><br />
			<span class="press">The Riverside Press, Cambridge</span><br />
			<span class="published_date">1899</span>
		</p>
	</div>
	<div id="copyright_page" class="section">
		<p id="copyright_statement">COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY LEON H. VINCENT</p>
		<p id="rights_statement">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p>
	</div>
	<div id="dedication" class="section">
		<p>TO MY FATHER<br />
		<span class="dedicatee">THE REV. B. T. VINCENT, D.D.</span><br />
		THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS<br />
		<span class="dedication_emphasis">Dedicated</span><br />
		WITH LOVE AND ADMIRATION</p>
	</div>
	<div id="authors_note" class="section">
		<p><span class="first_word">Four</span> of these papers&#8212;the first Bibliotaph, and
		the notes on Keats, Gautier, and Stevenson&#8217;s <i class="title">St.
		Ives</i>&#8212;are reprinted from the <i class="title">Atlantic Monthly</i> by
		the kind permission of the editor.</p>

		<p>I am also indebted to the literary editor of the
		<i class="title">Springfield Republican</i> and to the editors of <i class="title">Poet-Lore</i>,
		respectively, for allowing me to reprint the
		paper on <i class="title">Thomas Hardy</i> and the lecture on <i class="title">An
		Elizabethan Novelist</i>.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="contents" class="section">
		<h2 class="section_title">CONTENTS</h2>
		<ul id="contents_list">
			<li><a href="#bibliotaph_1">THE BIBLIOTAPH: A PORTRAIT NOT WHOLLY IMAGINARY</a></li>
			<li><a href="#bibliotaph_2">THE BIBLIOTAPH: HIS FRIENDS, SCRAP-BOOKS, AND &#8216;BINS&#8217;</a></li>
			<li><a href="#bibliotaph_3">LAST WORDS ON THE BIBLIOTAPH</a></li>
			<li><a href="#hardy">THOMAS HARDY</a></li>
			<li><a href="#keats">A READING IN THE LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS</a></li>
			<li><a href="#novelist">AN ELIZABETHAN NOVELIST</a></li>
			<li><a href="#autobiography">THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FAIR-MINDED MAN</a></li>
			<li><a href="#waistcoat">CONCERNING A RED WAISTCOAT</a></li>
			<li><a href="#vagabond">STEVENSON: THE VAGABOND AND THE PHILOSOPHER</a></li>
			<li><a href="#st_ives">STEVENSON&#8217;S ST. IVES</a></li>
		</ul>
	</div>
	<p class="book_internal_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_1" title="1"></a>THE BIBLIOTAPH AND OTHER PEOPLE</p>
	<div id="bibliotaph_1" class="essay">
		<h2 id="the_bibliotaph_a_portrait_not_wholly_imaginary">THE BIBLIOTAPH: A PORTRAIT NOT WHOLLY IMAGINARY</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">A popular</span> and fairly orthodox opinion concerning
		book-collectors is that their vices are
		many, their virtues of a negative sort, and their
		ways altogether past finding out. Yet the most
		hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity
		of bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If
		their doings are inscrutable, they are also romantic;
		if their vices are numerous, the heinousness
		of those vices is mitigated by the fact that
		it is possible to sin humorously. Regard him
		how you will, the sayings and doings of the collector
		give life and color to the pages of those
		books which treat of books. He is amusing
		when he is purely an imaginary creature. For
		example, there was one Thomas Blinton. Every
		one who has ever read the volume called <i class="title">Books
		and Bookmen</i> knows about Thomas Blinton.
		He was a man who wickedly adorned his volumes
		with morocco bindings, while his wife
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_2" title="2"></a>&#8216;sighed in vain for some old <i  lang="fr">point d&#8217;Alençon
		lace</i>.&#8217; He was a man who was capable of bidding
		fifteen pounds for a Foppens edition of
		the essays of Montaigne, though fifteen pounds
		happened to be &#8216;exactly the amount which
		he owed his plumber and gas-fitter, a worthy
		man with a large family.&#8217; From this fictitious
		Thomas Blinton all the way back to Richard
		Heber, who was very real, and who piled up
		books as other men heap together vulgar riches,
		book-collectors have been a picturesque folk.</p>

		<p>The name of Heber suggests the thought
		that all men who buy books are not bibliophiles.
		He alone is worthy the title who acquires his
		volumes with something like passion. One may
		buy books like a gentleman, and that is very
		well. One may buy books like a gentleman and
		a scholar, which counts for something more.
		But to be truly of the elect one must resemble
		Richard Heber, and buy books like a gentleman,
		a scholar, and a madman.</p>

		<p>You may find an account of Heber in an old
		file of <i class="title">The Gentleman&#8217;s Magazine</i>. He began
		in his youth by making a library of the classics.
		Then he became interested in rare English
		books, and collected them <i  lang="it">con amore</i> for thirty
		years. He was very rich, and he had never
		given hostages to fortune; it was therefore possible
		for him to indulge his fine passion without
		stint. He bought only the best books, and he
		bought them by thousands and by tens of thousands.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_3" title="3"></a>He would have held as foolishness that
		saying from the Greek which exhorts one to
		do nothing too much. According to Heber&#8217;s
		theory, it is impossible to have too many good
		books. Usually one library is supposed to be
		enough for one man. Heber was satisfied only
		with eight libraries, and then he was hardly
		satisfied. He had a library in his house at
		Hodnet. &#8216;His residence in Pimlico, where he
		died, was filled, like Magliabecchi&#8217;s at Florence,
		with books from the top to the bottom; every
		chair, every table, every passage containing
		piles of erudition.&#8217; He had a house in York
		Street which was crowded with books. He had
		a library in Oxford, one at Paris, one at Antwerp,
		one at Brussels, and one at Ghent. The
		most accurate estimate of his collections places
		the number at 146,827 volumes. Heber is believed
		to have spent half a million dollars for
		books. After his death the collections were dispersed.
		The catalogue was published in twelve
		parts, and the sales lasted over three years.</p>

		<p>Heber had a witty way of explaining why he
		possessed so many copies of the same book.
		When taxed with the sin of buying duplicates
		he replied in this manner: &#8216;Why, you see, sir,
		no man can comfortably do without <em>three</em> copies
		of a book. One he must have for his show
		copy, and he will probably keep it at his country
		house; another he will require for his own
		use and reference; and unless he is inclined to
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_4" title="4"></a>part with this, which is very inconvenient, or
		risk the injury of his best copy, he must needs
		have a third at the service of his friends.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In the pursuit of a coveted volume Heber
		was indefatigable. He was not of those Sybaritic
		buyers who sit in their offices while
		agents and dealers do the work. &#8216;On hearing
		of a curious book he has been known to put
		himself into the mail-coach, and travel three,
		four, or five hundred miles to obtain it, fearful
		to trust his commission to a letter.&#8217; He knew
		the solid comfort to be had in reading a book
		catalogue. Dealers were in the habit of sending
		him the advance sheets of their lists. He
		ordered books from his death-bed, and for anything
		we know to the contrary died with a catalogue
		in his fingers.</p>

		<p>A life devoted to such a passion is a stumbling-block
		to the practical man, and to the
		Philistine foolishness. Yet you may hear men
		praised because up to the day of death they
		were diligent in business,&#8212;business which
		added to life nothing more significant than that
		useful thing called money. Thoreau used to
		say that if a man spent half his time in the
		woods for the love of the woods he was in danger
		of being looked upon as a loafer; but if he
		spent all his time as a speculator, shearing off
		those woods and making Earth bald before her
		time, he was regarded as an upright and industrious
		citizen.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_5" title="5"></a>Heber had a genius for friendship as well as
		for gathering together choice books. Sir Walter
		Scott addressed verses to him. Professor Porson
		wrote emendations for him in his favorite
		copy of <i class="title">Athen&aelig;us</i>. To him was inscribed Dr.
		Ferrier&#8217;s poetical epistle on Bibliomania. His
		virtues were celebrated by Dibdin and by Burton.
		In brief, the sketch of Heber in The<i class="title">
		Gentleman&#8217;s Magazine</i> for January, 1834, contains
		a list of forty-six names,&#8212;all men of distinction
		by birth, learning, or genius, and all
		men who were proud to call Richard Heber
		friend. He was a mighty hunter of books. He
		was genial, scholarly, generous. Out-of-door
		men will be pleased to know that he was active
		physically. He was a tremendous walker,
		and enjoyed tiring out his bailiff by an all-day
		tramp.</p>

		<p>Of many good things said of him this is one
		of the best: &#8216;The learned and curious, whether
		rich or poor, have always free access to his
		library.&#8217; Thus was it possible for Scott very
		truthfully to say to Heber, &#8216;Thy volumes open
		as thy heart.&#8217;</p>

		<p>No life of this Prince of Book-Hunters has
		been written, I believe. Some one with access
		to the material, and a sympathy with the love
		of books as books, should write a memoir of
		Heber the Magnificent. It ought not to be a
		large volume, but it might well be about the
		size of Henry Stevens&#8217;s <i class="title">Recollections of James</i>
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_6" title="6"></a><i class="title">Lenox</i>. And if it were equally readable it were
		a readable book indeed.</p>

		<p>Dibdin thought that Heber&#8217;s tastes were so
		catholic as to make it difficult to classify him
		among hunters of books. The implication is
		that most men can be classified. They have
		their specialties. What pleases one collector
		much pleases another but little or not at all.
		Collectors differ radically in the attitude they
		take with respect to their volumes. One man
		buys books to read, another buys them to gloat
		over, a third that he may fortify them behind
		glass doors and keep the key in his pocket.
		Therefore have learned words been devised to
		make apparent the varieties of motive and taste.
		These words begin with <em>biblio</em>; you may have
		a <em>biblio</em> almost anything.</p>

		<p>Two interesting types of maniac are known
		respectively as the bibliotaph and the biblioclast.
		A biblioclast is one who indulges himself
		in the questionable pleasure of mutilating
		books in order more sumptuously to fit out a
		particular volume. The disease is English in
		origin, though some of the worst cases have
		been observed in America. Clergymen and
		presidents of colleges have been known to be
		seized with it. The victim becomes more or
		less irresponsible, and presently runs mad.
		Such an one was John Bagford, of diabolical
		memory, who mutilated not less than ten thousand
		volumes to form his vast collection of title-pages.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_7" title="7"></a>John Bagford died an unrepentant sinner,
		lamenting with one of his later breaths
		that he could not live long enough to get hold
		of a genuine Caxton and rip the initial page out
		of that.</p>

		<p>The bibliotaph buries books; not literally,
		but sometimes with as much effect as if he had
		put his books underground. There are several
		varieties of him. The dog-in-the-manger bibliotaph
		is the worst; he uses his books but little
		himself, and allows others to use them not at
		all. On the other hand, a man may be a
		bibliotaph simply from inability to get at his
		books. He may be homeless, a bachelor, a
		denizen of boarding-houses, a wanderer upon
		the face of the earth. He may keep his books
		in storage or accumulate them in the country,
		against the day when he shall have a town
		house with proper library.</p>

		<p>The most genial lover of books who has
		walked city streets for many a day was a bibliotaph.
		He accumulated books for years in
		the huge garret of a farmhouse standing upon
		the outskirts of a Westchester County village.
		A good relative &#8216;mothered&#8217; the books for him
		in his absence. When the collection outgrew
		the garret it was moved into a big village store.
		It was the wonder of the place. The country
		folk flattened their noses against the panes and
		tried to peer into the gloom beyond the half-drawn
		shades. The neighboring stores were
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_8" title="8"></a>in comparison miracles of business activity. On
		one side was a harness-shop; on the other a
		nondescript establishment at which one might
		buy anything, from sunbonnets and corsets to
		canned salmon and fresh eggs. Between these
		centres of village life stood the silent tomb for
		books. The stranger within the gates had this
		curiosity pointed out to him along with the new
		High School and the Soldiers&#8217; Monument.</p>

		<p>By shading one&#8217;s eyes to keep away the glare
		of the light, it was possible to make out tall
		carved oaken cases with glass doors, which
		lined the walls. They gave distinction to the
		place. It was not difficult to understand the
		point of view of the dressmaker from across
		the way who stepped over to satisfy her curiosity
		concerning the stranger, and his concerning
		the books, and who said in a friendly manner as
		she peered through a rent in the adjoining
		shade, &#8216;It&#8217;s almost like a cathedral, ain&#8217;t it?&#8217;</p>

		<p>To an inquiry about the owner of the books
		she replied that he was brought up in that
		county; that there were people around there
		who said that he had been an exhorter years
		ago; her impression was that now he was a
		&#8216;political revivalist,&#8217; if I knew what that was.</p>

		<p>The phrase seemed hopeless, but light was
		thrown upon it when, later, I learned that this
		man of many buried books gave addresses upon
		the responsibilities of citizenship, upon the
		higher politics, and upon themes of like character.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_9" title="9"></a>They said that he was humorous. The
		farmers liked to hear him speak. But it was
		rumored that he went to colleges, too. The
		dressmaker thought that the buying of so many
		books was &#8216;wicked.&#8217; &#8216;He goes from New York
		to Beersheba, and from Chicago to Dan, buying
		books. Never reads &#8217;em because he hardly
		ever comes here.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It became possible to identify the Bibliotaph
		of the country store with a certain mature
		youth who some time since &#8216;gave his friends
		the slip, chose land-travel or seafaring,&#8217; and has
		not returned to build the town house with
		proper library. They who observed him closely
		thought that he resembled Heber in certain
		ways. Perhaps this fact alone would justify an
		attempt at a verbal portrait. But the additional
		circumstance that, in days when people with
		the slightest excuse therefor have themselves
		regularly photographed, this old-fashioned youth
		refused to allow his &#8216;likeness&#8217; to be taken,&#8212;this
		circumstance must do what it can to extenuate
		minuteness of detail in the picture, as
		well as over-attention to points of which a
		photograph would have taken no account.</p>

		<p>You are to conceive of a man between thirty-eight
		and forty years of age, big-bodied, rapidly
		acquiring that rotund shape which is thought
		becoming to bishops, about six feet high though
		stooping a little, prodigiously active, walking
		with incredible rapidity, having large limbs,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_10" title="10"></a>large feet, large though well-shaped and very
		white hands; in short, a huge fellow physically,
		as big of heart as of body, and, in the affectionate
		thought of those who knew him best, as big
		of intellect as of heart.</p>

		<p>His head might be described as leonine. It
		was a massive head, covered with a tremendous
		mane of brown hair. This was never worn
		long, but it was so thick and of such fine texture
		that it constituted a real beauty. He had
		no conceit of it, being innocent of that peculiar
		German type of vanity which runs to hair, yet
		he could not prevent people from commenting
		on his extraordinary hirsute adornment. Their
		occasional remarks excited his mirth. If they
		spoke of it again, he would protest. Once,
		among a small party of his closest friends, the
		conversation turned upon the subject of hair,
		and then upon the beauty of <em>his</em> hair; whereupon
		he cried out, &#8216;I am embarrassed by this
		unnecessary display of interest in my Samsonian
		assertiveness.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He loved to tease certain of his acquaintances
		who, though younger than himself, were rapidly
		losing their natural head-covering. He prodded
		them with ingeniously worded reflections
		upon their unhappy condition. He would take
		as a motto Erasmus&#8217;s unkind salutation, &#8216;Bene
		sit tibi cum tuo calvitio,&#8217; and multiply amusing
		variations upon it. He delighted in sending
		them prescriptions and advertisements clipped
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_11" title="11"></a>from newspapers and medical journals. He
		quoted at them the remark of a pale, bald,
		blond young literary aspirant, who, seeing him,
		the Bibliotaph, passing by, exclaimed audibly
		and almost passionately, &#8216;Oh, I perfectly adore
		<em>hair</em>!&#8217;</p>

		<p>Of his clothes it might be said that he did
		not wear them, but rather dwelt at large in
		them. They were made by high-priced tailors
		and were fashionably cut, but he lived in them
		so violently&#8212;that is, traveled so much, walked
		so much, sat so long and so hard, gestured so
		earnestly, and carried in his many pockets such
		an extraordinary collection of notebooks, indelible
		pencils, card-cases, stamp-boxes, penknives,
		gold toothpicks, thermometers, and what not&#8212;that
		within twenty-four hours after he had
		donned new clothes all the artistic merits of the
		garments were obliterated; they were, from
		every point of view, hopelessly degenerate.</p>

		<p>He was a scrupulously clean man, but there
		was a kind of civilized wildness in his appearance
		which astonished people; and in perverse
		moments he liked to terrify those who knew
		him but little by affirming that he was a near
		relative of Christopher Smart, and then explaining
		in mirth-provoking phrases that one of
		the arguments used for proving Smart&#8217;s insanity
		was that he did not love clean linen.</p>

		<p>His appetite was large, as became a large and
		active person. He was a very valiant trencher-man;
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_12" title="12"></a>and yet he could not have been said to
		love eating for eating&#8217;s sake. He ate when he
		was hungry, and found no difficulty in being
		hungry three times a day. He should have
		been an Englishman, for he enjoyed a late supper.
		In the proper season this consisted of
		a bountiful serving of tomatoes, cucumbers,
		onions, with a glass of lemonade. As a variant
		upon the beverage he took milk. He was the
		only man I have known, whether book-hunter
		or layman, who could sleep peacefully upon a
		supper of cucumbers and milk.</p>

		<p>There is probably no occult relation between
		first editions and onions. The Bibliotaph was
		mightily pleased with both: the one, he said,
		appealed to him &aelig;sthetically, the other dietetically.
		He remarked of some particularly large
		Spanish onions that there was &#8216;a globular
		wholesomeness about them which was very
		gratifying;&#8217; and after eating one he observed
		expansively that he felt &#8216;as if he had swallowed
		the earth and the fullness thereof.&#8217; His easy,
		good-humored exaggerations and his odd comments
		upon the viands made him a pleasant
		table companion: as when he described a Parker
		House Sultana Roll by saying that &#8216;it
		looked like the sanguinary output of the whole
		Crimean war.&#8217;</p>

		<p>High-priced restaurants did not please him
		as well as humbler and less obtrusive places.
		But it was all one,&#8212;Delmonico&#8217;s, the Bellevue,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_13" title="13"></a>a stool in the Twelfth Street Market, or a
		German café on Van Buren Street. The humors
		of certain eating-houses gave him infinite
		delight. He went frequently to the Diner&#8217;s
		Own Home, the proprietor of which, being
		both cook and Christian, had hit upon the
		novel plan of giving Scriptural advice and practical
		suggestions by placards on the walls. The
		Bibliotaph enjoyed this juxtaposition of signs:
		the first read, &#8216;The very God of peace sanctify
		you wholly;&#8217; the second, &#8216;Look out for your
		Hat and Coat.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph had no home, and was reputed
		to live in his post-office box. He contributed
		to the support of at least three clubs,
		but was very little seen at any one of them.
		He enjoyed the large cities, and was contented
		in whichever one he happened to find himself.
		He was emphatically a city man, but what city
		was of less import. He knew them all, and
		was happy in each. He had his favorite hotel,
		his favorite bath, his work, bushels of newspapers
		and periodicals, friends who rejoiced in
		his coming as children in the near advent of
		Christmas, and finally book-shops in which to
		browse at his pleasure. It was interesting to
		hear him talk about city life. One of his quaint
		mannerisms consisted in modifying a well-known
		quotation to suit his conversational
		needs. &#8216;Why, sir,&#8217; he would remark, &#8216;Fleet
		Street has a very animated appearance, but I
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_14" title="14"></a>think the full tide of human existence is at the
		corner of Madison and State.&#8217;</p>

		<p>His knowledge of cities was both extensive
		and peculiar. I have heard him name in order
		all the hotels on Broadway, beginning at the
		lower end and coming up as far as hotels exist,
		branching off upon the parallel and cross
		streets where there were noted caravansaries,
		and connecting every name with an event of
		importance, or with the life and fortunes of
		some noted man who had been guest at that
		particular inn. This was knowledge more becoming
		in a guide, perhaps, but it will illustrate
		the encyclop&aelig;dic fullness of his miscellaneous
		information.</p>

		<p>As was natural and becoming in a man born
		within forty miles of the metropolis, he liked
		best the large cities of the East, and was least
		content in small Western cities. But this was
		the outcome of no illiberal prejudice, and there
		was a quizzical smile upon his lips and a teasing
		look in his eyes when he bantered a Westerner.
		&#8216;A man,&#8217; he would sometimes say,
		&#8216;may come by the mystery of childbirth into
		Omaha or Kansas City and be content, but he
		can&#8217;t come by Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.&#8217;
		Then, a moment later, paraphrasing his
		remark, he would add, &#8216;To go to Omaha or
		Kansas City by way of New York and Philadelphia
		is like being translated heavenward
		with such violence that one <em>passes through</em>&#8212;into
		a less comfortable region!&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_15" title="15"></a>Strange to say, the conversation of this most
		omnivorous of book-collectors was less of books
		than of men. True, he was deeply versed in
		bibliographical details and dangerously accurate
		in his talk about them, but, after all, the personality
		back of the book was the supremely
		interesting thing. He abounded in anecdote,
		and could describe graphically the men he had
		met, the orators he had heard, the occasions of
		importance where he had been an interested
		spectator. His conversation was delightfully
		fresh and racy because of the vividness of the
		original impressions, the unusual force of the
		ideas which were the copies of these impressions,
		and the fine artistic sense which enabled
		him to determine at once what points should
		be omitted, and what words should be used
		most fittingly to express the ideas retained.</p>

		<p>He had no pride in his conversational power.
		He was always modest, but never diffident. I
		have seen him sit, a respectful listener, absolutely
		silent, while some ordinary chatterer held
		the company&#8217;s attention for an hour. Many
		good talkers are unhappy unless they have the
		privilege of exercising their gifts. Not so he.
		Sometimes he had almost to be compelled to
		begin. On such occasions one of his intimates
		was wont to quote from Boswell: &#8216;Leave him
		to me, sir; I&#8217;ll make him rear.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The superficial parts of his talk were more
		easily retained. In mere banter, good-humored
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_16" title="16"></a>give-and-take, that froth and bubble of conversational
		intercourse, he was delightful. His
		hostess, the wife of a well-known comedian,
		apologized to him for having to move him out
		of the large guest-chamber into another one,
		smaller and higher up,&#8212;this because of an
		unexpected accession of visitors. He replied
		that it did not incommode him; and as for
		being up another flight of stairs, &#8216;it was a comfort
		to him to know that when he was in a
		state of somnolent helplessness he was as near
		heaven as it was possible to get in an actor&#8217;s
		house.&#8217; The same lady was taking him roundly
		to task on some minor point in which he had
		quite justly offended her; whereupon he turned
		to her husband and said, &#8216;Jane worships but
		little at the shrine of politeness because so
		much of her time is mortgaged to the shrine of
		truth.&#8217;</p>

		<p>When asked to suggest an appropriate and
		brief cablegram to be sent to a gentleman who
		on the following day would become sixty years
		of age, and who had taken full measure of life&#8217;s
		joys, he responded, &#8216;Send him this: &#8220;<em>You
		don&#8217;t look it, but you&#8217;ve lived like it.</em>&#8221;&#8217;</p>

		<p>His skill in witty retort often expressed itself
		by accepting a verbal attack as justified, and
		elaborating it in a way to throw into shadow
		the assault of the critic. At a small and familiar
		supper of bookish men, when there was
		general dissatisfaction over an expensive but
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_17" title="17"></a>ill-made salad, he alone ate with apparent relish.
		The host, who was of like mind with his guests,
		said, &#8216;The Bibliotaph doesn&#8217;t care for the quality
		of his food, if it has filling power.&#8217; To
		which he at once responded, &#8216;You merely
		imply that I am like a robin: I eat cherries
		when I may, and worms when I must.&#8217;</p>

		<p>His inscriptions in books given to his friends
		were often singularly happy. He presented a
		copy of <i class="title">Lowell&#8217;s Letters</i> to a gentleman and
		his wife. The first volume was inscribed to
		the husband as follows:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;To Mr. &#8212;&#8212; &#8212;&#8212;, who is to the owner of
		the second volume of these Letters what this
		volume is to that: so delightful as to make one
		glad that there&#8217;s another equally as good, if not
		better.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In volume two was the inscription to the
		wife, worded in this manner:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;To Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; &#8212;&#8212;, without whom the owner
		of the first volume of these Letters would be as
		that first volume without this one: interesting,
		but incomplete.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Perhaps this will illustrate his quickness to
		seize upon ever so minute an occasion for the
		exercise of his humor. A young woman whom
		he admired, being brought up among brothers,
		had received the nickname, half affectionately
		and half patronizingly bestowed, of &#8216;the Kid.&#8217;
		Among her holiday gifts for a certain year was
		a book from the Bibliotaph, a copy of <i class="title">Old-Fashioned
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_18" title="18"></a>Roses</i>, with this dedication: &#8216;To a
		Kid, had Abraham possessed which, Isaac had
		been the burnt-offering.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It is as a buyer and burier of books that the
		subject of this paper showed himself in most
		interesting light. He said that the time to
		make a library was when one was young. He
		held the foolish notion that a man does not
		purchase books after he is fifty; I shall expect
		to see him ransacking the shops after he is
		seventy, if he shall survive his eccentricities of
		diet that long. He was an omnivorous buyer,
		picking up everything he could lay his hands
		upon. Yet he had a clearly defined motive for
		the acquisition of every volume. However
		absurd the purchase might seem to the bystander,
		he, at any rate, could have given six
		cogent reasons why he must have that particular
		book.</p>

		<p>He bought according to the condition of his
		purse at a given time. If he had plenty of
		money, it would be expensive publications, like
		those issued by the Grolier Club. If he was
		financially depressed, he would hunt in the out-of-door
		shelves of well-known Philadelphia bookshops.
		It was marvelous to see what things,
		new and old, he was able to extract from a ten-cent
		alcove. Part of the secret lay in this idea:
		to be a good book-hunter one must not be too
		dainty; one must not be afraid of soiling one&#8217;s
		hands. He who observes the clouds shall not
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_19" title="19"></a>reap, and he who thinks of his cuffs is likely to
		lose many a bookish treasure. Our Bibliotaph
		generally parted company with his cuffs when
		he began hunting for books. How many times
		have I seen those cuffs with the patent fasteners
		sticking up in the air, as if reaching out
		helplessly for their owner; the owner in the
		mean time standing high upon a ladder which
		creaked under his weight, humming to himself
		as he industriously examined every volume
		within reach. This ability to live without cuffs
		made him prone to reject altogether that orthodox
		bit of finish to a toilet. I have known him
		to spend an entire day in New York between
		club, shops, and restaurant, with one cuff on,
		and the other cuff&#8212;its owner knew not where.</p>

		<p>He differed from Heber in that he was not
		&#8216;a classical scholar of the old school,&#8217; but there
		were many points in which he resembled the
		famous English collector. Heber would have
		acknowledged him as a son if only for his
		energy, his unquenchable enthusiasm, and the
		exactness of his knowledge concerning the
		books which he pretended to know at all. For
		not alone is it necessary that a collector should
		know precisely what book he wants; it is even
		more important that he should be able to know
		a book <em>as</em> the book he wants when he sees it.
		It is a lamentable thing to have fired in the
		dark, and then discover that you have shot a
		wandering mule, and not the noble game you
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_20" title="20"></a>were in pursuit of. One cannot take his reference
		library with him to the shops. The
		tests, the criteria, must be carried in the head.
		The last and most inappropriate moment for
		getting up bibliographical lore is that moment
		when the pressing question is, to buy or not to
		buy. Master Slender, in the play, learned the
		difficulties which beset a man whose knowledge
		is in a book, and whose book is at home upon a
		shelf. It is possible to sympathize with him
		when he exclaims, &#8216;I had rather than forty
		shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets
		here!&#8217; In making love there are other resources;
		all wooers are not as ill equipped as
		Slender was. But in hunting rare books the
		time will be sure to come when a man may
		well cry, &#8216;I had rather than forty dollars I had
		my list of first editions with me!&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph carried much accurate information
		in his head, but he never traveled without
		a thesaurus in his valise. It was a small
		volume containing printed lists of the first
		editions of rare books. The volume was interleaved;
		the leaves were crowded with manuscript
		notes. An appendix contained a hundred
		and more autograph letters from living authors,
		correcting, supplementing, or approving the
		printed bibliographies. Even these authors&#8217;
		own lists were accurately corrected. They
		needed it in not a few instances. For it is a
		wise author who knows his own first edition.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_21" title="21"></a>Men may write remarkable books, and understand
		but little the virtues of their books from
		the collector&#8217;s point of view. Men are seldom
		clever in more ways than one. Z. Jackson was
		a practical printer, and his knowledge as a
		printer enabled him to correct sundry errors in
		the first folio of Shakespeare. But Z. Jackson,
		as the Rev. George Dawson observes, &#8216;ventured
		beyond the composing-case, and, having
		corrected blunders made by the printers, corrected
		excellencies made by the poet.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It was amusing to discover, by means of
		these autograph letters, how seldom a good
		author was an equally good bibliographer. And
		this is as it should be. The author&#8217;s business
		is, not to take account of first editions, but to
		make books of such virtue that bibliomaniacs
		shall be eager to possess the first editions
		thereof. It is proverbial that a poet is able to
		show a farmer things new to him about his own
		farm. Turn a bibliographer loose upon a poet&#8217;s
		works, and he will amaze the poet with an
		account of <em>his</em> own doings. The poet will
		straightway discover that while he supposed
		himself to be making &#8216;mere literature&#8217; he was
		in reality contributing to an elaborate and exact
		science.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph was not a blind enthusiast on
		the subject of first editions. He was one of
		the few men who understood the exceeding
		great virtues of second editions. He declared
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_22" title="22"></a>that a man who was so fortunate as to secure
		a second edition of Henry Crabb Robinson&#8217;s
		<i class="title">Diary</i> was in better case than he who had
		bothered himself to obtain a first. When it
		fell in with his mood to argue against that
		which he himself most affected, he would quote
		the childish bit of doggerel beginning &#8216;The
		first the worst, the second the same,&#8217; and then
		grow eloquent over the dainty Templeman Hazlitts
		which are chiefly third editions. He
		thought it absurd to worry over a first issue of
		Carlyle&#8217;s <i class="title">French Revolution</i> if it were possible
		to buy at moderate price a copy of the third
		edition, which is a well-nigh perfect book,
		&#8216;good to the touch and grateful to the eye.&#8217;
		But this lover of books grew fierce in his special
		mania if you hinted that it was also foolish
		to spend a large sum on an <i  lang="la">editio princeps</i> of
		<i class="title">Paradise Lost</i> or of <i class="title">Robinson Crusoe</i>. There
		are certain authors concerning the desirability
		of whose first editions it must not be disputed.</p>

		<p>The singular readiness with which bookish
		treasures fell into his way astonished less fortunate
		buyers. Rare Stevensons dropped into
		his hand like ripe fruit from a tree. The most
		inaccessible of pamphlets fawned upon him,
		begging to be purchased, just as the succulent
		little roast pigs in <i class="title">The New Paul and Virginia</i>
		run about with knives and forks in their sides
		pleading to be eaten. The Bibliotaph said he
		did not despair of buying Poe&#8217;s <i class="title">Tamerlane</i> for
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_23" title="23"></a>twenty-five cents one of these days; and that
		a rarity he was sure to get sooner or later was
		a copy of that English newspaper which announced
		Shelley&#8217;s death under the caption <em>Now
		he Knows whether there is a Hell or Not</em>.</p>

		<p>He unconsciously followed Heber in that he
		disliked large-paper copies. Heber would none
		of them because they took up too much room;
		their ample borders encroached upon the rights
		of other books. Heber objected to this as
		Prosper Mérimée objected to the gigantic English
		hoopskirts of 1865,&#8212;there was space on
		Regent Street for but one woman at a time.</p>

		<p>Original as the Bibliotaph was in appearance,
		manners, habits, he was less striking in what
		he did than in what he said. It is a pity that
		no record of his talk exists. It is not surprising
		that there is no such record, for his habits
		of wandering precluded the possibility of his
		making a permanent impression. By the time
		people had fully awakened to the significance
		of his presence among them he was gone. So
		there grew up a legend concerning him, but no
		true biography. He was like a comet, very
		shaggy and very brilliant, but he stayed so
		brief a time in a place that it was impossible
		for one man to give either the days or the
		thought to the reproduction of his more serious
		and considered words. A greater difficulty was
		involved in the fact that the Bibliotaph had
		many socii, but no fidus Achates. Moreover,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_24" title="24"></a>Achates, in this instance, would have needed
		the reportorial powers of a James Boswell that
		he might properly interpret genius to the public.</p>

		<p>This particular genius illustrated the misfortune
		of having too great facility in establishing
		those relations which lie midway between
		acquaintance and friendship. To put the matter
		in the form of a paradox, he had so many
		<em>friends</em> that he had no <em>friend</em>. Perhaps this is
		unjust, but friendship has a touch of jealousy
		and exclusiveness in it. He was too large-natured
		to say to one of his admirers, &#8216;Thou
		shalt have no other gods save myself;&#8217; but
		there were those among the admirers who were
		quite prepared to say to him, &#8216;We prefer that
		thou shalt have no other worshipers in addition
		to us.&#8217;</p>

		<p>People wondered that he seemed to have no
		care for a conventional home life. He was
		taxed with want of sympathy with what makes
		even a humble home a centre of light and happiness.
		He denied it, and said to his accusers,
		&#8216;Can you not understand that after a stay in
		<em>your</em> home I go away with much the feeling
		that must possess a lusty young calf when his
		well-equipped mother tells him that henceforth
		he must find means of sustenance elsewhere?&#8217;</p>

		<p>He professed to have been once in love, but
		no one believed it. He used to say that his
		most remarkable experience as a bachelor was
		in noting the uniformity with which eligible
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_25" title="25"></a>young women passed him by on the other side
		of the way. And when a married friend offered
		condolence, with that sleek complacency of
		manner noteworthy in men who are conscious
		of being mated for life better than they deserve,
		the Bibliotaph said, with an admiring glance at
		the wife, &#8216;Your sympathy is supererogatory,
		sir, for I fully expect to become your residuary
		legatee.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It is most pleasing to think of this unique
		man &#8216;buffeting his books&#8217; in one of those temporary
		libraries which formed about him whenever
		he stopped four or five weeks in a place.
		The shops were rifled of not a few of their
		choicest possessions, and the spoils carried off
		to his room. It was a joy to see him display
		his treasures, a delight to hear him talk of
		them. He would disarm criticism with respect
		to the more eccentric purchases by saying,
		&#8216;You wouldn&#8217;t approve of this, but <em>I</em> thought
		it was curious,&#8217;&#8212;and then a torrent of facts,
		criticisms, quotations, all bearing upon the particular
		volume which you were supposed not to
		like; and so on, hour after hour. There was
		no limit save that imposed by the receptive
		capacity of the guest. It reminded one of the
		word spoken concerning a &#8216;hard sitter at books&#8217;
		of the last century, that he was a literary giant
		&#8216;born to grapple with whole libraries.&#8217; But the
		fine flavor of those hours spent in hearing him
		discourse upon books and men is not to be
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_26" title="26"></a>recovered. It is evanescent, spectral, now. This
		talk was like the improvisation of a musician
		who is profoundly learned, but has in him a
		vein of poetry too. The talk and the music
		strongly appeal to robust minds, and at the same
		time do not repel the sentimentalist.</p>

		<p>It is not to be supposed that the Bibliotaph
		pleased every one with whom he came in contact.
		There were people whom his intellectual
		potency affected in a disagreeable way. They
		accused him of applying great mental force to
		inconsidered trifles. They said it was a misfortune
		that so much talent was going to waste.
		But there is no task so easy as criticising an
		able man&#8217;s employment of his gifts.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="bibliotaph_2" class="essay">
		<h2 id="the_bibliotaph_his_friends_scrap_books_and_8216bins8217"><a class="pagenum" id="page_27" title="27"></a>THE BIBLIOTAPH: HIS FRIENDS, SCRAP-BOOKS, AND &#8216;BINS&#8217;</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">To</span> arrive at a high degree of pleasure in
		collecting a library, one must travel. The Bibliotaph
		regularly traveled in search of his volumes.
		His theory was that the collector must
		go to the book, not wait for the book to come
		to him. No reputable sportsman, he said, would
		wish the game brought alive to his back-yard
		for him to kill. Half the pleasure was in tracking
		the quarry to its hiding-place. He himself
		ordered but seldom from catalogues, and went
		regularly to and fro among the dealers in books,
		seeking the volume which his heart desired.
		He enjoyed those shops where the book-seller
		kept open house, where the stock was large and
		surprises were common, where the proprietor
		was prodigiously well-informed on some points
		and correspondingly ill-informed on others. He
		bought freely, never disputed a price, and laid
		down his cash with the air of a man who believes
		that unspent money is the root of all
		evil.</p>

		<p>These travels brought about three results:
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_28" title="28"></a>the making of friends, the compilation of scrap-books,
		and the establishment of &#8216;bins.&#8217; Before
		speaking of any one of these points, a word on
		the satisfactions of bibliographical touring.</p>

		<p>In every town of considerable size, and in
		many towns of inconsiderable size, are bookshops.
		It is a poor shop which does not contain
		at least one good book. This book bides
		its time, and usually outstays its welcome. But
		its fate is about its neck. Somewhere there is
		a collector to whom that book is precious. They
		are made for one another, the collector and the
		book; and it is astonishing how infrequently
		they miss of realizing their mutual happiness.
		The book-seller is a marriage-broker for unwedded
		books. His business is to find them
		homes, and take a fee for so doing. Sugarman
		the Shadchan was not more zealous than is
		your vendor of rare books.</p>

		<p>Now, it is a curious fact that the most desirable
		of bookish treasures are often found
		where one would be least likely to seek them.
		Montana is a great State, nevertheless one does
		not think of going to Montana for early editions
		of Shakespeare. Let the book-hunter inwardly
		digest the following plain tale of a clergyman
		and a book of plays.</p>

		<p>There is a certain collector who is sometimes
		called &#8216;The Bishop.&#8217; He is not a bishop, but
		he may be so designated; coming events have
		been known to cast conspicuous shadows in
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_29" title="29"></a>the likeness of mitre and crosier. The Bishop
		heard of a man in Montana who had an old
		book of plays with an autograph of William
		Shakespeare pasted in it. Being a wise ecclesiastic,
		he did not exclaim &#8216;Tush&#8217; and &#8216;Fie,&#8217; but
		proceeded at once to go book-hunting in Montana.
		He went by proxy, if not in person; the
		journey is long. In due time the owner of the
		volume was found and the book was placed in
		the Bishop&#8217;s hands for inspection. He tore off
		the wrappers, and lo! it was a Fourth Folio
		of Shakespeare excellently well preserved, and
		with what appeared to be the great dramatist&#8217;s
		signature written on a slip of paper and pasted
		inside the front cover. The problem of the
		genuineness of that autograph does not concern
		us. The great fact is that a Shakespeare
		folio turned up in Montana. Now when he
		hears some one express desire for a copy of
		Greene&#8217;s <i class="title">Groatsworth of Wit</i>, or any other rare
		book of Elizabeth&#8217;s time, the Bishop&#8217;s thoughts
		fly toward the setting sun. Then he smiles a
		notable kind of smile, and says, &#8216;If I could get
		away I&#8217;d run out to Montana and try to pick
		up a copy for you.&#8217;</p>

		<p>There is a certain gentleman who loves the
		literature of Queen Anne&#8217;s reign. He lives
		with Whigs and Tories, vibrates between coffee-house
		and tea-table. He annoys his daughter
		by sometimes calling her &#8216;Belinda,&#8217; and
		astonishes his wife with his mock-heroic apostrophes
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_30" title="30"></a>to her hood and patches. He reads his
		<i class="title">Spectator</i> at breakfast while other people batten
		upon newspapers only three hours old. He
		smiles over the love-letters of Richard Steele,
		and reverences the name and the writings of
		Joseph Addison. Indeed, his devotion to Addison
		is so radical that he has actually been guilty
		of reading <i class="title">The Campaign</i> and the <i class="title">Dialogue on
		Medals</i>. This gentleman hunted books one day
		and was not successful. It seemed to him that
		on this particular afternoon the world was
		stuffed with Allison&#8217;s histories of Europe, and
		Jeffrey&#8217;s contributions to the <i class="title">Edinburgh Review</i>.
		His heart was filled with bitterness and
		his nostrils with dust. Books which looked inviting
		turned out to be twenty-second editions.
		Of fifty things upon his list not one came to
		light. But it was predestined that he should
		not go sorrowing to his home. He pulled out
		from a bottom shelf two musty octavo volumes
		bound in dark brown leather, and each securely
		tied with a string; for the covers had been
		broken from the backs. The titles were invisible,
		the contents a mystery. The gentleman
		held the unpromising objects in his hand and
		meditated upon them. They might be a treatise
		on conic sections, or a Latin Grammar, and
		again they might be a Book. He untied the
		string and opened one of the volumes. Was it
		a breath of summer air from Isis that swept
		out of those pages, which were as white as snow
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_31" title="31"></a>in spite of the lapse of nearly two centuries?
		He read the title, <i class="title emphasis">Musarum Anglicanarum
		Analecta</i>. The date was 1699. He turned
		to the table of contents, and his heart gave
		a contented throb. There was the name he
		wished to see, J. Addison, Magd. Coll: The
		name occurred eight times. The dejected collector
		had found a clean and uncut copy of
		those two volumes of contemporary Latin verse
		compiled by Joseph Addison, when he was a
		young man at Oxford, and printed at the Sheldonian
		Theatre. Addison contributed eight
		poems to the second volume. The bookseller
		was willing to take seventy-five cents for the
		set, and told the gentleman as he did up the
		package that he was a comfort to the trade.</p>

		<p>That night the gentleman read <i class="title">The Battle of
		the Pigmies and the Cranes</i>, while his wife read
		the evening edition of the <i class="title">Lurid Paragraph</i>.
		Now he says to his friends, &#8216;Hunt books in
		the most unpromising places, but make a thorough
		search. You may not discover a Koh-i-noor,
		but you will be pretty sure to run upon
		some desirable little thing which gives you
		pleasure and costs but a trifle.&#8217;</p>

		<p>One effect of this adventure upon himself is
		that he cannot pass a volume which is tied with
		a string. He spends his days and Saturday
		nights in tying and untying books with broken
		covers. Even the evidence of a clearly-lettered
		title upon the back fails to satisfy him. He is
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_32" title="32"></a>restless until he has made a thorough search
		in the body of the volume.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph&#8217;s own best strokes of fortune
		were made in out-of-the-way places. But some
		god was on his side. For at his approach the
		bibliographical desert blossomed like the rose.
		He used to hunt books in Texas at one period
		in his life; and out of Texas would he come,
		bringing, so it is said, first editions of George
		Borrow and Jane Austen. It was maddening
		to be with him at such times, especially if one
		had a gift for envy.</p>

		<p>Yet why should one envy him his money, or
		his unerring hand and eye? He paid for the
		book, but it was yours to read and to caress so
		long as you would. If he took it from you it
		was only that he might pass it on to some other
		friend. But if that volume once started in the
		direction of the great tomb of books in Westchester
		County, no power on earth could avail
		to restore it to the light of day.</p>

		<p>It is pleasant to meditate upon past journeys
		with the Bibliotaph. He was an incomparable
		traveling companion, buoyant, philosophic, incapable
		of fatigue, and never ill. Yet it is a
		tradition current, that he, the mighty, who
		called himself a friend to physicians, because
		he never robbed them of their time either in
		or out of office-hours, once succumbed to that
		irritating little malady known as car-sickness.
		He succumbed, but he met his fate bravely and
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_33" title="33"></a>with the colors of his wit flying. The circumstances
		are these:&#8212;</p>

		<p>There is a certain railway thoroughfare which
		justly prides itself upon the beauty of its scenery.
		This road passes through a hill-country,
		and what it gains in the picturesque it loses in
		that rectilinear directness most grateful to the
		traveler with a sensitive stomach. The Bibliotaph
		often patronized this thoroughfare, and
		one day it made him sick. As the train swept
		around a sharp curve, he announced his earliest
		symptom by saying: &#8216;The conspicuous advantages
		of this road are that one gets views of
		the scenery and reviews of his meals.&#8217;</p>

		<p>A few minutes later he suggested that the
		road would do well to change its name, and
		hereafter be known as &#8216;The Emetic G. and O.&#8217;</p>

		<p>They who were with him proffered sympathy,
		but he refused to be pitied. He thought
		he had a remedy. He discovered that by taking
		as nearly as possible a reclining posture, he
		got temporary relief. He kept settling more
		and more till at last he was nearly on his back.
		Then he said: &#8216;If it be true that the lower
		down we get the more comfortable we are, the
		basements of Hell will have their compensations.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He was too ill to say much after this, but his
		last word, before the final and complete extinction
		of his manhood, was, &#8216;The influence of
		this road is such that employees have been
		known involuntarily to throw up their jobs.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_34" title="34"></a>The Bibliotaph invariably excited comment
		and attention when he was upon his travels. I
		do not think he altogether liked it. Perhaps
		he neither liked it nor disliked it. He accepted
		the fact that he was not as other men quite as
		he would have accepted any indisputable fact.
		He used occasionally to express annoyance because
		of the discrepancy between his reputation
		and appearance; in other words, because he
		seemed a man of greater fame than he was.
		He suffered the petty discomforts of being a
		personage, and enjoyed none of the advantages.
		He declared that he was quite willing to be
		much more distinguished or much less conspicuous.
		What he objected to was the Laodicean
		character of his reputation as set over against
		the pronounced and even startling character of
		his looks and manner.</p>

		<p>He used also to note with amusement how
		indelible a mark certain early ambitions and
		tentative studies had made upon him. People
		invariably took him for a clergyman. They
		decided this at once and conducted themselves
		accordingly. He made no protest, but observed
		that their convictions as to how they should
		behave in his presence had corollaries in the
		shape of very definite convictions as to how he
		should carry himself before them. He thought
		that such people might be described as moral
		trainers. They do not profess virtue themselves,
		but they take a real pleasure in keeping
		you up to your profession.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_35" title="35"></a>The Bibliotaph had no explanation to give
		why he was so immediately and invariably accounted
		as one in orders. He was quite sure
		that the clerical look was innate, and by no
		means dependent upon the wearing of a high
		vest or a Joseph Parker style of whisker; for
		once as he sat in the hot room of a Turkish
		bath and in the Adamitic simplicity of attire
		suitable to the temperature and the place, a
		gentleman who occupied the chair nearest introduced
		conversation by saying, &#8216;I beg your
		pardon, sir, but are you not a clergyman?&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;This incident,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph, &#8216;gave me
		a vivid sense of the possibility of determining
		a man&#8217;s profession by a cursory examination of
		his cuticle.&#8217; Lowell&#8217;s conviction about N. P.
		Willis was well-founded: namely, that if it had
		been proper to do so, Willis could have worn
		his own plain bare skin in a way to suggest
		that it was a representative Broadway tailor&#8217;s
		best work.</p>

		<p>I imagine that few boys escape an outburst
		of that savage instinct for personal adornment
		which expresses itself in the form of rude tattooing
		upon the arms. The Bibliotaph had had
		his attack in early days, and the result was a
		series of decorations of a highly patriotic character,
		and not at all in keeping with South
		Kensington standards. I said to him once,
		apropos of the pictures on his arms: &#8216;You are
		a great surprise to your friends in this particular.&#8217;
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_36" title="36"></a>&#8216;Yes,&#8217; he replied, &#8216;few of them are aware
		that the volume of this Life is extra-illustrated.&#8217;</p>

		<p>But that which he of necessity tolerated in
		himself he would not tolerate in his books.
		They were not allowed to become pictorially
		amplified. He saw no objection to inserting a
		rare portrait in a good book. It did not necessarily
		injure the book, and it was one way of
		preserving the portrait. Yet the thing was
		questionable, and it was likely to prove the first
		step in a downward path. As to cramming a
		volume with a heterogeneous mass of pictures
		and letters gathered from all imaginable sources,
		he held the practice in abhorrence, and the bibliographical
		results as fit only for the libraries
		of the illiterate rich. He admitted the possibility
		of doing such a thing well or ill; but at
		its best it was an ill thing skillfully done.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph upon his travels was a noteworthy
		figure if only because of the immense
		parcel of books with which he burdened himself.
		That part of the journeying public which
		loves to see some new thing puzzled itself
		mightily over the gentleman of full habit, who
		in addition to his not inconsiderable encumbrance
		of flesh and luggage, chose to carry
		about a shawl-strap loaded to utmost capacity
		with a composite mass of books, magazines,
		and newspapers. It was enormously heavy, and
		the way in which its component parts adhered
		was but a degree short of the miraculous. He
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_37" title="37"></a>appeared hardly conscious of its weight, for he
		would pick the thing up and literally <em>trip</em> with
		it on a toe certainly not light, but undeniably
		fantastic.</p>

		<p>He carried the books about with him partly
		because he had just purchased them and wished
		to study their salient points, and partly because
		he was taking them to a &#8216;bin.&#8217; There is no
		mystery about these &#8216;bins.&#8217; They were merely
		places of temporary rest for the books before
		the grand moving to the main library. But if
		not mysterious they were certainly astonishing,
		because of their number and size. With respect
		to number, one in every large city was
		the rule. With respect to size, few people buy
		in a lifetime as many books as were sometimes
		heaped together in one of these places of deposit.
		He would begin by leaving a small bundle
		of books with some favorite dealer, then
		another, and then another. As the collection
		enlarged, the accommodations would be increased;
		for it was a satisfaction to do the Bibliotaph
		this favor, he purchased so liberally and
		tipped the juvenile clerks in so royal a manner.
		Nor was he always in haste to move out after
		he had once moved in. One bookseller, speaking
		of the splendid proportions which the
		&#8216;bin&#8217; was assuming, declared that he sometimes
		found it difficult to adjust himself mentally
		to the situation; he couldn&#8217;t tell when he
		came to his place of business in the morning
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_38" title="38"></a>whether he was in his own shop or the Bibliotaph&#8217;s
		library.</p>

		<p>The corner of the shop where the great collector&#8217;s
		accumulations were piled up was a
		centre of mirth and conversation if he himself
		chanced to be in town. Men dropped in for a
		minute and stayed an hour. In some way time
		appeared to broaden and leisure to grow more
		ample. Life had an unusual richness, and
		warmth, and color, when the Bibliotaph was
		by. There was an Olympian largeness and
		serenity about him. He seemed almost pagan
		in the breadth of his hold upon existence. And
		when he departed he left behind him what
		can only be described as great unfilled mental
		spaces. I recall that a placard was hung up
		in his particular corner with the inscription,
		&#8216;English spoken here.&#8217; This amused him.
		Later there was attached to it another strip
		upon which was crayoned, &#8216;Sir, we had much
		good talk,&#8217; with the date of the talk. Still
		later a victim added the words, &#8216;Yes, sir, on
		that day the Bibliotaph tossed and gored a
		number of people admirably.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It was difficult for the Bibliotaph not to emit
		intellectual sparks of one kind or another. His
		habit of dealing with every fact as if it deserved
		his entire mental force, was a secret of
		his originality. Everything was worth while.
		If the fact was a serious fact, all the strength
		of his mind would be applied to its exposition
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_39" title="39"></a>or defense. If it was a fact of less importance,
		humor would appear as a means to the conversational
		end. And he would grow more humorous
		as the topics grew less significant. When
		finally he rioted in mere word-play, banter,
		quizzing, it was a sign that he regarded the
		matter as worthy no higher species of notice.</p>

		<p>I like this theory of his wit so well that I am
		minded not to expose it to an over-rigid test.
		The following small fragments of his talk are
		illustrative of such measure of truth as the
		theory may contain.</p>

		<p>Among the Bibliotaph&#8217;s companions was one
		towards whose mind he affected the benevolent
		and encouraging attitude of a father to a budding
		child. He was asked by this friend to
		describe a certain quaint and highly successful
		entertainer. This was the response: &#8216;The
		gentleman of whom you speak has the habit of
		coming before his audience as an idiot and retiring
		as a genius. You and I, sir, couldn&#8217;t do
		that; we should sustain the first character consistently
		throughout the entire performance.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It was his humor to insist that all the virtues
		and gifts of a distinguished collector were due
		for their expansion and development to association
		with himself and the writer of these
		memories. He would say in the presence of
		the distinguished collector: &#8216;Henry will probably
		one day forget us, but on the Day of Judgment,
		in any just estimate of the causes of his
		success, the Lord won&#8217;t.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_40" title="40"></a>I have forgotten what the victim&#8217;s retort
		was; it is safe to assume that it was adequate.</p>

		<p>This same collector had the pleasing habit of
		honoring the men he loved, among whom the
		Bibliotaph was chief, with brightly written
		letters which filled ten and fifteen half-sheets.
		But the average number of words to a line was
		two, while a five-syllable word had trouble in
		accommodating itself to a line and a half, and
		the sheets were written only upon one side.
		The Bibliotaph&#8217;s comment was: &#8216;Henry has a
		small brain output, but unlimited influence at a
		paper-mill.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Of all the merry sayings in which the Bibliotaph
		indulged himself at the expense of his
		closest friend this was the most comforting. A
		gentleman present was complaining that Henry
		took liberties in correcting his pronunciation.
		&#8216;I have no doubt of the occasional need of such
		correction, but it isn&#8217;t often required, and not
		half so often as he seems to think. I, on the
		other hand, observe frequent minor slips in his
		use of language, but I do not feel at liberty to
		correct him.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph began to apply salve to the
		bruised feelings of the gentleman present as
		follows: &#8216;The animus of Henry&#8217;s criticism is
		unquestionably envy. He probably feels how
		few flies there are in your ointment. While
		you are astonished that in his case there should
		be so little ointment for so many flies.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_41" title="41"></a>The Bibliotaph never used slang, and the
		united recollections of his associates can adduce
		but two or three instances in which he sunk
		verbally so low as even to <em>hint</em> slang. He said
		that there was one town which in his capacity
		of public speaker he should like to visit. It was
		a remote village in Virginia where there was a
		girls&#8217; seminary, the catalogue of which set forth
		among advantages of location this: that the
		town was one to which the traveling lecturer
		and the circus never came. The Bibliotaph
		said, &#8216;I should go there. For I am the one
		when I am on the platform, and by the unanimous
		testimony of all my friends I am the
		other when I am off.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The second instance not only illustrates his
		ingenuity in trifles, but also shows how he could
		occasionally answer a friend according to his
		folly. He had been describing a visit which he
		had made in the hero-worshiping days of boyhood
		to Chappaqua; how friendly and good-natured
		the great farmer-editor was; how he
		called the Bibliotaph &#8216;Bub,&#8217; and invited him to
		stay to dinner; how he stayed and talked politics
		with his host; how they went out to the
		barn afterwards to look at the stock; what
		Greeley said to him and what he said to Greeley,&#8212;it
		was a perfect bit of word-sketching,
		spontaneous, realistic, homely, unpretentious,
		irresistibly comic because of the quaintness of
		the dialogue as reported, and because of the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_42" title="42"></a>mental image which we formed of this large-headed,
		round-bellied, precocious youth, who at
		the age of sixteen was able for three consecutive
		hours to keep the conversational shuttlecock
		in the air with no less a person than
		Horace Greeley. Amid the laughter and comment
		which followed the narration one mirthful
		genius who chose for the day to occupy the
		seat of the scorner, called out to the Bibliotaph:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;How old did you say you were at that time,
		&#8220;Bub&#8221;?&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;Sixteen.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;And did you wear whiskers?&#8217;</p>

		<p>The query was insulting. But the Bibliotaph
		measured the flippancy of the remark with his
		eye and instantly fitted an answer to the mental
		needs of the questioner.</p>

		<p>&#8216;Even if I had,&#8217; he said, &#8216;it would have
		availed me nothing, for in those days there was
		no wind.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph was most at home in the
		book-shop, on the street, or at his hotel. He
		went to public libraries only in an emergency,
		for he was impatient of that needful discipline
		which compelled him to ask for each volume he
		wished to see. He had, however, two friends
		in whose libraries one might occasionally meet
		him in the days when he hunted books upon
		this wide continent. One was the gentleman
		to whom certain letters on literature have
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_43" title="43"></a>been openly addressed, and who has made a
		library by a process which involves wise selection
		and infinite self-restraint. This priceless
		little collection contains no volume which is
		imperfect, no volume which mars the fine sense
		of repose begotten in one at the sight of lovely
		books becomingly clothed, and no volume which
		is not worthy the name of literature. And
		there is matter for reflection in the thought
		that it is not the library of a rich man. Money
		cannot buy the wisdom which has made this
		collection what it is, and without self-denial it
		is hardly possible to give the touch of real elegance
		to a private library. When dollars are
		not counted the assemblage of books becomes
		promiscuous. How may we better describe
		this library than by the phrase Infinite riches
		in a little book-case!</p>

		<p>There was yet another friend, the Country
		Squire, who revels in wealth, buys large-paper
		copies, reads little but deeply, and raises chickens.
		His library (the room itself, I mean) is
		a gentleman&#8217;s library, with much cornice, much
		plate-glass, and much carving; whereof a wit
		said, &#8216;The Squire has such a beautiful library,
		and no place to put his books.&#8217;</p>

		<p>These books are of a sort to rejoice the heart,
		but their tenure of occupancy is uncertain.
		Hardly one of them but is liable to eviction
		without a moment&#8217;s notice. They have a look
		in their attitude which indicates consciousness
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_44" title="44"></a>of being pilgrims and strangers. They
		seem to say, &#8216;We can tarry, we can tarry but
		a night.&#8217; Some have tarried two nights, others
		a week, others a year, a few even longer. But
		aside from a dozen or so of volumes, not one of
		the remaining three thousand dares to affirm
		that it holds a permanent place in its owner&#8217;s
		heart of hearts. It is indeed a noble procession
		of books which has passed in and out of those
		doors. A day will come in which the owner
		realizes that he has as good as the market can
		furnish, and then banishments will cease. One
		sighs not for the volumes which deserved exile,
		but for those which were sent away because
		their master ceased to love them.</p>

		<p>There was no friend with whom the Bibliotaph
		lived on easier terms than with the Country
		Squire. They were counterparts. They supplemented
		one another. The Bibliotaph, though
		he was born and bred on a farm, had fled for
		his salvation to the city. The Squire, a man
		of city birth and city education, had fled for
		his soul&#8217;s health to the country; he had rendered
		existence almost perfect by setting up an
		urban home in rural surroundings. It was well
		said of that house that it was finely reticent in
		its proffers of hospitality, and regally magnificent
		in its kindness to those whom it delighted
		to honor.</p>

		<p>It was in the Country Squire&#8217;s library that
		the Bibliotaph first met that actor with whom
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_45" title="45"></a>he became even more intimate than with the
		Squire himself. The closeness of their relation
		suggested the days of the old Miracle plays
		when the theatre and the Church were as hand
		in glove. The Bibliotaph signified his appreciation
		of his new friend by giving him a copy of
		a sixteenth-century book &#8216;containing a pleasant
		invective against Poets, Pipers, Players,
		Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth.&#8217;
		The Player in turn compiled for
		his friend of clerical appearance a scrap-book,
		intended to show how evil associations corrupt
		good actors.</p>

		<p>This actor professed that which for want of
		a better term might be called parlor agnosticism.
		The Bibliotaph was sturdily inclined
		towards orthodoxy, and there was from time to
		time collision between the two. It is my impression
		that the actor sometimes retired with
		four of his five wits halting. But he was
		brilliant even when he mentally staggered.
		Neither antagonist convinced the other, and
		after a while they grew wearied of traveling
		over one another&#8217;s minds.</p>

		<p>It fell out on a day that the actor made a
		fine speech before a large gathering, and mindful
		of stage effect he introduced a telling allusion
		to an all-wise and omnipotent Providence.
		For this he was, to use his own phrase, &#8216;soundly
		spanked&#8217; by all his friends; that is, he was
		mocked at, jeered, ridiculed. To what end,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_46" title="46"></a>they said, was one an agnostic if he weakly
		yielded his position to the exigencies of an
		after-dinner speech. The Bibliotaph alone took
		pains to analyze his late antagonist&#8217;s position.
		He wrote to the actor congratulating him upon
		his success. &#8216;I wondered a little at this, remembering
		how inconsiderable has been your
		practice; and I infer that it has been inconsiderable,
		for I am aware how seldom an actor can
		be persuaded to make a speech. I, too, was at
		first shocked when I heard that you had made
		a respectful allusion to Deity; but I presently
		took comfort, <em>remembering that your gods, like
		your grease-paints, are purely professional</em>.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He was always capital in these teasing moods.
		To be sure, he buffeted one about tremendously,
		but his claws were sheathed, and there
		was a contagiousness in his frolicsome humor.
		Moreover one learned to look upon one&#8217;s self
		in the light of a public benefactor. To submit
		to be knocked about by the Bibliotaph was in
		a modest way to contribute to the gayety of nations.
		If one was not absolutely happy one&#8217;s
		self, there was a chastened comfort in beholding
		the happiness of the on-lookers.</p>

		<p>A small author wrote a small book, so small
		that it could be read in less time than it takes
		to cover an umbrella, that is, &#8216;while you wait.&#8217;
		The Bibliotaph had Brobdingnagian joy of this
		book. He sat and read it to himself in the
		author&#8217;s presence, and particularly diminutive
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_47" title="47"></a>that book appeared as its light cloth cover was
		outlined against the Bibliotaph&#8217;s ample black
		waistcoat. From time to time he would vent
		&#8216;a series of small private laughs,&#8217; especially if
		he was on the point of announcing some fresh
		illustration of the fallibility of inexperienced
		writers. Finally the uncomfortable author said,
		&#8216;Don&#8217;t sit there and pick out the mistakes.&#8217;
		To which the Bibliotaph triumphantly replied,
		&#8216;What other motive is there for reading it at
		all?&#8217;</p>

		<p>He purchased every copy of this book which
		he could find, and when asked by the author
		why he did so, replied, &#8216;In order to withdraw
		it from circulation.&#8217; A moment afterwards he
		added reflectively, &#8216;But how may I hope to
		withdraw a book from that which it has never
		had?&#8217;</p>

		<p>He was apt to be severe in his judgment of
		books, as when he said of a very popular but
		very feeble literary performance that it was an
		argument for the existence of God. &#8216;Such intensity
		of stupidity was not realized without
		Infinite assistance.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He could be equally emphatic in his comments
		upon men. Among his acquaintance
		was a church dignitary who blew alternately
		hot and cold upon him. When advised of some
		new illustration of the divine&#8217;s uncertainty of
		attitude, the Bibliotaph merely said, &#8216;He&#8217;s
		more of a chameleon than he is a clergyman.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_48" title="48"></a>That Bostonian would be deficient in wit who
		failed to enjoy this remark. Speaking of the
		characteristics of American cities, the Bibliotaph
		said, &#8216;It never occurs to the Hub that
		anything of importance can possibly happen at
		the periphery.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He greatly admired the genial and philanthropic
		editor of a well-known Philadelphia
		newspaper. Shortly after Mr. Childs&#8217;s death
		some one wrote to the Bibliotaph that in a
		quiet Kentucky town he had noticed a sign
		over a shop-door which read, &#8216;G. W. Childs,
		dealer in Tobacco and Cigars.&#8217; There was
		something graceful in the Bibliotaph&#8217;s reply.
		He expressed surprise at Mr. Childs&#8217;s new occupation,
		but declared that for his own part he
		was &#8216;glad to know that the location of Heaven
		had at last been definitely ascertained.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph habitually indulged himself
		in the practice of hero-worship. This propensity
		led him to make those glorified scrap-books
		which were so striking a feature in his collection.
		They were no commonplace affairs, the
		ugly result of a union of cheap leather, newspaper-clippings
		and paste, but sumptuous books
		resplendent in morocco and gilt tooling, the
		creations of an artist who was eminent among
		binders. These scrap-books were chiefly devoted
		to living men,&#8212;men who were famous,
		or who were believed to be on the high road to
		fame. There was a book for each man. In this
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_49" title="49"></a>way did the Bibliotaph burn incense before his
		Dii majores et minores.</p>

		<p>These books were enriched with everything
		that could illustrate the gifts and virtues of the
		men in whose honor they were made. They
		contained rare manuscripts, rare pictures, autograph
		comments and notes, a bewildering variety
		of records,&#8212;memorabilia which were
		above price. Poets wrote humorous verse, and
		artists who justly held their time as too precious
		to permit of their working for love decorated
		the pages of the Bibliotaph&#8217;s scrap-books.
		One does not abuse the word &#8216;unique&#8217; when
		he applies it to these striking volumes.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph did not always follow contemporary
		judgment in his selection of men to be
		so canonized. He now and then honored a
		man whose sense of the relation of achievement
		to fame would not allow him to admit to himself
		that he deserved the distinction, and whose
		sense of humor could not but be strongly excited
		at the thought of deification by so unusual
		a process. It might be pleasant to consider
		that the Bibliotaph cared so much for
		one&#8217;s letters as to wish not to destroy them,
		but it was awful to think of those letters as
		bound and annotated. This was to get a taste
		of posthumous fame before posthumous fame
		was due. The Bibliotaph added a new terror
		to life, for he compelled one to live up to one&#8217;s
		scrap-book. He reversed the old Pagan formula,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_50" title="50"></a>which was to the effect that &#8216;So-and-So
		died and was made a god.&#8217; According to the
		Bibliotaph&#8217;s prophetic method, a man was made
		a god first and allowed to die at his leisure
		afterward. Not every one of that little company
		which his wisdom and love have marked
		for great reputation will be able to achieve it.
		They are unanimously grateful that he cared
		enough for them to wish to drag their humble
		gifts into the broad light of publicity. But
		their gratitude is tempered by the thought that
		perhaps he was only elaborately humorous at
		their expense.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph&#8217;s intellectual processes were
		so vigorous and his pleasure in mental activity
		for its own sake was so intense that he was quite
		capable of deciding after a topic of discussion
		had been introduced which side he would take.
		And this with a splendid disdain of the merits
		of the cause which he espoused. I remember
		that he once set out to maintain the thesis that
		a certain gentleman, as notable for his virtues
		as he was conspicuous for lack of beauty, was
		essentially a handsome man. The person who
		initiated the discussion by observing that &#8216;Mr.
		Blank was unquestionably a plain man&#8217; expected
		from the Bibliotaph (if he expected any
		remark whatever) nothing beyond a Platonic
		&#8216;That I do most firmly believe.&#8217; He was not a
		little astonished when the great book-collector
		began an elaborate and exhaustive defense of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_51" title="51"></a>the gentleman whose claims to beauty had
		been questioned. At first it was dialogue, and
		the opponent had his share of talk; but when
		in an unlucky moment he hinted that such
		energy could only be the result of consciousness
		on the Bibliotaph&#8217;s part that he was in a
		measure pleading his own cause, the dialogue
		changed to monologue. For the Bibliotaph
		girded up his loins and proceeded to smite his
		opponent hip and thigh. All in good humor, to
		be sure, and laughter reigned, but it was tremendous
		and it was logically convincing. It
		was clearly not safe to have a reputation for
		good looks while the Bibliotaph was in this
		temper. All the gentlemen were in terror lest
		something about their countenances might be
		construed as beauty, and men with good complexions
		longed for newspapers behind which
		to hide their disgrace.</p>

		<p>As for the disputant who had stirred up the
		monster, his situation was as unenviable as it
		was comic to the bystanders. He had never
		before dropped a stone into the great geyser.
		He was therefore unprepared for the result.
		One likened him to an unprotected traveler in
		a heavy rain-storm. For the Bibliotaph&#8217;s unpremeditated
		speech was a very cloud-burst of
		eloquence. The unhappy gentleman looked despairingly
		in every direction as if beseeching
		us for the loan of a word-proof umbrella. There
		was none to be had. We who had known a
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_52" title="52"></a>like experience were not sorry to stand under
		cover and watch a fellow mortal undergo this
		verbal drenching. The situation recalled one
		described by Lockhart when a guest differed
		on a point of scholarship with the great Coleridge.
		Coleridge began to &#8216;exert himself.&#8217; He
		burst into a steady stream of talk which broadened
		and deepened as the moments fled. When
		finally it ceased the bewildered auditor pulled
		himself together and exclaimed, &#8216;Zounds, I
		was never so <em>be-thumped</em> with words in my
		life!&#8217;</p>

		<p>People who had opportunity of observing the
		Bibliotaph were tempted to speculate on what
		he might have become if he had not chosen to
		be just what he was. His versatility led them
		to declare for this, that, and the other profession,
		largely in accordance with their own personal
		preferences. Lawyers were sure that he
		should have been an advocate; ministers that
		he would have done well to yield to the &#8216;call&#8217;
		he had in his youth; teachers were positive
		that he would have made an inspiring teacher.
		No one, so far as I know, ever told him that in
		becoming a book-collector he had deprived the
		world of a great musician; for he was like
		Charles Lamb in that he was sentimentally
		inclined to harmony but organically incapable
		of a tune.</p>

		<p>Yet he was so broad-minded that it was not
		possible for him to hold even a neutral attitude
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_53" title="53"></a>in the presence of anything in which other people
		delighted. I have known him to sit through
		a long and heavy organ recital, not in a resigned
		manner but actively attentive, clearly
		determined that if the minutest portion of his
		soul was sensitive to the fugues of J. S. Bach
		he would allow that portion to bask in the sunshine
		of an unwonted experience. So that
		from one point of view he was the incarnation
		of tolerance as he certainly was the incarnation
		of good-humor and generosity. He envied no
		man his gifts from Nature or Fortune. He was
		not only glad to let live, but painstakingly
		energetic in making the living of people a pleasure
		to them, and he received with amused
		placidity adverse comments upon himself.</p>

		<p>Words which have been used to describe a
		famous man of this century I will venture to
		apply in part to the Bibliotaph. &#8216;He was a
		kind of gigantic and Olympian school-boy, &#8230;
		loving-hearted, bountiful, wholesome and sterling
		to the heart&#8217;s core.&#8217;</p>

	</div>
	<div id="bibliotaph_3" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_54" title="54"></a>LAST WORDS ON THE BIBLIOTAPH</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">The</span> Bibliotaph&#8217;s major passion was for collecting
		books; but he had a minor passion, the
		bare mention of which caused people to lift
		their eyebrows suspiciously. He was a shameless,
		a persistent, and a successful hunter of
		autographs. His desire was for the signatures
		of living men of letters, though an occasional
		dead author would be allowed a place in the
		collection, provided he had not been dead too
		long. As a rule, however, the Bibliotaph coveted
		the &#8216;hand of write&#8217; of the man who was
		now more or less conspicuously in the public
		eye. This autograph must be written in a
		representative work of the author in question.
		The Bibliotaph would not have crossed the
		street to secure a line from Ben Jonson&#8217;s pen,
		but he mourned because the autograph of the
		Rev. C. L. Dodgson was not forthcoming, nor
		likely to be. His conception of happiness was
		this: to own a copy of the first edition of
		<i class="title">Alice in Wonderland</i>, upon the fly-leaf of which
		Lewis Carroll had written his name, together
		with the statement that he had done so at the
		Bibliotaph&#8217;s request, and because that eminent
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_55" title="55"></a>collector could not be made happy in any other
		Way.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph liked the autograph of the
		modern man of letters because it <em>was</em> modern,
		and because there was a reasonable hope of its
		being genuine. He loved genuineness. Everything
		about himself was exactly what it pretended
		to be. From his soul to his clothing he
		was honest. And his love for the genuine
		was only surpassed in degree by his contempt
		for the spurious. I remember that some one
		gave him a bit of silverware, a toilet article,
		perhaps, which he next day threw out of a car
		window, because he had discovered that it was
		not sterling. He scouted the suggestion that
		possibly the giver may not have known. Such
		ignorance was inexcusable, he said. &#8216;The likelier
		interpretation was that the gift was symbolical
		of the giver.&#8217; The act seemed brutal, and the
		comment thereon even more so. But to realize
		the atmosphere, the setting of the incident, one
		must imagine the Bibliotaph&#8217;s round and comfortable
		figure, his humorous look, and the air
		of genial placidity with which he would do and
		say a thing like this. It was as impossible to
		be angry with him in behalf of the unfortunate
		giver of cheap silver as to take offense at a tree
		or mountain. And it was useless to argue the
		matter&#8212;nay it was folly, for he would immediately
		become polysyllabic and talk one down.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_56" title="56"></a>It was this desire for genuine things which
		made him entirely suspicious of autographs
		which had been bought and sold. He had no
		faith in them, and he would weaken your faith,
		supposing you were a collector of such things.
		Offer him an autograph of our first president
		and he would reply, &#8216;I don&#8217;t believe that it&#8217;s
		genuine; and if it were I shouldn&#8217;t care for it;
		I never had the honor of General Washington&#8217;s
		acquaintance.&#8217; The inference was that one
		could have a personal relation with a living
		great man, and the chances were largely in
		favor of getting an autograph that was not an
		object of suspicion.</p>

		<p>Few collectors in this line have been as happy
		as the Bibliotaph. The problem was easily mastered
		with respect to the majority of authors.
		As a rule an author is not unwilling to give
		such additional pleasure to a reader of his
		book as may consist in writing his name in the
		reader&#8217;s copy. It is conceivable that the author
		may be bored by too many requests of this
		nature, but he might be bored to an even
		greater degree if no one cared enough for him
		to ask for his autograph. Some writers resisted
		a little, and it was beautiful to see the
		Bibliotaph bring them to terms. He was a
		highwayman of the Tom Faggus type, just so
		adroit, and courteous, and daring. He was
		perhaps at his best in cases where he had
		actually to hold up his victim; one may imagine
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_57" title="57"></a>the scene,&#8212;the author resisting, the Bibliotaph
		determined and having the masterful air
		of an expert who had handled just such cases
		before.</p>

		<p>A humble satellite who disapproved of these
		proceedings read aloud to the Bibliotaph that
		scorching little essay entitled <i class="title">Involuntary Bailees</i>,
		written by perhaps the wittiest living English
		essayist. An involuntary bailee&#8212;as the
		essayist explains&#8212;is a person to whom people
		(generally unknown to him) send things which
		he does not wish to receive, but which <em>they</em> are
		anxious to have returned. If a man insists
		upon lending you a book, you become an involuntary
		bailee. You don&#8217;t wish to read the
		book, but you have it in your possession. It
		has come to you by post, let us suppose, &#8216;and
		to pack it up and send it back again requires
		a piece of string, energy, brown paper, and
		stamps enough to defray the postage.&#8217; And it
		is a question whether a casual acquaintance
		&#8216;has any right thus to make demands on a
		man&#8217;s energy, money, time, brown paper, string,
		and other capital and commodities.&#8217; There are
		other ways of making a man an involuntary
		bailee. You may ask him to pass judgment on
		your poetry, or to use his influence to get your
		tragedy produced, or to do any one of a half
		hundred things which he doesn&#8217;t want to do
		and which you have no business to ask him to
		do. The essayist makes no mention of the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_58" title="58"></a>particular form of sin which the Bibliotaph
		practiced, but he would probably admit that
		malediction was the only proper treatment for
		the idler who bothers respectable authors by
		asking them to write their names in his copies
		of their books. For to what greater extent
		could one trespass upon an author&#8217;s patience,
		energy, brown paper, string, and commodities
		generally? It was amusing to watch the Bibliotaph
		as he listened to this arraignment of his
		favorite pursuit. The writer of the essay admits
		that there may be extenuating circumstances.
		If the autograph collector comes bearing gifts
		one may smile upon his suit. If for example
		he accompanies his request for an autograph
		with &#8216;several brace of grouse, or a salmon of
		noble proportions, or rare old books bound by
		Derome, or a service of Worcester china with
		the square mark,&#8217; he may hope for success.
		The essayist opines that such gifts &#8216;will not be
		returned by a celebrity who respects himself.&#8217;
		&#8216;They bless him who gives and him who takes
		much more than tons of manuscript poetry,
		and thousands of entreaties for an autograph.&#8217;</p>

		<p>A superficial examination of the Bibliotaph&#8217;s
		collection revealed the fact that he had either
		used necromancy or given many gifts. The
		reader may imagine some such conversation
		between the great collector and one of his dazzled
		visitors:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;Pray, how did you come by this?&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_59" title="59"></a>&#8216;His lordship has always been very kind in
		such matters.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;And where did you get this?&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;I am greatly indebted to the Prime Minister
		for his complaisance.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;But this poet is said to abhor Americans.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;You see that his antipathy has not prevented
		his writing a stanza in my copy of his
		most notable volume.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;And this?&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;I have at divers times contributed the sum
		of five dollars to divers Fresh Air funds.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph could not be convinced that
		his sin of autograph collecting was not venial.
		When authors denied his requests, on the
		ground that they were intrusions, he was inclined
		to believe that selfishness lay at the
		basis of their motives. Some men are quite
		willing to accept great fame, but they resent
		being obliged to pay the penalties. They wish
		to sit in the fierce light which beats on an intellectual
		throne, but they are indignant when
		the passers-by stop to stare at them. They
		imagine that they can successfully combine the
		glory of honorable publicity with the perfect
		retirement enjoyed only by aspiring mediocrity.
		The Bibliotaph believed that he was a missionary
		to these people. He awakened in them a
		sense of their obligations toward their admirers.
		The principle involved is akin to that enunciated
		by a certain American philosopher, who
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_60" title="60"></a>held that it is an act of generosity to borrow
		of a man once in a while; it gives that man a
		lively interest in the possible success or possible
		failure of your undertaking.</p>

		<p>He levied autographic toll on young writers.
		For mature men of letters with established reputations
		he would do extraordinary and difficult
		services. A famous Englishman, not a
		novelist by profession, albeit he wrote one of
		the most successful novels of his day, earnestly
		desired to own if possible a complete set of
		all the American pirated editions of his book.
		The Bibliotaph set himself to this task, and
		collected energetically for two years. The undertaking
		was considerable, for many of the
		pirated editions were in pamphlet, and dating
		from twenty years back. It was almost impossible
		to get the earliest in a spotless condition.
		Quantities of trash had to be overhauled, and
		weeks might elapse before a perfect copy of a
		given edition would come to light. Books are
		dirty, but pamphlets are dirtier. The Bibliotaph
		declared that had he rendered an itemized
		bill for services in this matter, the largest item
		would have been for Turkish baths.</p>

		<p>Here was a case in which the collector paid
		well for the privilege of having a signed copy
		of a well-loved author&#8217;s novel. He begrudged
		no portion of his time or expenditure. If it
		pleased the great Englishman to have upon his
		shelves, in compact array and in spotless condition,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_61" title="61"></a>these proofs of what he <em>didn&#8217;t</em> earn by
		the publication of his books in America, well
		and good. The Bibliotaph was delighted that
		so modest a service on his part could give so
		apparently great a pleasure. The Englishman
		must have had the collecting instinct, and he
		must have been philosophical, since he could
		contemplate with equanimity these illegitimate
		volumes.</p>

		<p>The conclusion of the story is this: The
		work of collecting the reprints was finished.
		The last installment reached the famous Englishman
		during an illness which subsequently
		proved fatal. They were spread upon the coverlid
		of the bed, and the invalid took a great and
		humorous satisfaction in looking them over.
		Said the Bibliotaph, recounting the incident in
		his succinct way, &#8216;They reached him on his
		death-bed,&#8212;and made him willing to go.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph was true to the traditions of
		the book-collecting brotherhood, in that he read
		but little. His knowledge of the world was
		fresh from life, not &#8216;strained through books,&#8217;
		as Johnson said of a certain Irish painter whom
		he knew at Birmingham. But the Bibliotaph
		was a mighty devourer of book-catalogues. He
		got a more complete satisfaction, I used to
		think, in reading a catalogue than in reading
		any other kind of literature. To see him unwrapping
		the packages which his English mail
		had brought was to see a happy man. For in
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_62" title="62"></a>addition to books by post, there would be bundles
		of sale-catalogues. Then might you behold
		his eyes sparkle as he spread out the
		tempting lists; the humorous lines about the
		corners of his mouth deepened, and he would
		take on what a little girl who watched him
		called his &#8216;pussy-cat look.&#8217; Then with an indelible
		pencil in his huge and pudgy left fist
		(for the Bibliotaph was a Benjaminite), he would
		go through the pages, checking off the items
		of interest, rolling with delight in his chair as
		he exclaimed from time to time, &#8216;Good books!
		Such good books!&#8217; Say to him that you yourself
		liked to read a catalogue, and his response
		was pretty sure to be, &#8216;Pleasant, isn&#8217;t it?&#8217; This
		was expressive of a high state of happiness,
		and was an allusion. For the Bibliotaph was
		once with a newly-married man, and they two
		met another man, who, as the conversation
		proceeded, disclosed the fact that he also had
		but recently been wed. Whereupon the first
		bridegroom, marveling that there could be another
		in the world so exalted as himself, exclaimed
		with sympathetic delight, &#8216;And <em>you</em>,
		too, are married.&#8217; &#8216;Yes,&#8217; said the second,
		&#8216;pleasant, isn&#8217;t it?&#8217; with much the same air
		that he would have said, &#8216;Nice afternoon.&#8217; This
		was one of the incidents which made the
		Bibliotaph skeptical about marriage. But he
		adopted the phrase as a useful one with which
		to express the state of highest mental and
		spiritual exaltation.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_63" title="63"></a>People wondered at the extent of his knowledge
		of books. It was very great, but it was
		not incredible. If a man cannot touch pitch
		without being defiled, still less can he handle
		books without acquiring bibliographical information.
		I am not sure that the Bibliotaph
		ever heard of that professor of history who
		used to urge his pupils to handle books, even
		when they could not get time to read them.
		&#8216;Go to the library, take down the volumes,
		turn over the leaves, read the title-pages and
		the tables of contents; information will stick
		to you&#8217;&#8212;this was the professor&#8217;s advice. Information
		acquired in this way may not be profound,
		but so far as it goes it is definite and
		useful. For the collector it is indispensable.
		In this way the Bibliotaph had amassed his
		seemingly phenomenal knowledge of books.
		He had handled thousands and tens of thousands
		of volumes, and he never relinquished
		his hold upon a book until he had &#8216;placed&#8217; it,&#8212;until
		he knew just what its rank was in the
		hierarchy of desirability.</p>

		<p>Between a diligent reading of catalogues and
		an equally diligent rummaging among the collections
		of third and fourth rate old book-shops,
		the Bibliotaph had his reward. He undoubtedly
		bought a deal of trash, but he also lighted
		upon nuggets. For example, in Leask&#8217;s Life
		of Boswell is an account of that curious little
		romance entitled <i class="title">Dorando</i>. This so-called
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_64" title="64"></a><i class="title">Spanish Tale</i>, printed for J. Wilkie at the Bible
		in St. Paul&#8217;s Church-Yard, was the work of
		James Boswell. It was published anonymously
		in 1767, and he who would might then have
		bought it for &#8216;one shilling.&#8217; It was to be &#8216;sold
		also by J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, T. Davies in
		Russell-Street, Covent Garden, and by the
		Book-sellers of Scotland.&#8217; This T. Davies was
		the very man who introduced Boswell to Johnson.
		He was an actor as well as a bookseller.
		<i class="title">Dorando</i> was a story with a key. Under the
		names of Don Stocaccio, Don Tipponi, and
		Don Rodomontado real people were described,
		and the facts of the &#8216;famous Douglas cause&#8217;
		were presented to the public. The little volume
		was suppressed in so far as that was possible.
		It is rare, so rare that Boswell&#8217;s latest
		biographer speaks of it as the &#8216;forlorn hope of
		the book-hunter,&#8217; though he doubts not that
		copies of it are lurking in some private collection.
		One copy at least is lurking in the Bibliotaph&#8217;s
		library. He bought it, not for a song
		to be sure, but very reasonably. The Bibliotaph
		declares that this book is good for but one
		thing,&#8212;to shake in the faces of Boswell collectors
		who haven&#8217;t it.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph had many literary heroes.
		Conspicuous among them were Professor Richard
		Porson and Benjamin Jowett, the late master
		of Balliol. The Bibliotaph collected everything
		that related to these two men, all the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_65" title="65"></a>books with which they had had anything to do,
		every newspaper clipping and magazine article
		which threw light upon their manners, habits,
		modes of thought. He especially loved to tell
		anecdotes of Porson. He knew many. He had
		an interleaved copy of J. Selby Watson&#8217;s Life
		of Porson into which were copied a multitude
		of facts not to be found in that amusing biography.
		The Bibliotaph used to say that he
		would rather have known Porson than any other
		man of his time. He used to quote this as one
		of the best illustrations of Porson&#8217;s wit, and
		one of the finest examples of the retort satiric
		to be found in any language. One of Porson&#8217;s
		works was assailed by Wakefield and by Hermann,
		scholars to be sure, but scholars whose
		scholarship Porson held in contempt. Being
		told of their attack Porson only said that &#8216;whatever
		he wrote in the future should be written
		in such a way that those fellows wouldn&#8217;t be
		able to reach it with their fore-paws if they
		stood on their hind-legs to get at it!&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph gave such an air of contemporaneity
		to his stories of the great Greek professor
		that it seemed at times as if they were
		the relations of one who had actually known
		Porson. So vividly did he portray the marvels
		of that compound of thirst and scholarship that
		no one had the heart to laugh when, after one
		of his narrations, a gentleman asked the Bibliotaph
		if he himself had studied under Porson.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_66" title="66"></a>&#8216;Not <em>under</em> him but <em>with</em> him,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph.
		&#8216;He was my coeval. Porson, Richard
		Bentley, Joseph Scaliger, and I were all students
		together.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Speaking of Jowett the Bibliotaph once said
		that it was wonderful to note how culture failed
		to counteract in an Englishman that disposition
		to heave stones at an American. Jowett, with
		his remarkable breadth of mind and temper,
		was quite capable of observing, with respect to
		a certain book, that it was American, &#8216;yet in
		perfect taste.&#8217; &#8216;This,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph, &#8216;is
		as if one were to say, &#8220;The guests were Americans,
		but no one expectorated on the carpet.&#8221;&#8217;
		The Bibliotaph thought that there was not so
		much reason for this attitude. The sins of
		Englishmen and Americans were identical, he
		believed, but the forms of their expression were
		different. &#8216;Our sin is a voluble boastfulness;
		theirs is an irritating, unrestrainable, all-but-constantly
		manifested, satisfied self-consciousness.
		The same results are reached by different
		avenues. We praise ourselves; they
		belittle others.&#8217; Then he added with a smile:
		&#8216;Thus even in these latter days are the Scriptures
		exemplified; the same spirit with varying
		manifestations.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He was once commenting upon Jowett&#8217;s
		classification of humorists. Jowett divided humorists
		&#8216;into three categories or classes; those
		who are not worth reading at all; those who
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_67" title="67"></a>are worth reading once, but once only; and
		those who are worth reading again and again
		and for ever.&#8217; This remark was made to Swinburne,
		who quotes it in his all too brief <i class="title">Recollections
		of Professor Jowett</i>. Swinburne says
		that the starting-point of their discussion was
		the <i class="title">Biglow Papers</i>, which &#8216;famous and admirable
		work of American humour&#8217; Jowett placed
		in the second class. Swinburne himself thought
		that the <i class="title">Biglow Papers</i> was too good for the
		second class and not quite good enough for the
		third. &#8216;I would suggest that a fourth might
		be provided, to include such examples as are
		worth, let us say, two or three readings in a
		life-time.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph made a variety of comments
		on this, but I remember only the following; it
		is a reason for not including the <i class="title">Biglow Papers</i>
		in Jowett&#8217;s third and crowning class. &#8216;Humor
		to be popular permanently must be general
		rather than local, and have to do with a phase
		of character rather than a fact of history; that
		is, it must deal in a great way with what is always
		interesting to all men. Humor that does
		not meet this requirement is not likely, when
		its novelty has worn off, to be read even occasionally
		save by those who enjoy it as an intellectual
		performance or who are making a
		critical study of its author.&#8217; The observation,
		if not profound, is at least sensible, and it illustrates
		very well the Bibliotaph&#8217;s love of alliteration
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_68" title="68"></a>and antithesis. But it is easier to remember
		and to report his caustic and humorous
		remarks.</p>

		<p>The Country Squire had a card-catalogue of
		the books in his library, and he delighted to
		make therein entries of his past and his new
		purchases. But it was not always possible to
		find upon the shelves books that were mentioned
		in the catalogue. The Bibliotaph took
		advantage of a few instances of this sort to
		prod his moneyed friend. He would ask the
		Squire if he had such-and-such a book. The
		Squire would say that he had, and appeal to his
		catalogue in proof of it. Then would follow a
		search for the volume. If, as sometimes happened,
		no book corresponding to the entry could
		be found, the Bibliotaph would be satirical and
		remark:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;I&#8217;ll tell you what you ought to name your
		catalogue.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;What?&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;Great expectations!&#8217;</p>

		<p>Another time he said, &#8216;This is not a list of
		your books, this is a list of the things that you
		intend to buy;&#8217; or he would suggest that the
		Squire would do well to christen his catalogue
		<i class="title">Vaulting Ambition</i>. Perhaps the variation
		might take this form. After a fruitless search
		for some book, which upon the testimony of
		the catalogue was certainly in the collection,
		the Bibliotaph would observe, &#8216;This catalogue
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_69" title="69"></a>might not inappropriately be spoken of as the
		substance of things hoped for, and the evidence
		of things not seen.&#8217; Another time the Bibliotaph
		said to the Squire, calling to mind the
		well-known dictum as to the indispensableness
		of certain books, &#8216;Between what one sees on
		your shelves and what one reads in your card-catalogue
		one would have reason to believe that
		you were a gentleman.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Once the Bibliotaph said to me in the presence
		of the Squire: &#8216;I think that our individual
		relation to books might be expressed in this
		way. You read books but you don&#8217;t buy them.
		I buy books but I don&#8217;t read them. The
		Squire neither reads them nor buys them,&#8212;only
		card-catalogues them!&#8217;</p>

		<p>To all this the Squire had a reply which was
		worldly, emphatic, and adequate, but the object
		of this study is not to exhibit the virtues of the
		Squire&#8217;s speech, witty though it was.</p>

		<p>One of the Bibliotaph&#8217;s friends began without
		sufficient provocation to write verse. The
		Bibliotaph thought that if the matter were taken
		promptly in hand the man could be saved. Accordingly,
		when next he gave this friend a book
		he wrote upon a fly-leaf: &#8216;To a Poet who is
		nothing if not original&#8212;and who is not original!&#8217;
		And the injured rhymester exclaimed
		when he read the inscription: &#8216;You deface
		every book you give me.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He could pay a compliment, as when he was
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_70" title="70"></a>dining with a married pair who were thought
		to be not yet disenchanted albeit in the tenth
		year of their married life. The lady was speaking
		to the Bibliotaph, but in the eagerness of
		conversation addressed him by her husband&#8217;s
		first name. Whereupon he turned to the husband
		and said: &#8216;Your wife implies that I am a
		repository of grace and a bundle of virtues, and
		calls me by your name.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He once sent this same lady, apropos of the
		return of the shirt-waist season, a dozen neckties.
		In the box was his card with these words
		penciled upon it: &#8216;A contribution to the man-made
		dress of a God-made woman.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Squire had great skill in imitating the
		cries of various domestic fowl, as well as dogs,
		cats, and children. Once, in a moment of social
		relaxation, he was giving an exhibition of his
		power to the vast amusement of his guests.
		When he had finished, the Bibliotaph said:
		&#8216;The theory of Henry Ward Beecher that
		every man has something of the animal in him
		is superabundantly exemplified in <em>your</em> case.
		You, sir, have got the whole Ark.&#8217;</p>

		<p>There was a quaint humor in his most commonplace
		remarks. Of all the fruits of the
		earth he loved most a watermelon. And when
		a fellow-traveler remarked, &#8216;That watermelon
		which we had at dinner was bad,&#8217; the Bibliotaph
		instantly replied: &#8216;There is no such thing
		as a <em>bad</em> watermelon. There are watermelons,
		and <em>better</em> watermelons.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_71" title="71"></a>I expressed astonishment on learning that he
		stood six feet in his shoes. He replied: &#8216;People
		are so preoccupied in the consideration of
		my thickness that they don&#8217;t have time to observe
		my height.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Again, when he was walking through a private
		park which contained numerous monstrosities
		in the shape of painted metal deer on
		pedestals, pursued (also on pedestals) by hunters
		and dogs, the Bibliotaph pointed to one of
		the dogs and said, &#8216;Cave cast-iron canem!&#8217;</p>

		<p>He once accompanied a party of friends and
		acquaintances to the summit of Mt. Tom. The
		ascent is made in these days by a very remarkable
		inclined plane. After looking at the extensive
		and exquisite view, the Bibliotaph fell
		to examining his return coupon, which read,
		&#8216;Good for one Trip Down.&#8217; Then he said:
		&#8216;Let us hope that in a post-terrestrial experience
		our tickets will not read in this way.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He was once ascending in the unusually
		commodious and luxurious elevator of a new
		ten-story hotel and remarked to his companion:
		&#8216;If we can&#8217;t be carried to the skies on flowery
		beds of ease, we can at least start in that direction
		under not dissimilar conditions.&#8217; He also
		said that the advantage of stopping at this particular
		hotel was that you were able to get as
		far as possible from the city in which it was
		located.</p>

		<p>He studied the dictionary with great diligence
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_72" title="72"></a>and was unusually accurate in his pronunciation.
		He took an amused satisfaction in
		pronouncing exactly certain words which in
		common talk had shifted phonetically from
		their moorings. This led a gentleman who
		was intimate with the Bibliotaph to say to him,
		&#8216;Why, if I were to pronounce that word among
		my kinsfolk as you do they&#8217;d think I was
		crazy.&#8217; &#8216;What you mean,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph,
		&#8216;is, that they would look upon it in the light of
		supererogatory supplementary evidence.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He himself indulged overmuch in alliteration,
		but it was with humorous intent; and
		critics forgave it in him when they would have
		reprehended it in another. He had no notion
		that it was fine. Taken, however, in connection
		with his emphatic manner and sonorous
		voice he produced a decided and original effect.
		Meeting the Squire&#8217;s wife after a considerable
		interval, I asked whether her husband had been
		behaving well. She replied &#8216;As usual.&#8217; Whereupon
		the Bibliotaph said, &#8216;You mean that his
		conduct in these days is characterized by a plethora
		of intention and a paucity of performance.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He objected to enlarging the boundaries of
		words until they stood for too many things.
		Let a word be kept so far as was reasonable to
		its earlier and authorized meaning. Speaking
		of the word &#8216;symposium,&#8217; which has been
		stretched to mean a collection of short articles
		on a given subject, the Bibliotaph said that he
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_73" title="73"></a>could fancy a honey-bee which had been feasting
		on pumice until it was unable to make the
		line characteristic of its kind, explaining to its
		queen that it had been to a symposium; but
		that he doubted if we ought to allow any other
		meaning.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph got much amusement from
		what he insisted were the ill-concealed anxieties
		of his friend the actor on the subject of a future
		state. &#8216;He has acquired,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph,
		&#8216;both a pathetic and a prophetic interest in
		that place which begins as heaven does, but
		stops off monosyllabically.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The two men were one day discussing the
		question of the permanency of fame, how ephemeral
		for example was that reputation which
		depended upon the living presence of the artist
		to make good its claim; how an actor, an orator,
		a singer, was bound to enjoy his glory while it
		lasted, since at the instant of his death all tangible
		evidence of greatness disappeared; he
		could not be proven great to one who had never
		seen and heard him. Having reached this
		point in his philosophizing the Bibliotaph&#8217;s
		player-friend became sentimental and quoted a
		great comedian to the effect that &#8216;a dead actor
		was a mighty useless thing.&#8217; &#8216;Certainly,&#8217; said
		the Bibliotaph, &#8216;having exhausted the life that
		now is, and having no hope of the life that is to
		come.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Sometimes it pleased the Bibliotaph to maintain
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_74" title="74"></a>that his friend of the footlights would be
		in the future state a mere homeless wanderer,
		having neither positive satisfaction nor positive
		discomfort. For the actor was wont to insist
		that even if there were an orthodox heaven its
		moral opposite were the desirable locality; all
		the clever and interesting fellows would be
		down below. &#8216;Except yourself,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph.
		&#8216;You, sir, will be eliminated by your
		own reasoning. You will be denied heaven
		because you are not good, and hell because you
		are not great.&#8217;</p>

		<p>On the whole it pleased the Bibliotaph to
		maintain that his friend&#8217;s course was downward,
		and that the sooner he reconciled himself
		to his undoubted fate the better. &#8216;Why
		speculate upon it?&#8217; he said paternally to the
		actor, &#8216;your prospective comparisons will one
		day yield to reminiscent contrasts.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The actor was convinced that the Bibliotaph&#8217;s
		own past life needed looking into, and he
		declared that when he got a chance he was
		going to examine the great records. To which
		the Bibliotaph promptly responded: &#8216;The
		books of the recording angel will undoubtedly
		be open to your inspection if you can get an
		hour off to come up. The probability is that
		you will be overworked.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph never lost an opportunity for
		teasing. He arrived late one evening at the
		house of a friend where he was always heartily
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_75" title="75"></a>welcome, and before answering the chorus of
		greetings, proceeded to kiss the lady of the
		mansion, a queenly and handsome woman. Being
		asked why he&#8212;who was a large man and
		very shy with respect to women, as large men
		always are&#8212;should have done this thing, he
		answered that the kiss had been sent by a common
		friend and that he had delivered it at once,
		&#8216;for if there was anything he prided himself
		upon it was a courageous discharge of an
		unpleasant duty.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Once when he had been narrating this incident
		he was asked what reply the lady had
		made to so uncourteous a speech. &#8216;I don&#8217;t
		remember,&#8217; said the Bibliotaph, &#8216;it was long
		ago; but my opinion is that she would have
		been justified in denominating me by a monosyllable
		beginning with the initial letter of the
		alphabet and followed by successive sibilants.&#8217;</p>

		<p>One of the Bibliotaph&#8217;s fellow book-hunters
		owned a chair said to have been given by Sir
		Edwin Landseer to Sir Walter Scott. The
		chair was interesting to behold, but the Bibliotaph
		after attempting to sit in it immediately
		got up and declared that it was not a genuine
		relic: &#8216;Sir Edwin had reason to be grateful to
		rather than indignant at Sir Walter Scott.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He said of a highly critical person that if
		that man were to become a minister he would
		probably announce as the subject of his first
		sermon: &#8216;The conditions that God must meet
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_76" title="76"></a>in order to be acceptable to me.&#8217; He said of a
		poor orator who had copyrighted one of his
		most indifferent speeches, that the man &#8216;positively
		suffered from an excess of caution.&#8217; He
		remarked once that the great trouble with a
		certain lady was &#8216;she labored under the delusion
		that she enjoyed occasional seasons of sanity.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The <i  lang="la">nil admirari</i> attitude was one which he
		never affected, and he had a contempt for men
		who denied to the great in literature and art
		that praise which was their due. This led him
		to say apropos of an obscure critic who had
		assailed one of the poetical masters: &#8216;When
		the Lord makes a man a fool he injures him;
		but when He so constitutes him that the man
		is never happy unless he is making that fact
		public, He insults him.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He enjoyed speculating on the subject of
		marriage, especially in the presence of those
		friends who unlike himself knew something
		about it empirically. He delighted to tell his
		lady acquaintances that their husbands would
		undoubtedly marry a second time if they had
		the chance. It was inevitable. A man whose
		experience has been fortunate is bound to
		marry again, because he is like the man who
		broke the bank at Monte Carlo. A man who
		has been unhappily married marries again because
		like an unfortunate gamester he has
		reached the time when his luck has got to
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_77" title="77"></a>change. The Bibliotaph then added with a
		smile: &#8216;I have the idea that many men who
		marry a second time do in effect what is often
		done by unsuccessful gamblers at Monte Carlo;
		they go out and commit suicide.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph played but few games. There
		was one, however, in which he was skillful. I
		blush to speak of it in these days of much muscular
		activity. What have golfers, and tennis-players,
		and makers of century runs to do with
		croquet? Yet there was a time when croquet
		was spoken of as &#8216;the coming game;&#8217; and had
		not Clintock&#8217;s friend Jennings written an epic
		poem upon it in twelve books, which poem he
		offered to lend to a certain brilliant young lady?
		But Gwendolen despised boys and cared even
		less for their poetry than for themselves.</p>

		<p>At the house of the Country Squire the Bibliotaph
		was able to gratify his passion for croquet,
		and verily he was a master. He made a
		grotesque figure upon the court, with his big
		frame which must stoop mightily to take account
		of balls and short-handled mallets, with
		his agile manner, his uncovered head shaggy
		with its barbaric profusion of hair (whereby
		some one was led to nickname him Bibliotaph
		Indetonsus), with the scanty black alpaca coat
		in which he invariably played&#8212;a coat so short
		in the sleeves and so brief in the skirt that the
		figure cut by the wearer might almost have
		passed for that of Mynheer Ten Broek of many-trowsered
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_78" title="78"></a>memory. But it was vastly more
		amusing to watch him than to play with him.
		He had a devil &#8216;most undoubted.&#8217; Only with
		the help of black art and by mortgaging one&#8217;s
		soul would it have been possible to accomplish
		some of the things which he accomplished.
		For the materials of croquet are so imperfect
		at best that chance is an influential element.
		I&#8217;ve seen tennis-players in the intervals of
		<em>their</em> game watch the Bibliotaph with that
		superior smile suggestive of contempt for the
		puerility of his favorite sport. They might
		even condescend to take a mallet for a while
		to amuse <em>him</em>; but presently discomfited they
		would retire to a game less capricious than croquet
		and one in which there was reasonable
		hope that a given cause would produce its
		wonted effect.</p>

		<p>The Bibliotaph played strictly for the purpose
		of winning, and took savage joy in his
		conquests. In playing with him one had to do
		two men&#8217;s work; one must play, and then one
		must summon such philosophy as one might to
		suffer continuous defeat, and such wit as one
		possessed to beat back a steady onslaught of
		daring and witty criticisms. &#8216;I play like a
		fool,&#8217; said a despairing opponent after fruitless
		effort to win a just share of the games. &#8216;We
		all have our moments of unconsciousness,&#8217;
		purred the Bibliotaph blandly in response.
		This same despairing opponent, who was an
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_79" title="79"></a>expert in everything he played, said that there
		was but one solace after croquet with the Bibliotaph;
		he would go home and read Hazlitt&#8217;s
		essay on the Indian Jugglers.</p>

		<p class="post_thoughtbreak">Here ends the account of the Bibliotaph.
		From these inadequate notes it is possible to
		get some little idea of his habits and conversation.
		The library is said to be still growing.
		Packages of books come mysteriously from the
		corners of the earth and make their way to
		that remote and almost inaccessible village
		where the great collector hides his treasures.
		No one has ever penetrated that region, and no
		one, so far as I am aware, has ever seen the
		treasures. The books lie entombed, as it were,
		awaiting such day of resurrection as their
		owner shall appoint them. The day is likely to
		be long delayed. Of the collector&#8217;s whereabouts
		now no one of his friends dares to speak
		positively; for at the time when knowledge of
		him was most exact THE BIBLIOTAPH was
		like a newly-discovered comet,&#8212;his course was
		problematical.</p>

	</div>
	<div id="hardy" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_80" title="80"></a>THOMAS HARDY</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>

		<h3 class="essay_subtitle">I</h3>

		<p>&#8216;<span class="first_word">The</span> reason why so few good books are
		written is that so few people that can write
		know anything.&#8217; So said a man who, during a
		busy career, found time to add several fine volumes
		to the scanty number of good books.
		And in a vivacious paragraph which follows
		this initial sentence he humorously anathematizes
		the literary life. He shows convincingly
		that &#8216;secluded habits do not tend to eloquence.&#8217;
		He says that the &#8216;indifferent apathy&#8217; so common
		among studious persons is by no means
		favorable to liveliness of narration. He proves
		that men who will not live cannot write; that
		people who shut themselves up in libraries have
		dry brains. He avows his confidence in the
		&#8216;original way of writing books,&#8217; the way of the
		first author, who must have looked at things
		for himself, &#8216;since there were no books for him
		to copy from;&#8217; and he challenges the reader to
		prove that this original way is not the best
		way. &#8216;Where,&#8217; he asks, &#8216;are the amusing
		books from voracious students and habitual
		writers?&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_81" title="81"></a>This startling arraignment of authors has
		been made by other men than Walter Bagehot.
		Hazlitt in his essay on the &#8216;Ignorance of the
		Learned&#8217; teaches much the same doctrine.
		Its general truth is indisputable, though Bagehot
		himself makes exception in favor of Sir
		Walter Scott. But the two famous critics are
		united in their conviction that learned people
		are generally dull, and that books which are
		the work of habitual writers are not amusing.</p>

		<p>There are as a matter of course more exceptions
		than one. Thomas Hardy is a distinguished
		exception. Thomas Hardy is an &#8216;habitual
		writer,&#8217; but he is always amusing. The
		following paragraphs are intended to emphasize
		certain causes of this quality in his work, the
		quality by virtue of which he chains the attention
		and proves himself the most readable
		novelist now living. That he does attract and
		hold is clear to any one who has tried no more
		than a half-dozen pages from one of his best
		stories. He has the fatal habit of being interesting,&#8212;fatal
		because it robs you who read
		him of time which you might else have devoted
		to &#8216;improving&#8217; literature, such as history, political
		economy, or light science. He destroys
		your peace of mind by compelling your sympathies
		in behalf of people who never existed.
		He undermines your will power and makes you
		his slave. You declare that you will read but
		one more chapter and you weakly consent to
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_82" title="82"></a>make it two chapters. As a special indulgence
		you spoil a working day in order to learn about
		the <i class="title">Return of the Native</i>, perhaps agreeing with
		a supposititious &#8216;better self&#8217; that you will waste
		no more time on novels for the next six months.
		But you are of ascetic fibre indeed if you do
		not follow up the book with a reading of <i class="title">The
		Woodlanders</i> and <i class="title">The Mayor of Casterbridge</i>.</p>

		<p>There is a reason for this. If the practiced
		writer often fails to make a good book because
		he knows nothing, Mr. Hardy must succeed in
		large part because he knows so much. The
		more one reads him the more is one impressed
		with the extent of his knowledge. He has an
		intimate acquaintance with an immense number
		of interesting things.</p>

		<p>He knows men and women&#8212;if not all sorts
		and all conditions, at least a great many varieties
		of the human animal. Moreover, his men
		are men and his women are women. He does
		not use them as figures to accentuate a landscape,
		or as ventriloquist&#8217;s puppets to draw
		away attention from the fact that he himself is
		doing all the talking. His people have individuality,
		power of speech, power of motion. He
		does not tell you that such a one is clever or
		witty; the character which he has created does
		that for himself by doing clever things and
		making witty remarks. In an excellent story
		by a celebrated modern master there is a young
		lady who is declared to be clever and brilliant.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_83" title="83"></a>Out of forty or fifty observations which she
		makes, the most extraordinary concerns her
		father; she says, &#8216;Isn&#8217;t dear papa delightful?&#8217;
		At another time she inquires whether another
		gentleman is not also delightful. Hardy&#8217;s resources
		are not so meagre as this. When his
		people talk we listen,&#8212;we do not endure.</p>

		<p>He knows other things besides men and
		women. He knows the soil, the trees, the sky,
		the sunsets, the infinite variations of the landscape
		under cloud and sunshine. He knows
		horses, sheep, cows, dogs, cats. He understands
		the interpretation of sounds,&#8212;a detail
		which few novelists comprehend or treat with
		accuracy; the pages of his books ring with the
		noises of house, street, and country. Moreover
		there is nothing conventional in his transcript
		of facts. There is no evidence that he has
		been in the least degree influenced by other
		men&#8217;s minds. He takes the raw stuff of which
		novels are made and moulds it as he will. He
		has an absolutely fresh eye, as painters sometimes
		say. He looks on life as if he were the
		first literary man, &#8216;and none had ever lived
		before him.&#8217; Paraphrasing Ruskin, one may
		say of Hardy that in place of studying the old
		masters he has studied what the old masters
		studied. But his point of view is his own. His
		pages are not reminiscent of other pages. He
		never makes you think of something you have
		read, but invariably of something you have
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_84" title="84"></a>seen or would like to see. He is an original
		writer, which means that he takes his material
		at first hand and eschews documents. There
		is considerable evidence that he has read books,
		but there is no reason for supposing that books
		have damaged him.</p>

		<p>Dr. Farmer proved that Shakespeare had no
		&#8216;learning.&#8217; One might perhaps demonstrate
		that Thomas Hardy is equally fortunate. In
		that case he and Shakespeare may felicitate
		one another. Though when we remember that
		in our day it is hardly possible to avoid a tincture
		of scholarship, we may be doing the fairer
		thing by these two men if we say that the one
		had small Greek and the other has adroitly concealed
		the measure of Greek, whether great or
		small, which is in his possession. To put the
		matter in another form, though Hardy may
		have drunk in large quantity &#8216;the spirit breathed
		from dead men to their kind,&#8217; he has not allowed
		his potations to intoxicate him.</p>

		<p>This paragraph is not likely to be misinterpreted
		unless by some honest soul who has yet
		to learn that &#8216;literature is not sworn testimony.&#8217;
		Therefore it may be well to add that Mr. Hardy
		undoubtedly owns a collection of books, and
		has upon his shelves dictionaries and encyclopedias,
		together with a decent representation of
		those works which people call &#8216;standard.&#8217; But
		it is of importance to remember this: That
		while he may be a well-read man, as the phrase
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_85" title="85"></a>goes, he is not and never has been of that class
		which Emerson describes with pale sarcasm as
		&#8216;meek young men in libraries.&#8217; It is clear that
		Hardy has not &#8216;weakened his eyesight over
		books,&#8217; and it is equally clear that he has
		&#8216;sharpened his eyesight on men and women.&#8217;
		Let us consider a few of his virtues.</p>

		<h3 class="essay_subtitle">II</h3>

		<p>In the first place he tells a good story. No
		extravagant praise is due him for this; it is his
		business, his trade. He ought to do it, and
		therefore he does it. The &#8216;first morality&#8217; of a
		novelist is to be able to tell a story, as the first
		morality of a painter is to be able to handle his
		brush skillfully and make it do his brain&#8217;s intending.
		After all, telling stories in an admirable
		fashion is rather a familiar accomplishment
		nowadays. Many men, many women are
		able to make stories of considerable ingenuity
		as to plot, and of thrilling interest in the unrolling
		of a scheme of events. Numberless writers
		are shrewd and clever in constructing their
		&#8216;fable,&#8217; but they are unable to do much beyond
		this. Walter Besant writes good stories; Robert
		Buchanan writes good stories; Grant Allen
		and David Christie Murray are acceptable to
		many readers. But unless I mistake greatly
		and do these men an injustice I should be sorry
		to do them, their ability ceases just at this
		point. They tell good stories and do nothing
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_86" title="86"></a>else. They write books and do not make literature.
		They are authors by their own will and
		not by grace of God. It may be said of them
		as Augustine Birrell said of Professor Freeman
		and the Bishop of Chester, that they are horny-handed
		sons of toil and worthy of their wage.
		But one would like to say a little more. Granting
		that this is praise, it is so faint as to be
		almost inaudible. If Hardy only wrote good
		stories he would be merely doing his duty, and
		therefore accounted an unprofitable servant.
		But he does much besides.</p>

		<p>He fulfills one great function of the literary
		artist, which is to mediate between nature and
		the reading public. Such a man is an eye
		specialist. Through his amiable offices people
		who have hitherto been blind are put into condition
		to see. Near-sighted persons have spectacles
		fitted to them&#8212;which they generally
		refuse to wear, not caring for literature which
		clears the mental vision.</p>

		<p>Hardy opens the eyes of the reader to the
		charm, the beauty, the mystery to be found in
		common life and in every-day objects. So alert
		and forceful an intelligence rarely applies its
		energy to fiction. The result is that he makes
		an almost hopelessly high standard. The exceptional
		man who comes after him may be a
		rival, but the majority of writing gentlemen
		can do little more than enviously admire. He
		seems to have established for himself such a
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_87" title="87"></a>rule as this, that he will write no page which
		shall not be interesting. He pours out the
		treasures of his observation in every chapter.
		He sees everything, feels everything, sympathizes
		with everything. To be sure he has an
		unusually rich field for work. In <i class="title">The Mayor
		of Casterbridge</i> is an account of the discovery
		of the remains of an old Roman soldier. One
		would expect Hardy to make something graphic
		of the episode. And so he does. You can
		almost see the warrior as he lies there &#8216;in an
		oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its
		shell; his knees drawn up to his chest; his
		spear against his arm; an urn at his knees, a
		jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and
		mystified conjecture pouring down upon him
		from the eyes of Casterbridge street-boys and
		men.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The real virtue in this bit of description lies
		in the few words expressive of the mental attitude
		of the onlookers. And it is a nice distinction
		which Hardy makes when he says that
		&#8216;imaginative inhabitants who would have felt
		an unpleasantness at the discovery of a comparatively
		modern skeleton in their gardens were
		quite unmoved by these hoary shapes. They
		had lived so long ago, their hopes and motives
		were so widely removed from ours, that between
		them and the living there seemed to
		stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to
		pass.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_88" title="88"></a>He takes note of that language which, though
		not articulate, is in common use among yeomen,
		dairymen, farmers, and the townsfolk of
		his little world. It is a language superimposed
		upon the ordinary language. &#8216;To express satisfaction
		the Casterbridge market-man added to
		his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a
		crevicing of the eyes, a throwing back of the
		shoulders.&#8217; &#8216;If he wondered &#8230; you knew it
		from perceiving the inside of his crimson mouth
		and the target-like circling of his eyes.&#8217; The
		language of deliberation expressed itself in the
		form of &#8216;sundry attacks on the moss of adjoining
		walls with the end of his stick&#8217; or a &#8216;change
		of his hat from the horizontal to the less so.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The novel called <i class="title">The Woodlanders</i> is filled
		with notable illustrations of an interest in minute
		things. The facts are introduced unobtrusively
		and no great emphasis is laid upon
		them. But they cling to the memory. Giles
		Winterbourne, a chief character in this story,
		&#8216;had a marvelous power in making trees grow.
		Although he would seem to shovel in the earth
		quite carelessly there was a sort of sympathy
		between himself and the fir, oak, or beech that
		he was operating on; so that the roots took
		hold of the soil in a few days.&#8217; When any of
		the journeymen planted, one quarter of the
		trees died away. There is a graphic little
		scene where Winterbourne plants and Marty
		South holds the trees for him. &#8216;Winterbourne&#8217;s
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_89" title="89"></a>fingers were endowed with a gentle
		conjurer&#8217;s touch in spreading the roots of each
		little tree, resulting in a sort of caress under
		which the delicate fibres all laid themselves out
		in their proper direction for growth.&#8217; Marty
		declared that the trees began to &#8216;sigh&#8217; as soon
		as they were put upright, &#8216;though when they
		are lying down they don&#8217;t sigh at all.&#8217; Winterbourne
		had never noticed it. &#8216;She erected one
		of the young pines into its hole, and held up
		her finger; the soft musical breathing instantly
		set in, which was not to cease night or day till
		the grown tree should be felled&#8212;probably
		long after the two planters had been felled
		themselves.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Later on in the story there is a description
		of this same Giles Winterbourne returning with
		his horses and his cider apparatus from a neighboring
		village. &#8216;He looked and smelt like
		autumn&#8217;s very brother, his face being sunburnt
		to wheat color, his eyes blue as corn flowers,
		his sleeves and leggings dyed with fruit stains,
		his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples,
		his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere
		about him that atmosphere of cider
		which at its first return each season has such
		an indescribable fascination for those who have
		been born and bred among the orchards.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Hardy throws off little sketches of this sort
		with an air of unconsciousness which is fascinating&#8230;. It
		may be a sunset, or it may be only
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_90" title="90"></a>a flake of snow falling upon a young girl&#8217;s hair,
		or the light from lanterns penetrating the shutters
		and flickering over the ceiling of a room in
		the early winter morning,&#8212;no matter what
		the circumstance or happening is, it is caught
		in the act, photographed in permanent colors,
		made indelible and beautiful.</p>

		<p>Hardy&#8217;s art is tyrannical. It compels one to
		be interested in that which delights him. It
		imposes its own standards. There is a rude
		strength about the man which readers endure
		because they are not unwilling to be slaves to
		genius. You may dislike sheep, and care but
		little for the poetical aspect of cows, if indeed
		you are not inclined to question the existence
		of poetry in cows; but if you read <i class="title">Far from
		the Madding Crowd</i> you can never again pass
		a flock of sheep without being conscious of a
		multitude of new thoughts, new images, new
		matters for comparison. All that dormant section
		of your soul which for years was in a
		comatose condition on the subject of sheep is
		suddenly and broadly awake. Read <i class="title">Tess</i> and
		at once cows and a dairy have a new meaning
		to you. They are a conspicuous part of the
		setting of that stage upon which poor Tess
		Durbeyfield&#8217;s life drama was played.</p>

		<p>But Hardy does not flaunt his knowledge in
		his reader&#8217;s face. These things are distinctly
		means to an end, not ends in themselves. He
		has no theory to advance about keeping bees
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_91" title="91"></a>or making cider. He has taken no little journeys
		in the world. On the contrary, where he
		has traveled at all, he has traveled extensively.
		He is like a tourist who has been so many times
		abroad that his allusions are naturally and unaffectedly
		made. But the man just back from a
		first trip on the continent has astonishment
		stamped upon his face, and he speaks of Paris
		and of the Alps as if he had discovered both.
		Zola is one of those practitioners who, big with
		recently acquired knowledge, appear to labor
		under the idea that the chief end of a novel is
		to convey miscellaneous information. This is
		probably a mistake. Novels are not handbooks
		on floriculture, banking, railways, or the management
		of department stores. One may make
		a parade of minute details and endlessly wearisome
		learning and gain a certain credit thereby;
		but what if the details and the learning are
		chiefly of value in a dictionary of sciences and
		commerce? Wisdom of this sort is to be sparingly
		used in a work of art.</p>

		<p>In these matters I cannot but feel that Hardy
		has a reticence so commendable that praise of it
		is superfluous and impertinent. After all, men
		and women are better than sheep and cows,
		and had he been more explicit, he would have
		tempted one to inquire whether he proposed
		making a story or a volume which might bear
		the title <i class="title">The Wessex Farmer&#8217;s Own Hand-Book</i>,
		and containing wise advice as to pigs, poultry,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_92" title="92"></a>and the useful art of making two heads of cabbage
		grow where only one had grown before.</p>

		<h3 class="essay_subtitle">III</h3>

		<p>Among the most engaging qualities of this
		writer is humor. Hardy is a humorous man
		himself and entirely appreciative of the humor
		that is in others. According to a distinguished
		philosopher, wit and humor produce love.
		Hardy must then be in daily receipt of large
		measures of this &#8216;improving passion&#8217; from his
		innumerable readers on both sides of the Atlantic.</p>

		<p>His humor manifests itself in a variety of
		ways; by the use of witty epithet; by ingenious
		description of a thing which is not strikingly
		laughable in itself, but which becomes
		so from the closeness of his rendering; by a
		leisurely and ample account of a character with
		humorous traits,&#8212;traits which are brought artistically
		into prominence as an actor heightens
		the complexion in stage make-up; and finally
		by his lively reproductions of the talk of village
		and country people,&#8212;a class of society whose
		everyday speech has only to be heard to be enjoyed.
		I do not pretend that the sources of
		Hardy&#8217;s humor are exhausted in this analysis,
		but the majority of illustrations can be assigned
		to some one of these divisions.</p>

		<p>He is usually thought to be at his best in descriptions
		of farmers, village mechanics, laborers,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_93" title="93"></a>dairymen, men who kill pigs, tend sheep,
		furze-cutters, masons, hostlers, loafers who do
		nothing in particular, and while thus occupied
		rail on Lady Fortune in good set terms. Certainly
		he paints these people with affectionate
		fidelity. Their virile, racy talk delights him.
		His reproductions of that talk are often intensely
		realistic. Nearly every book has its
		chorus of human grotesques whose mere names
		are a source of mirth. William Worm, Grandfer
		Cantle, &#8216;Corp&#8217;el&#8217; Tullidge, Christopher
		Coney, John Upjohn, Robert Creedle, Martin
		Cannister, Haymoss Fry, Robert Lickpan, and
		Sammy Blore,&#8212;men so denominated should
		stand for comic things, and these men do. William
		Worm, for example, was deaf. His deafness
		took an unusual form; he heard fish frying
		in his head, and he was not reticent upon the
		subject of his infirmity. He usually described
		himself by the epithet &#8216;wambling,&#8217; and protested
		that he would never pay the Lord for
		his making,&#8212;a degree of self-knowledge which
		many have arrived at but few have the courage
		to confess. He was once observed in the act
		of making himself &#8216;passing civil and friendly
		by overspreading his face with a large smile
		that seemed to have no connection with the
		humor he was in.&#8217; Sympathy because of his
		deafness elicited this response: &#8216;Ay, I assure
		you that frying o&#8217; fish is going on for nights
		and days. And, you know, sometimes &#8217;tisn&#8217;t
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_94" title="94"></a>only fish, but rashers o&#8217; bacon and inions. Ay,
		I can hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral as
		life.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He was questioned as to what means of cure
		he had tried.</p>

		<p>&#8216;Oh, ay bless ye, I&#8217;ve tried everything.
		Ay, Providence is a merciful man, and I have
		hoped he&#8217;d have found it out by this time, living
		so many years in a parson&#8217;s family, too,
		as I have; but &#8217;a don&#8217;t seem to relieve me.
		Ay, I be a poor wambling man, and life&#8217;s a
		mint o&#8217; trouble.&#8217;</p>

		<p>One knows not which to admire the more,
		the appetizing realism in William Worm&#8217;s account
		of his infirmity, or the primitive state of
		his theological views which allowed him to look
		for special divine favor by virtue of the ecclesiastical
		conspicuousness of his late residence.</p>

		<p>Hardy must have heard, with comfort in the
		thought of its literary possibilities, the following
		dialogue on the cleverness of women. It
		occurs in the last chapter of <i class="title">The Woodlanders</i>.
		A man who is always spoken of as the &#8216;hollow-turner,&#8217;
		a phrase obviously descriptive of his
		line of business, which related to wooden bowls,
		spigots, cheese-vats, and funnels, talks with
		John Upjohn.</p>

		<p>&#8216;What women do know nowadays!&#8217; he says.
		&#8216;You can&#8217;t deceive &#8217;em as you could in my
		time.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;What they knowed then was not small,&#8217; said
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_95" title="95"></a>John Upjohn. &#8216;Always a good deal more than
		the men! Why, when I went courting my wife
		that is now, the skillfulness that she would
		show in keeping me on her pretty side as she
		walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you&#8217;ve
		noticed that she&#8217;s got a pretty side to her face
		as well as a plain one?&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;I can&#8217;t say I&#8217;ve noticed it particular much,&#8217;
		said the hollow-turner blandly.</p>

		<p>&#8216;Well,&#8217; continued Upjohn, not disconcerted,
		&#8216;she has. All women under the sun be prettier
		one side than t&#8217;other. And, as I was saying,
		the pains she would take to make me walk
		on the pretty side were unending. I warrent
		that whether we were going with the sun or
		against the sun, uphill or downhill, in wind or
		in lewth, that wart of hers was always toward
		the hedge, and that dimple toward me. There
		was I too simple to see her wheelings and
		turnings; and she so artful though two years
		younger, that she could lead me with a cotton
		thread like a blind ham; &#8230; no, I don&#8217;t think
		the women have got cleverer, for they was
		never otherwise.&#8217;</p>

		<h3 class="essay_subtitle">IV</h3>

		<p>These men have sap and juice in their talk.
		When they think they think clearly. When
		they speak they express themselves with an
		energy and directness which mortify the thin
		speech of conventional persons. Here is Farfrae,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_96" title="96"></a>the young Scotchman, in the tap-room of
		the Three Mariners Inn of Casterbridge, singing
		of his ain contree with a pathos quite unknown
		in that part of the world. The worthies
		who frequent the place are deeply moved.
		&#8216;Danged if our country down here is worth
		singing about like that,&#8217; says Billy Wills, the
		glazier,&#8212;while the literal Christopher Coney
		inquires, &#8216;What did ye come away from yer
		own country for, young maister, if ye be so
		wownded about it?&#8217; Then it occurs to him
		that it wasn&#8217;t worth Farfrae&#8217;s while to leave
		the fair face and the home of which he had
		been singing to come among such as they.
		&#8216;We be bruckle folk here&#8212;the best o&#8217; us
		hardly honest sometimes, what with hard winters,
		and so many mouths to fill, and God-a&#8217;mighty
		sending his little taties so terrible
		small to fill &#8217;em with. We don&#8217;t think about
		flowers and fair faces, not we&#8212;except in the
		shape of cauliflowers and pigs&#8217; chaps.&#8217;</p>

		<p>I should like to see the man who sat to Artist
		Hardy for the portrait of Corporal Tullidge in
		<i class="title">The Trumpet-Major</i>. This worthy, who was
		deaf and talked in an uncompromisingly loud
		voice, had been struck in the head by a piece
		of shell at Valenciennes in &#8217;93. His left arm
		had been smashed. Time and Nature had done
		what they could, and under their beneficent influences
		the arm had become a sort of anatomical
		rattle-box. People interested in Corp&#8217;el
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_97" title="97"></a>Tullidge were allowed to see his head and hear
		his arm. The corp&#8217;el gave these private views
		at any time, and was quite willing to show off,
		though the exhibition was apt to bore him a
		little. His fellows displayed him much as one
		would a &#8216;freak&#8217; in a dime museum.</p>

		<p>&#8216;You have got a silver plate let into yer
		head, haven&#8217;t ye, corp&#8217;el?&#8217; said Anthony Cripplestraw.
		&#8216;I have heard that the way they
		mortised yer skull was a beautiful piece of workmanship.
		Perhaps the young woman would like
		to see the place.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The young woman was Anne Garland, the
		sweet heroine of the story; and Anne didn&#8217;t
		want to see the silver plate, the thought of
		which made her almost faint. Nor could she
		be tempted by being told that one couldn&#8217;t see
		such a &#8216;wownd&#8217; every day. Then Cripplestraw,
		earnest to please her, suggested that
		Tullidge rattle his arm, which Tullidge did, to
		Anne&#8217;s great distress.</p>

		<p>&#8216;Oh, it don&#8217;t hurt him, bless ye. Do it, corp&#8217;el?&#8217;
		said Cripplestraw.</p>

		<p>&#8216;Not a bit,&#8217; said the corporal, still working
		his arm with great energy. There was, however,
		a perfunctoriness in his manner &#8216;as if the
		glory of exhibition had lost somewhat of its
		novelty, though he was still willing to oblige.&#8217;
		Anne resisted all entreaties to convince herself
		by feeling of the corporal&#8217;s arm that the bones
		were &#8216;as loose as a bag of ninepins,&#8217; and displayed
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_98" title="98"></a>an anxiety to escape. Whereupon the
		corporal, &#8216;with a sense that his time was getting
		wasted,&#8217; inquired: &#8216;Do she want to see or
		hear any more, or don&#8217;t she?&#8217;</p>

		<p>This is but a single detail in the account of
		a party which Miller Loveday gave to soldier
		guests in honor of his son John,&#8212;a description
		the sustained vivacity of which can only be
		appreciated through a reading of those brilliant
		early chapters of the story.</p>

		<p>Half the mirth that is in these men comes
		from the frankness with which they confess
		their actual thoughts. Ask a man of average
		morals and average attainments why he doesn&#8217;t
		go to church. You won&#8217;t know any better after
		he has given you his answer. Ask Nat Chapman,
		of the novel entitled <i class="title">Two on a Tower</i>, and
		you will not be troubled with ambiguities. He
		doesn&#8217;t like to go because Mr. Torkingham&#8217;s
		sermons make him think of soul-saving and
		other bewildering and uncomfortable topics.
		So when the son of Torkingham&#8217;s predecessor
		asks Nat how it goes with him, that tiller of
		the soil answers promptly: &#8216;Pa&#8217;son Tarkenham
		do tease a feller&#8217;s conscience that much, that
		church is no holler-day at all to the limbs, as it
		was in yer reverent father&#8217;s time!&#8217;</p>

		<p>The unswerving honesty with which they assign
		utilitarian motives for a particular line of
		conduct is delightful. Three men discuss a
		wedding, which took place not at the home of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_99" title="99"></a>the bride but in a neighboring parish, and was
		therefore very private. The first doesn&#8217;t blame
		the new married pair, because &#8216;a wedding at
		home means five and six handed reels by the
		hour, and they do a man&#8217;s legs no good when
		he&#8217;s over forty.&#8217; A second corroborates the remark
		and says: &#8216;True. Once at the woman&#8217;s
		house you can hardly say nay to being one in
		a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected
		to make yourself worth your victuals.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The third puts the whole matter beyond the
		need of further discussion by adding: &#8216;For my
		part, I like a good hearty funeral as well as
		anything. You&#8217;ve as splendid victuals and
		drink as at other parties, and even better. And
		it don&#8217;t wear your legs to stumps in talking
		over a poor fellow&#8217;s ways as it do to stand up
		in hornpipes.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Beings who talk like this know their minds,&#8212;a
		rather unwonted circumstance among the
		sons of men,&#8212;and knowing them, they do the
		next most natural thing in the world, which is
		to speak the minds they have.</p>

		<p>There is yet another phase of Hardy&#8217;s humor
		to be noted: that humor, sometimes defiant,
		sometimes philosophic, which concerns death
		and its accompaniments. It cannot be thought
		morbid. Hardy is too fond of Nature ever to
		degenerate into mere morbidity. He has lived
		much in the open air, which always corrects a
		tendency to &#8216;vapors.&#8217; He takes little pleasure
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_100" title="100"></a>in the gruesome, a statement in support of
		which one may cite all his works up to 1892,
		the date of the appearance of <i class="title">Tess</i>. This paper
		includes no comment in detail upon the
		later books; but so far as <i class="title">Tess</i> is concerned it
		would be critical folly to speak of it as morbid.
		It is sad, it is terrible, as <i class="title">Lear</i> is terrible, or
		as any one of the great tragedies, written by
		men we call &#8216;masters,&#8217; is terrible. <i class="title">Jude</i> is psychologically
		gruesome, no doubt; but not absolutely
		indefensible. Even if it were as black a
		book as some critics have painted it, the general
		truth of the statement as to the healthfulness
		of Hardy&#8217;s work would not be impaired.
		This work judged as a whole is sound and invigorating.
		He cannot be accused of over-fondness
		for charnel-houses or ghosts. He does
		not discourse of graves and vaults in order to
		arouse that terror which the thought of death
		inspires. It is not for the purpose of making
		the reader uncomfortable. If the grave interests
		him, it is because of the reflections awakened.
		&#8216;Man, proud man,&#8217; needs that jog to his
		memory which the pomp of interments and
		aspect of tombstones give. Hardy has keen
		perception of that humor which glows in the
		presence of death and on the edge of the grave.
		The living have such a tremendous advantage
		over the dead, that they can neither help feeling
		it nor avoid a display of the feeling. When
		the lion is buried the dogs crack jokes at the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_101" title="101"></a>funeral. They do it in a subdued manner, no
		doubt, and with a sense of proprieties, but
		nevertheless they do it. Their immense superiority
		is never so apparent as at just this moment.</p>

		<p>This humor, which one notes in Hardy, is
		akin to the humor of the grave-diggers in <i class="title">Hamlet</i>,
		but not so grim. I have heard a country
		undertaker describe the details of the least attractive
		branch of his uncomfortable business
		with a pride and self-satisfaction that would
		have been farcical had not the subject been so
		depressing. This would have been matter for
		Hardy&#8217;s pen. There are few scenes in his
		books more telling than that which shows the
		operations in the family vault of the Luxellians,
		when John Smith, Martin Cannister, and old
		Simeon prepare the place for Lady Luxellian&#8217;s
		coffin. It seems hardly wise to pronounce this
		episode as good as the grave-diggers&#8217; scene in
		<i class="title">Hamlet</i>; that would shock some one and gain
		for the writer the reputation of being enthusiastic
		rather than critical. But I profess that I
		enjoy the talk of old Simeon and Martin Cannister
		quite as much as the talk of the first and
		second grave-diggers.</p>

		<p>Simeon, the shriveled mason, was &#8216;a marvelously
		old man, whose skin seemed so much too
		large for his body that it would not stay in
		position.&#8217; He talked of the various great dead
		whose coffins filled the family vault. Here was
		the stately and irascible Lord George:&#8212;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_102" title="102"></a>&#8216;Ah, poor Lord George,&#8217; said the mason, looking contemplatively at the huge coffin; &#8216;he
		and I were as bitter enemies once as any could
		be when one is a lord and t&#8217;other only a mortal
		man. Poor fellow! He&#8217;d clap his hand upon
		my shoulder and cuss me as familiar and neighborly
		as if he&#8217;d been a common chap. Ay, &#8217;a
		cussed me up hill and &#8217;a cussed me down; and
		then &#8217;a would rave out again and the goold
		clamps of his fine new teeth would glisten in
		the sun like fetters of brass, while I, being a
		small man and poor, was fain to say nothing at
		all. Such a strappen fine gentleman as he was
		too! Yes, I rather liken en sometimes. But
		once now and then, when I looked at his towering
		height, I&#8217;d think in my inside, &#8220;What a
		weight you&#8217;ll be, my lord, for our arms to lower
		under the inside of Endelstow church some
		day!&#8221;&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;And was he?&#8217; inquired a young laborer.</p>

		<p>&#8216;He was. He was five hundred weight if &#8217;a
		were a pound. What with his lead, and his
		oak, and his handles, and his one thing and
		t&#8217;other&#8217;&#8212;here the ancient man slapped his
		hand upon the cover with a force that caused a
		rattle among the bones inside&#8212;&#8216;he half broke
		my back when I took his feet to lower en down
		the steps there. &#8220;Ah,&#8221; saith I to John there&#8212;didn&#8217;t
		I, John?&#8212;&#8220;that ever one man&#8217;s glory
		should be such a weight upon another man!&#8221;
		But there, I liked my Lord George sometimes.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_103" title="103"></a>It may be observed that as Hardy grows
		older his humor becomes more subtle or quite
		dies away, as if serious matters pressed upon
		his mind, and there was no time for being jocular.
		Some day, perhaps, if he should rise to
		the dignity of an English classic, this will be
		spoken of as his third period, and critics will be
		wise in the elucidation thereof. But just at
		present this third period is characterized by the
		terms &#8216;pessimistic&#8217; and &#8216;unhealthy.&#8217;</p>

		<p>That he is a pessimist in the colloquial sense
		admits of little question. Nor is it surprising;
		it is rather difficult not to be. Not a few persons
		are pessimists and won&#8217;t tell. They preserve
		a fair exterior, but secretly hold that all
		flesh is grass. Some people escape the disease
		by virtue of much philosophy or much religion
		or much work. Many who have not taken up
		permanent residence beneath the roof of Schopenhauer
		or Von Hartmann are occasional
		guests. Then there is that great mass of pessimism
		which is the result, not of thought, but
		of mere discomfort, physical and super-physical.
		One may have attacks of pessimism from a
		variety of small causes. A bad stomach will
		produce it. Financial difficulties will produce it.
		The light-minded get it from changes in the
		weather.</p>

		<p>That note of melancholy which we detect in
		many of Hardy&#8217;s novels is as it should be. For
		no man can apprehend life aright and still look
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_104" title="104"></a>upon it as a carnival. He may attain serenity
		in respect to it, but he can never be jaunty and
		flippant. He can never slap life upon the back
		and call it by familiar names. He may hold
		that the world is indisputably growing better,
		but he will need to admit that the world is having
		a hard time in so doing.</p>

		<p>Hardy would be sure of a reputation for pessimism
		in some quarters if only because of his
		attitude, or what people think is his attitude,
		toward marriage. He has devoted many pages
		and not a little thought to the problems of the
		relations between men and women. He is considerably
		interested in questions of &#8216;matrimonial
		divergence.&#8217; He recognizes that most
		obvious of all obvious truths, that marriage is
		not always a success; nay, more than this, that
		it is often a makeshift, an apology, a pretense.
		But he professes to undertake nothing beyond a
		statement of the facts. It rests with the public
		to lay his statement beside their experience
		and observation, and thus take measure of the
		fidelity of his art.</p>

		<p>He notes the variety of motives by which
		people are actuated in the choice of husbands
		and wives. In the novel called <i class="title">The Woodlanders</i>,
		Grace Melbury, the daughter of a rich
		though humbly-born yeoman, has unusual
		opportunities for a girl of her class, and is educated
		to a point of physical and intellectual
		daintiness which make her seem superior to
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_105" title="105"></a>her home environment. Her father has hoped
		that she will marry her rustic lover, Giles Winterbourne,
		who, by the way, is a man in every
		fibre of his being. Grace is quite unspoiled by
		her life at a fashionable boarding school, but
		after her return her father feels (and Hardy
		makes the reader feel) that in marrying Giles
		she will sacrifice herself. She marries Dr.
		Fitzspiers, a brilliant young physician, recently
		come into the neighborhood, and in so doing
		she chooses for the worse. The character of
		Dr. Fitzspiers is summarized in a statement he
		once made (presumably to a male friend) that
		&#8216;on one occasion he had noticed himself to be
		possessed by five distinct infatuations at the
		same time.&#8217;</p>

		<p>His flagrant infidelities bring about a temporary
		separation; Grace is not able to comprehend
		&#8216;such double and treble-barreled hearts.&#8217;
		When finally they are reunited the life-problem
		of each still awaits an adequate solution. For
		the motive which brings the girl back to her
		husband is only a more complex phase of the
		same motive which chiefly prompted her to
		marry him. Hardy says that Fitzspiers as a
		lover acted upon Grace &#8216;like a dram.&#8217; His
		presence &#8216;threw her into an atmosphere which
		biased her doings until the influence was over.&#8217;
		Afterward she felt &#8216;something of the nature of
		regret for the mood she had experienced.&#8217;</p>

		<p>But this same story contains two other characters
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_106" title="106"></a>who are unmatched in fiction as the
		incarnation of pure love and self-forgetfulness.
		Giles Winterbourne, whose devotion to Grace
		is without wish for happiness which shall not
		imply a greater happiness for her, dies that
		no breath of suspicion may fall upon her. He
		in turn is loved by Marty South with a completeness
		which destroys all thought of self.
		She enjoys no measure of reward while Winterbourne
		lives. He never knows of Marty&#8217;s love.
		But in that last fine paragraph of this remarkable
		book, when the poor girl places the flowers
		upon his grave she utters a little lament
		which for beauty, pathos, and realistic simplicity
		is without parallel in modern fiction.
		Hardy was never more of an artist than when
		writing the last chapter of <i class="title">The Woodlanders</i>.</p>

		<p>After all, a book in which unselfish love is
		described in terms at once just and noble cannot
		be dangerously pessimistic, even if it also
		takes cognizance of such hopeless cases as a
		man with a chronic tendency to fluctuations of
		the heart.</p>

		<p>The matter may be put briefly thus: In
		Hardy&#8217;s novels one sees the artistic result of
		an effort to paint life as it is, with much of its
		joy and a deal of its sorrow, with its good people
		and its selfish people, its positive characters
		and its Laodiceans, its men and women who
		dominate circumstances, and its unhappy ones
		who are submerged. These books are the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_107" title="107"></a>record of what a clear-eyed, sane, vigorous,
		sympathetic, humorous man knows about life;
		a man too conscious of things as they are to
		wish grossly to exaggerate or to disguise them;
		and at the same time so entirely aware how
		much poetry as well as irony God has mingled
		in the order of the world as to be incapable of
		concealing that fact either. He is of such
		ample intellectual frame that he makes the
		petty contentions of literary schools appear
		foolish. I find a measure of Hardy&#8217;s mind in
		passages which set forth his conception of the
		preciousness of life, no matter what the form
		in which life expresses itself. He is peculiarly
		tender toward brute creation. In that
		paragraph which describes Tess discovering
		the wounded pheasants in the wood, Hardy
		suggests the thought, quite new to many people,
		that chivalry is not confined to the relations
		of man to man or of man to woman.
		There are still weaker fellow-creatures in Nature&#8217;s
		teeming family. What if we are unmannerly
		or unchivalrous toward them?</p>

		<p>He abounds in all manner of pithy sayings,
		many of them wise, a few of them profound,
		and not one which is unworthy a second reading.
		It is to be hoped that he will escape the
		doubtful honor of being dispersedly set forth in
		a &#8216;Wit and Wisdom of Thomas Hardy.&#8217; Such
		books are a depressing species of literature and
		seem chiefly designed to be given away at holiday
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_108" title="108"></a>time to acquaintances who are too important
		to be put off with Christmas cards, and
		not important enough to be supplied with gifts
		of a calculable value.</p>

		<p>One must praise the immense spirit and vivacity
		of scenes where something in the nature
		of a struggle, a moral duel, goes on. In such
		passages every power at the writer&#8217;s command
		is needed; unerring directness of thought, and
		words which clothe this thought as an athlete&#8217;s
		garments fit the body. Everything must
		count, and the movement of the narrative must
		be sustained to the utmost. The chess-playing
		scene between Elfride and Knight in <i class="title">A Pair
		of Blue Eyes</i> is an illustration. Sergeant Troy
		displaying his skill in handling the sword&#8212;weaving
		his spell about Bathsheba in true
		snake fashion, is another example. Still more
		brilliant is the gambling scene in <i class="title">The Return
		of the Native</i>, where Wildeve and Diggory
		Venn, out on the heath in the night, throw dice
		by the light of a lantern for Thomasin&#8217;s money.
		Venn, the reddleman, in the Mephistophelian
		garb of his profession, is the incarnation of a
		good spirit, and wins the guineas from the
		clutch of the spendthrift husband. The scene
		is immensely dramatic, with its accompaniments
		of blackness and silence, Wildeve&#8217;s haggard
		face, the circle of ponies, known as heath-croppers,
		which are attracted by the light, the
		death&#8217;s-head moth which extinguishes the candle,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_109" title="109"></a>and the finish of the game by the light of
		glow-worms. It is a glorious bit of writing in
		true bravura style.</p>

		<p>His books have a quality which I shall venture
		to call &#8216;spaciousness,&#8217; in the hope that the
		word conveys the meaning I try to express. It
		is obvious that there is a difference between
		books which are large and books which are
		merely long. The one epithet refers to atmosphere,
		the other to number of pages. Hardy
		writes large books. There is room in them
		for the reader to expand his mind. They are
		distinctly out-of-door books, &#8216;not smacking of
		the cloister or the library.&#8217; In reading them
		one has a feeling that the vault of heaven is
		very high, and that the earth stretches away to
		interminable distances upon all sides. This
		quality of largeness is not dependent upon
		number of pages; nor is length absolute as
		applied to books. A book may contain one
		hundred pages and still be ninety-nine pages
		too long, for the reason that its truth, its lesson,
		its literary virtue, are not greater than
		might be expressed in a single page.</p>

		<p>Spaciousness is in even less degree dependent
		upon miles. The narrowness, geographically
		speaking, of Hardy&#8217;s range of expression is
		notable. There is much contrast between him
		and Stevenson in this respect. The Scotchman
		has embodied in his fine books the experiences
		of life in a dozen different quarters of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_110" title="110"></a>the globe. Hardy, with more robust health,
		has traveled from Portland to Bath, and from
		&#8216;Wintoncester&#8217; to &#8216;Exonbury,&#8217;&#8212;journeys
		hardly more serious than from the blue bed to
		the brown. And it is better thus. No reader
		of <i class="title">The Return of the Native</i> would have been
		content that Eustacia Vye should persuade her
		husband back to Paris. Rather than the boulevards
		one prefers Egdon heath, as Hardy paints
		it, &#8216;the great inviolate place,&#8217; the &#8216;untamable
		Ishmaelitish thing&#8217; which its arch-enemy, Civilization,
		could not subdue.</p>

		<p>He is without question one of the best writers
		of our time, whether for comedy or for
		tragedy; and for extravaganza, too, as witness
		his lively farce called <i class="title">The Hand of Ethelberta</i>.
		He can write dialogue or description. He is
		so excellent in either that either, as you read
		it, appears to make for your highest pleasure.
		If his characters talk, you would gladly have
		them talk to the end of the book. If he, the
		author, speaks, you would not wish to interrupt.
		More than most skillful writers, he preserves
		that just balance between narrative and
		colloquy.</p>

		<p>His best novels prior to the appearance of
		<i class="title">Tess</i>, are <i class="title">The Woodlanders</i>, <i class="title">Far from the Madding
		Crowd</i>, <i class="title">The Return of the Native</i>, and
		<i class="title">The Mayor of Casterbridge</i>. These four are
		the bulwarks of his reputation, while a separate
		and great fame might be based alone on that
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_111" title="111"></a>powerful tragedy called by its author <i class="title">Tess of
		the D&#8217;Urbervilles</i>.</p>

		<p>Criticism which glorifies any one book of a
		given author at the expense of all his other
		books is profitless, if not dangerous. Moreover,
		it is dangerous to have a favorite author
		as well as a favorite book of that favorite
		author. A man&#8217;s choice of books, like his
		choice of friends, is usually inexplicable to
		everybody but himself. However, the chief
		object in recommending books is to make converts
		to the gospel of literature according to
		the writer of these books. For which legitimate
		purpose I would recommend to the reader
		who has hitherto denied himself the pleasure of
		an acquaintance with Thomas Hardy, the two
		volumes known as <i class="title">The Woodlanders</i> and <i class="title">The
		Return of the Native</i>. The first of these is
		the more genial because it presents a more
		genial side of Nature. But the other is a noble
		piece of literary workmanship, a powerful book,
		ingeniously framed, with every detail strongly
		realized; a book which is dramatic, humorous,
		sincere in its pathos, rich in its word-coloring,
		eloquent in its descriptive passages; a book
		which embodies so much of life and poetry that
		one has a feeling of mental exaltation as he
		reads.</p>

		<p>Surely it is not wise in the critical Jeremiahs
		so despairingly to lift up their voices, and so
		strenuously to bewail the condition of the literature
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_112" title="112"></a>of the time. The literature of the time
		is very well, as they would see could they but
		turn their fascinated gaze from the meretricious
		and spectacular elements of that literature
		to the work of Thomas Hardy and George
		Meredith. With such men among the most
		influential in modern letters, and with Barrie
		and Stevenson among the idols of the reading
		world, it would seem that the office of public
		Jeremiah should be continued rather from
		courtesy than from an overwhelming sense of
		the needs of the hour.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="keats" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_113" title="113"></a>A READING IN THE LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">One</span> would like to know whether a first reading
		in the letters of Keats does not generally
		produce something akin to a severe mental
		shock. It is a sensation which presently becomes
		agreeable, being in that respect like a
		plunge into cold water, but it is undeniably a
		shock. Most readers of Keats, knowing him,
		as he should be known, by his poetry, have not
		the remotest conception of him as he shows
		himself in his letters. Hence they are unprepared
		for this splendid exhibition of virile intellectual
		health. Not that they think of him as
		morbid,&#8212;his poetry surely could not make
		this impression,&#8212;but rather that the popular
		conception of him is, after all these years, a
		legendary Keats, the poet who was killed by
		reviewers, the Keats of Shelley&#8217;s preface to
		the <i class="title">Adonais</i>, the Keats whose story is written
		large in the world&#8217;s book of Pity and of Death.
		When the readers are confronted with a fair
		portrait of the real man, it makes them rub
		their eyes. Nay, more, it embarrasses them.
		To find themselves guilty of having pitied one
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_114" title="114"></a>who stood in small need of pity is mortifying.
		In plain terms, they have systematically bestowed
		(or have attempted to bestow) alms on
		a man whose income at its least was bigger
		than any his patrons could boast. Small wonder
		that now and then you find a reader, with
		large capacity for the sentimental, who looks
		back with terror to his first dip into the letters.</p>

		<p>The legendary Keats dies hard; or perhaps
		we would better say that when he seems to be
		dying he is simply, in the good old fashion of
		legends, taking out a new lease of life. For it
		is as true now as when the sentence was first
		penned, that &#8216;a mixture of a lie doth ever add
		pleasure.&#8217; Among the many readers of good
		books, there will always be some whose notions
		of the poetical proprieties suffer greatly by the
		facts of Keats&#8217;s history. It is so much pleasanter
		to them to think that the poet&#8217;s sensitive
		spirit was wounded to death by bitter
		words than to know that he was carried off by
		pulmonary disease. But when they are tired
		of reading <i class="title">Endymion</i>, <i class="title">Isabella</i>, and <i class="title">The Eve of
		St. Agnes</i> in the light of this incorrect conception,
		let them try a new reading in the light
		of the letters, and the masculinity of this very
		robust young maker of poetry will prove refreshing.</p>

		<p>The letters are in every respect good reading.
		Rather than deplore their frankness, as
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_115" title="115"></a>one critic has done, we ought to rejoice in their
		utter want of affectation, in their boyish honesty.
		At every turn there is something to
		amuse or to startle one into thinking. We are
		carried back in a vivid way to the period of
		their composition. Not a little of the pulsing
		life of that time throbs anew, and we catch
		glimpses of notable figures. Often, the feeling
		is that we have been called in haste to a window
		to look at some celebrity passing by, and
		have arrived just in time to see him turn the
		corner. What a touch of reality, for example,
		does one get in reading that &#8216;Wordsworth went
		rather huff&#8217;d out of town&#8217;! One is not in the
		habit of thinking of Wordsworth as capable of
		being &#8216;huffed,&#8217; but the writer of the letters
		feared that he was. All of Keats&#8217;s petty anxieties
		and small doings, as well as his aspirations
		and his greatest dreams, are set down here in
		black on white. It is a complete and charming
		revelation of the man. One learns how he
		&#8216;went to Hazlitt&#8217;s lecture on Poetry, and got
		there just as they were coming out;&#8217; how he
		was insulted at the theatre, and wouldn&#8217;t tell
		his brothers; how it vexed him because the
		Irish servant said that his picture of Shakespeare
		looked exactly like her father, only &#8216;her
		father had more color than the engraving;&#8217;
		how he filled in the time while waiting for the
		stage to start by counting the buns and tarts
		in a pastry-cook&#8217;s window, &#8216;and had just begun
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_116" title="116"></a>on the jellies;&#8217; how indignant he was at being
		spoken of as &#8216;quite the little poet;&#8217; how he sat
		in a hatter&#8217;s shop in the Poultry while Mr. Abbey
		read him some extracts from Lord Byron&#8217;s
		&#8216;last flash poem,&#8217; <i class="title">Don Juan</i>; how some beef
		was carved exactly to suit his appetite, as if he
		&#8216;had been measured for it;&#8217; how he dined with
		Horace Smith and his brothers and some other
		young gentlemen of fashion, and thought them
		all hopelessly affected; in a word, almost anything
		you want to know about John Keats can
		be found in these letters. They are of more
		value than all the &#8216;recollections&#8217; of all his
		friends put together. In their breezy good-nature
		and cheerfulness they are a fine antidote
		to the impression one gets of him in Haydon&#8217;s
		account, &#8216;lying in a white bed with a
		book, hectic and on his back, irritable at his
		weakness and wounded at the way he had been
		used. He seemed to be going out of life with
		a contempt for this world, and no hopes of the
		other. I told him to be calm, but he muttered
		that if he did not soon get better he would
		destroy himself.&#8217; This is taking Keats at his
		worst. It is well enough to know that he
		seemed to Haydon as Haydon has described
		him, but few men appear to advantage when
		they are desperately ill. Turn to the letters
		written during his tour in Scotland, when he
		walked twenty miles a day, climbed Ben Nevis,
		so fatigued himself that, as he told Fanny
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_117" title="117"></a>Keats, &#8216;when I am asleep you might sew my
		nose to my great toe and trundle me around
		the town, like a Hoop, without waking me.
		Then I get so hungry a Ham goes but a very
		little way, and fowls are like Larks to me&#8230;.
		I take a whole string of Pork Sausages down
		as easily as a Pen&#8217;orth of Lady&#8217;s fingers.&#8217; And
		then he bewails the fact that when he arrives
		in the Highlands he will have to be contented
		&#8216;with an acre or two of oaten cake, a hogshead
		of Milk, and a Cloaths basket of Eggs morning,
		noon, and night.&#8217; Here is the active Keats,
		of honest mundane tastes and an athletic disposition,
		who threatens&#8217; to cut all sick people if
		they do not make up their minds to cut Sickness.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Indeed, the letters are so pleasant and amusing
		in the way they exhibit minor traits, habits,
		prejudices, and the like, that it is a temptation
		to dwell upon these things. How we love a
		man&#8217;s weaknesses&#8212;if we share them! I do
		not know that Keats would have given occasion
		for an anecdote like that told of a certain book-loving
		actor, whose best friend, when urged to
		join the chorus of praise that was quite universally
		sung to this actor&#8217;s virtues, acquiesced
		by saying amiably, &#8216;Mr. Blank undoubtedly has
		genius, but he can&#8217;t spell;&#8217; yet there are comforting
		evidences that Keats was no servile follower
		of the &#8216;monster Conventionality&#8217; even in
		his spelling, while in respect to the use of capitals
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_118" title="118"></a>he was a law unto himself. He sprinkled
		them through his correspondence with a lavish
		hand, though at times he grew so economical
		that, as one of his editors remarks, he would
		spell Romeo with a small <em>r</em>, Irishman with a
		small <em>i</em>, and God with a small <em>g</em>.</p>

		<p>It is also a pleasure to find that, with his
		other failings, he had a touch of book-madness.
		There was in him the making of a first-class
		bibliophile. He speaks with rapture of his
		black-letter Chaucer, which he proposes to have
		bound &#8216;in Gothique,&#8217; so as to unmodernize as
		much as possible its outward appearance. But
		to Keats books were literature or they were
		not literature, and one cannot think that his
		affections would twine about ever so bookish a
		volume which was merely &#8216;curious.&#8217;</p>

		<p>One reads with sympathetic amusement of
		Keats&#8217;s genuine and natural horror of paying
		the same bill twice, &#8216;there not being a more
		unpleasant thing in the world (saving a thousand
		and one others).&#8217; The necessity of preserving
		adequate evidence that a bill had been
		paid was uppermost in his thought quite frequently;
		and once when, at Leigh Hunt&#8217;s instance,
		sundry packages of papers belonging
		to that eminently methodical and businesslike
		man of letters were to be sorted out and in
		part destroyed, Keats refused to burn any, &#8216;for
		fear of demolishing receipts.&#8217;</p>

		<p>But the reader will chance upon few more
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_119" title="119"></a>humorous passages than that in which the poet
		tells his brother George how he cures himself
		of the blues, and at the same time spurs his
		flagging powers of invention: &#8216;Whenever I
		find myself growing vaporish I rouse myself,
		wash and put on a clean shirt, brush my hair
		and clothes, tie my shoe-strings neatly, and, in
		fact, adonize, as if I were going out&#8212;then all
		clean and comfortable, I sit down to write.
		This I find the greatest relief.&#8217; The virtues
		of a clean shirt have often been sung, but it
		remained for Keats to show what a change of
		linen and a general <em>adonizing</em> could do in the
		way of furnishing poetic stimulus. This is better
		than coffee, brandy, absinthe, or falling in
		love; and it prompts one to think anew that
		the English poets, taking them as a whole,
		were a marvelously healthy and sensible breed
		of men.</p>

		<p>It is, however, in respect to the light they
		throw upon the poet&#8217;s literary life that the letters
		are of highest significance. They gratify
		to a reasonable extent that natural desire we
		all have to see authorship in the act. The processes
		by which genius brings things to pass
		are so mysterious that our curiosity is continually
		piqued; and our failure to get at the real
		thing prompts us to be more or less content
		with mere externals. If we may not hope to
		see the actual process of making poetry, we
		may at least study the poet&#8217;s manuscript. By
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_120" title="120"></a>knowing of his habits of work we flatter ourselves
		that we are a little nearer the secret of
		his power.</p>

		<p>We must bear in mind that Keats was a boy,
		always a boy, and that he died before he quite
		got out of boyhood. To be sure, most boys of
		twenty-six would resent being described by so
		juvenile a term. But one must have successfully
		passed twenty-six without doing anything
		in particular to understand how exceedingly
		young twenty-six is. And to have wrought so
		well in so short a time, Keats must have had
		from the first a clear and noble conception of
		the nature of his work, as he must also have
		displayed extraordinary diligence in the doing
		of it. Perhaps these points are too obvious,
		and of a sort which would naturally occur to
		any one; but it will be none the less interesting
		to see how the letters bear witness to their
		truth.</p>

		<p>In the first place, Keats was anything but a
		loafer at literature. He seems never to have
		dawdled. A fine healthiness is apparent in all
		allusions to his processes of work. &#8216;I read and
		write about eight hours a day,&#8217; he remarks in
		a letter to Haydon. Bailey, Keats&#8217;s Oxford
		friend, says that the fellow would go to his
		writing-desk soon after breakfast, and stay
		there until two or three o&#8217;clock in the afternoon.
		He was then writing <i class="title">Endymion</i>. His
		stint was about &#8216;fifty lines a day, &#8230; and he
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_121" title="121"></a>wrote with as much regularity, and apparently
		with as much ease, as he wrote his letters&#8230;.
		Sometimes he fell short of his allotted task, but
		not often, and he would make it up another
		day. But he never forced himself.&#8217; Bailey
		quotes, in connection with this, Keats&#8217;s own
		remark to the effect that poetry would better
		not come at all than not to come &#8216;as naturally
		as the leaves of a tree.&#8217; Whether this spontaneity
		of production was as great as that of
		some other poets of his time may be questioned;
		but he would never have deserved
		Tom Nash&#8217;s sneer at those writers who can
		only produce by &#8216;sleeping betwixt every sentence.&#8217;
		Keats had in no small degree the &#8216;fine
		extemporal vein&#8217; with &#8216;invention quicker than
		his eye.&#8217;</p>

		<p>We uncritically feel that it could hardly have
		been otherwise in the case of one with whom
		poetry was a passion. Keats had an infinite
		hunger and thirst for good poetry. His poetical
		life, both in the receptive and productive
		phases of it, was intense. Poetry was meat
		and drink to him. He could even urge his
		friend Reynolds to talk about it to him, much
		as one might beg a trusted friend to talk about
		one&#8217;s lady-love, and with the confidence that
		only the fitting thing would be spoken. &#8216;Whenever
		you write, say a word or two on some
		passage in Shakespeare which may have come
		rather new to you,&#8217;&#8212;a sentence which shows
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_122" title="122"></a>his faith in the many-sidedness of the great
		poetry. Shakespeare was forever &#8216;coming
		new&#8217; to <em>him</em>, and he was &#8216;haunted&#8217; by particular
		passages. He loved to fill the cup of his
		imagination with the splendors of the best
		poets until the cup overflowed. &#8216;I find I cannot
		exist without Poetry,&#8212;without eternal
		Poetry; half the day will not do,&#8212;the whole
		of it; I began with a little, but habit has made
		me a leviathan.&#8217; He tells Leigh Hunt, in a
		letter written from Margate, that he thought so
		much about poetry, and &#8216;so long together,&#8217;
		that he could not get to sleep at night.
		Whether this meant in working out ideas of his
		own, or living over the thoughts of other poets,
		is of little importance; the remark shows how
		deeply the roots of his life were imbedded in
		poetical soil. He loved a debauch in the verse
		of masters of his art. He could intoxicate himself
		with Shakespeare&#8217;s sonnets. He rioted in
		&#8216;all their fine things said unconsciously.&#8217; We
		are tempted to say, by just so much as he had
		large reverence for these men, by just so much
		he was of them.</p>

		<p>Undoubtedly, this ability to be moved by
		strong imaginative work may be abused until it
		becomes a maudlin and quite disordered sentiment.
		Keats was too well balanced to be carried
		into appreciative excesses. He knew that
		mere yearning could not make a poet of one
		any more than mere ambition could. He understood
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_123" title="123"></a>the limits of ambition as a force in literature.
		Keats&#8217;s ambition trembled in the presence
		of Keats&#8217;s conception of the magnitude
		of the poetic office. &#8216;I have asked myself so
		often why I should be a poet more than other
		men, seeing how great a thing it is.&#8217; Yet he
		had honest confidence. One cannot help liking
		him for the fine audacity with which he
		pronounces his own work good,&#8212;better even
		than that of a certain other great name in English
		literature; one cannot help loving him for
		the sweet humility with which he accepts the
		view that, after all, success or failure lies entirely
		without the range of self-choosing. There
		is a point of view from which it is folly to hold
		a poet responsible even for his own poetry, and
		when <i class="title">Endymion</i> was spoken of as &#8216;slipshod&#8217;
		Keats could reply, &#8216;That it is so is no fault of
		mine&#8230;. The Genius of Poetry must work
		out its own salvation in a man&#8230;. That
		which is creative must create itself. In <i class="title">Endymion</i>
		I leaped headlong into the sea, and
		thereby have become better acquainted with
		the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks,
		than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and
		piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable
		advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I
		would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Well might a man who could write that last
		sentence look upon poetry not only as a responsible,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_124" title="124"></a>but as a dangerous pursuit. Men who
		aspire to be poets are gamblers. In all the
		lotteries of the literary life none is so uncertain
		as this. A million chances that you don&#8217;t
		win the prize to one chance that you do. It is
		a curious thing that ever so thoughtful and
		conscientious an author may not know whether
		he is making literature or merely writing verse.
		He conforms to all the canons of taste in his
		own day; he is devout and reverent; he shuns
		excesses of diction, and he courts originality;
		his verse seems to himself and to his unflattering
		friends instinct with the spirit of his time,
		but twenty years later it is old-fashioned.
		Keats, with all his feeling of certainty, stood
		with head uncovered before that power which
		gives poetical gifts to one, and withholds them
		from another. Above all would he avoid self-delusion
		in these things. &#8216;There is no greater
		Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter one&#8217;s
		self into an idea of being a great Poet.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Keats, if one may judge from a letter written
		to John Taylor in February, 1818, had little
		expectation that his <i class="title">Endymion</i> was going to be
		met with universal plaudits. He doubtless
		looked for fair treatment. He probably had
		no thought of being sneeringly addressed as
		&#8216;Johnny,&#8217; or of getting recommendations to
		return to his &#8216;plasters, pills, and ointment
		boxes.&#8217; In fact, he looked upon the issue as
		entirely problematical. He seemed willing to
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_125" title="125"></a>take it for granted that in <i class="title">Endymion</i> he had
		but moved into the go-cart from the leading-strings.
		&#8216;If <i class="title">Endymion</i> serves me for a pioneer,
		perhaps I ought to be content, for thank
		God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare
		to his depths; and I have, I am sure,
		many friends who if I fail will attribute any
		change in my life to humbleness rather than
		pride,&#8212;to a cowering under the wings of great
		poets rather than to bitterness that I am not
		appreciated.&#8217; And for evidence of any especial
		bitterness because of the lashing he received
		one will search the letters in vain. Keats was
		manly and good-humored, most of his morbidity
		being referred directly to his ill health. The
		trouncing he had at the hands of the reviewers
		was no more violent than the one administered
		to Tennyson by Professor Wilson. Critics,
		good and bad, can do much harm. They may
		terrorize a timid spirit. But a greater terror
		than the fear of the reviewers hung over the
		head of John Keats. He stood in awe of his
		own artistic and poetic sense. He could say
		with truth that his own domestic criticism had
		given him pain without comparison beyond
		what <i class="title">Blackwood</i> or the <i class="title">Quarterly</i> could possibly
		inflict. If he had had any terrible heart-burning
		over their malignancy, if he had felt
		that his life was poisoned, he could hardly have
		forborne some allusion to it in his letters to his
		brother, George Keats. But he is almost imperturbable.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_126" title="126"></a>He talks of the episode freely,
		says that he has been urged to publish his <i class="title">Pot
		of Basil</i> as a reply to the reviewers, has no idea
		that he can be made ridiculous by abuse, notes
		the futility of attacks of this kind, and then,
		with a serene conviction that is irresistible,
		adds, &#8216;I think I shall be among the English
		Poets after my death!&#8217;</p>

		<p>Such egoism of genius is magnificent; the
		more so as it appears in Keats because it runs
		parallel with deep humility in the presence of
		the masters of his art. Naturally, the masters
		who were in their graves were the ones he reverenced
		the most and read without stint. But
		it was by no means essential that a poet be a
		dead poet before Keats did him homage. It
		is impossible to think that Keats&#8217;s attitude towards
		Wordsworth was other than finely appreciative,
		in spite of the fact that he applauded
		Reynolds&#8217;s <i class="title">Peter Bell</i>, and inquired almost petulantly
		why one should be teased with Wordsworth&#8217;s
		&#8216;Matthew with a bough of wilding in
		his hand.&#8217; But it is also impossible that his
		sense of humor should not have been aroused
		by much that he found in Wordsworth. It was
		Wordsworth he meant when he said, &#8216;Every
		man has his speculations, but every man does
		not brood and peacock over them till he makes
		a false coinage and deceives himself,&#8217;&#8212;a sentence,
		by the way, quite as unconsciously funny
		as some of the things he laughed at in the works
		of his great contemporary.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_127" title="127"></a>It will be pertinent to quote here two or
		three of the good critical words which Keats
		scattered through his letters. Emphasizing the
		use of simple means in his art, he says, &#8216;I think
		that poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and
		not by singularity; it should strike the reader
		as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and
		appear almost a remembrance.&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;We hate poetry that has a palpable design
		upon us&#8230;. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive,
		a thing which enters into one&#8217;s soul,
		and does not startle it or amaze it with itself,
		but with its subject.&#8217; Or as Ruskin has put
		the thing with respect to painting, &#8216;Entirely
		first-rate work is so quiet and natural that there
		can be no dispute over it.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Keats appears to have been in no sense a
		hermit. With the exception of Byron, he was
		perhaps less of a recluse than any of his poetical
		contemporaries. With respect to society
		he frequently practiced total abstinence; but
		the world was amusing, and he liked it. He
		was fond of the theatre, fond of whist, fond of
		visiting the studios, fond of going to the houses
		of his friends. But he would run no risks; he
		was shy and he was proud. He dreaded contact
		with the ultra-fashionables. Naturally, his
		opportunities for such intercourse were limited,
		but he cheerfully neglected his opportunities.
		I doubt if he ever bewailed his humble origin;
		nevertheless, the constitution of English society
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_128" title="128"></a>would hardly admit of his forgetting it. He
		had that pardonable pride which will not allow a
		man to place himself among those who, though
		outwardly fair-spoken, offer the insult of a hostile
		and patronizing mental attitude.</p>

		<p>Most of his friendships were with men, and
		this is to his credit. The man is spiritually
		warped who is incapable of a deep and abiding
		friendship with one of his own sex; and to go
		a step farther, that man is utterly to be distrusted
		whose only friends are among women.
		We may not be prepared to accept the radical
		position of a certain young thinker, who proclaims,
		in season, but defiantly, that &#8216;men are
		the idealists, after all;&#8217; yet it is easy to comprehend
		how one may take this point of view.
		The friendships of men are a vastly more interesting
		and poetic study than the friendships of
		men and women. This is in the nature of the
		case. It is the usual victory of the normal
		over the abnormal. As a rule, it is impossible
		for a friendship to exist between a man and
		woman, unless the man and woman in question
		be husband and wife. Then it is as rare as it
		is beautiful. And with men, the most admirable
		spectacle is not always that where attendant
		circumstances prompt to heroic display of
		friendship, for it is often so much easier to
		die than to live. But you may see young
		men pledging their mutual love and support in
		this difficult and adventurous quest of what is
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_129" title="129"></a>noblest in the art of living. Such love will not
		urge to a theatrical posing, and it can hardly
		find expression in words. Words seem to profane
		it. I do not say that Keats stood in such
		an ideal relation to any one of his many friends
		whose names appear in the letters. He gave
		of himself to them all, and he received much
		from each. No man of taste and genius could
		have been other than flattered by the way in
		which Keats approached him. He was charming
		in his attitude toward Haydon; and when
		Haydon proposed sending Keats&#8217;s sonnet to
		Wordsworth, the young poet wrote, &#8216;The Idea
		of your sending it to Wordsworth put me out
		of breath&#8212;you know with what Reverence I
		would send my well wishes to him.&#8217;</p>

		<p>But interesting as a chapter on Keats&#8217;s
		friendships with men would be, we are bound
		to confess that in dramatic intensity it would
		grow pale when laid beside that fiery love passage
		of his life, his acquaintance with Fanny
		Brawne. The thirty-nine letters given in the
		fourth volume of Buxton Forman&#8217;s edition of
		<i class="title">Keats&#8217;s Works</i> tell the story of this affair of a
		poet&#8217;s heart. These are the letters which Mr.
		William Watson says he has never read, and at
		which no consideration shall ever induce him
		to look. But Mr. Watson reflects upon people
		who have been human enough to read them
		when he compares such a proceeding on his
		own part (were he able to be guilty of it) to the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_130" title="130"></a>indelicacy of &#8216;listening at a keyhole or spying
		over a wall.&#8217; This is not a just illustration.
		The man who takes upon himself the responsibility
		of being the first to open such intimate
		letters, and adds thereto the infinitely greater
		responsibility of publishing them in so attractive
		a form that he who runs will stop running
		in order to read,&#8212;such an editor will need to
		satisfy Mr. Watson that in so doing he was not
		listening at a keyhole or spying over a wall.
		For the general public, the wall is down, and
		the door containing the keyhole thrown open.
		Perhaps our duty is not to look. I, for one,
		wish that great men would not leave their
		love letters around. Nay, I wish you a better
		wish than that: it is that the perfect taste of
		the gentleman and scholar who gave us in its
		present form the correspondence of Carlyle and
		Emerson, the early and later letters of Carlyle,
		and the letters of Lowell might have control
		of the private papers of every man of genius
		whose teachings the world holds dear. He
		would need for this an indefinite lease upon
		life; but since I am wishing, let me wish
		largely. There is need of such wishing. Many
		editors have been called, and only two or three
		chosen.</p>

		<p>But why one who reads the letters of Keats
		to Fanny Brawne should have any other feeling
		than that of pity for a poor fellow who was
		so desperately in love as to be wretched because
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_131" title="131"></a>of it I do not see. Even a cynic will
		grant that Keats was not disgraced, since it is
		very clear that he did not yield readily to what
		Dr. Holmes calls the great passion. He had a
		complacent boyish superiority of attitude with
		respect to all those who are weak enough to
		love women. &#8216;Nothing,&#8217; he says, &#8216;strikes me
		so forcibly with a sense of the ridiculous as
		love. A man in love I do think cuts the sorryest
		figure in the world. Even when I know a
		poor fool to be really in pain about it I could
		burst out laughing in his face. His pathetic
		visage becomes irresistible.&#8217; Then he speaks
		of that dinner party of stutterers and squinters
		described in the <i class="title">Spectator</i>, and says that it
		would please him more &#8216;to scrape together a
		party of lovers.&#8217; If this letter be genuine and
		the date of it correctly given, it was written
		three months after he had succumbed to the
		attractions of Fanny Brawne. Perhaps he was
		trying to brave it out, as one may laugh to conceal
		embarrassment.</p>

		<p>In a much earlier letter than this he hopes
		he shall never marry, but nevertheless has a
		good deal to say about a young lady with fine
		eyes and fine manners and a &#8216;rich Eastern
		look.&#8217; He discovers that he can talk to her
		without being uncomfortable or ill at ease. &#8216;I
		am too much occupied in admiring to be awkward
		or in a tremble&#8230;. She kept me awake
		one night as a tune of Mozart&#8217;s might do&#8230;.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_132" title="132"></a>I don&#8217;t cry to take the moon home with me in
		my pocket, nor do I fret to leave her behind
		me.&#8217; But he was not a little touched, and
		found it easy to fill two pages on the subject
		of this dark beauty. She was a friend of the
		Reynolds family. She crosses the stage of the
		Keats drama in a very impressive manner, and
		then disappears.</p>

		<p>The most extraordinary passage to be met
		with in relation to the poet&#8217;s attitude towards
		women is in a letter written to Benjamin Bailey
		in July, 1818. As a partial hint towards its full
		meaning I would take two phrases in <i class="title">Daniel
		Deronda</i>. George Eliot says of Gwendolen
		Harleth that there was &#8216;a certain fierceness of
		maidenhood in her,&#8217; which expression is quoted
		here only to emphasize the girl&#8217;s feeling towards
		men as described a little later, when Rex Gascoigne
		attempted to tell her his love. Gwendolen
		repulsed him with a sort of fury that was
		surprising to herself. The author&#8217;s interpretative
		comment is, &#8216;<em>The life of passion had begun
		negatively in her.</em>&#8217;</p>

		<p>So one might say of Keats that the life of
		passion began negatively in him. He was conscious
		of a hostility of temper towards women.
		&#8216;I am certain I have not a right feeling toward
		women&#8212;at this moment I am striving to be
		just to them, but I cannot.&#8217; He certainly
		started with a preposterously high ideal, for he
		says that when a schoolboy he thought a fair
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_133" title="133"></a>woman a pure goddess. And now he is disappointed
		at finding women only the equals of
		men. This disappointment helps to give rise
		to that antagonism which is almost inexplicable
		save as George Eliot&#8217;s phrase throws light upon
		it. He thinks that he insults women by these
		perverse feelings of unprovoked hostility. &#8216;Is
		it not extraordinary,&#8217; he exclaims, &#8216;when among
		men I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no
		spleen; I feel free to speak or to be silent;
		&#8230; I am free from all suspicion, and comfortable.
		When I am among women, I have evil
		thoughts, malice, spleen; I cannot speak or be
		silent; I am full of suspicions, and therefore
		listen to nothing; I am in a hurry to be gone.&#8217;
		He wonders how this trouble is to be cured.
		He speaks of it as a prejudice produced from
		&#8216;a gordian complication of feelings, which must
		take time to unravel.&#8217; And then, with a good-humored,
		characteristic touch, he drops the
		subject, saying, &#8216;After all, I do think better of
		women than to suppose they care whether Mister
		John Keats, five feet high, likes them or
		not.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Three or four months after writing these
		words he must have begun his friendly relations
		with the Brawne family. This would be
		in October or November, 1818. Keats&#8217;s description
		of Fanny is hardly flattering, and not
		even vivid. What is one to make of the colorless
		expression &#8216;a fine style of countenance of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_134" title="134"></a>the lengthened sort&#8217;? But she was fair to
		him, and any beauty beyond that would have
		been superfluous. We look at the silhouette
		and sigh in vain for trace of the loveliness
		which ensnared Keats. But if our daguerreotypes
		of forty years ago can so entirely fail of
		giving one line of that which in its day passed
		for dazzling beauty, let us not be unreasonable
		in our demands upon the artistic capabilities of
		a silhouette. Not infrequently is it true that
		the style of dress seems to disfigure. But we
		have learned, in course of experience, that
		pretty women manage to be pretty, however
		much fashion, with their cordial help, disguises
		them.</p>

		<p>It is easy to see from the letters that Keats
		was a difficult lover. Hard to please at the
		best, his two sicknesses, one of body and one
		of heart, made him whimsical. Nothing less
		than a woman of genius could possibly have
		managed him. He was jealous, perhaps quite
		unreasonably so. Fanny Brawne was young, a
		bit coquettish, buoyant, and he misinterpreted
		her vivacity. She liked what is commonly
		called &#8216;the world,&#8217; and so did he when he was
		well; but looking through the discolored glass
		of ill health, all nature was out of harmony.
		For these reasons it happens that the letters at
		times come very near to being documents in
		love-madness. Many a line in them gives
		sharp pain, as a record of heart-suffering must
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_135" title="135"></a>always do. You may read Richard Steele&#8217;s
		love letters for pleasure, and have it. The
		love letters of Keats scorch and sting; and the
		worst of it is that you cannot avoid reflecting
		upon the transitory character of such a passion.
		Withering young love like this does not last.
		It may burn itself out, or, what is quite as
		likely, it may become sober and rational. But
		in its earlier maddened state it cannot possibly
		last; a man would die under it. Men as a rule
		do not so die, for the race of the Azra is nearly
		extinct.</p>

		<p>These Brawne letters, however, are not without
		their bright side; and it is wonderful to see
		how Keats&#8217;s elastic nature would rebound the
		instant that the pressure of the disease relaxed.
		He is at times almost gay. The singing of a
		thrush prompts him to talk in his natural epistolary
		voice: &#8216;There&#8217;s the Thrush again&#8212;I
		can&#8217;t afford it&#8212;he&#8217;ll run me up a pretty Bill
		for Music&#8212;besides he ought to know I deal at
		Clementi&#8217;s.&#8217; And in the letter which he wrote
		to Mrs. Brawne from Naples is a touch of the
		old bantering Keats when he says that &#8216;it&#8217;s
		misery to have an intellect in splints.&#8217; He was
		never strong enough to write again to Fanny,
		or even to read her letters.</p>

		<p>I should like to close this reading with a few
		sentences from a letter written to Reynolds in
		February, 1818. Keats says: &#8216;I had an idea
		that a man might pass a very pleasant life in
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_136" title="136"></a>this manner&#8212;let him on a certain day read a
		certain Page of full Poesy or distilled Prose,
		and let him wander with it, and muse upon it,
		 &#8230; and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it,
		until it becomes stale&#8212;but when will it do so?
		Never! When Man has arrived at a certain
		ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual
		passage serves him as a starting post towards
		all the &#8220;two-and-thirty Palaces.&#8221; How happy
		is such a voyage of conception, what delicious
		diligent Indolence!&#8230; Nor will this sparing
		touch of noble Books be any irreverence to
		their Writers&#8212;for perhaps the honors paid by
		Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the
		Benefit done by great Works to the Spirit and
		pulse of good by their mere passive existence.&#8217;</p>

		<p>May we not say that the final test of great
		literature is that it be able to be read in the
		manner here indicated? As Keats read, so did
		he write. His own work was</p>

		<blockquote>
			<p class="verse"><span class="i10">&#8216;accomplished in repose</span><br />
				Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.&#8217;</p>
		</blockquote>

	</div>
	<div id="novelist" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_137" title="137"></a>AN ELIZABETHAN NOVELIST</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">The</span> fathers in English literature were not a
		little given to writing books which they called
		&#8216;anatomies.&#8217; Thomas Nash, for example, wrote
		an <i class="title">Anatomy of Absurdities</i>, and Stubbes an
		<i class="title">Anatomy of Abuses</i>. Greene, the novelist, entitled
		one of his romances <i class="title">Arbasto, the Anatomy
		of Fortune</i>. The most famous book which
		bears a title of this kind is the <i class="title">Anatomy of
		Melancholy</i>, by Robert Burton. It is notable,
		first, for its inordinate length; second, for its
		readableness, considering the length and the
		depth of it; third, for its prodigal and barbaric
		display of learning; and last, because it
		is said to have had the effect of making the
		most indolent man of letters of the eighteenth
		century get up betimes in the morning. Why
		Dr. Johnson needed to get up in order to read
		the <i class="title">Anatomy of Melancholy</i> will always be an
		enigma to some. Perhaps he did not get up.
		Perhaps he merely sat up and reached for the
		book, which would have been placed conveniently
		near the bed. For the virtue of the act
		resided in the circumstance of his being awake
		and reading a good book two hours ahead of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_138" title="138"></a>his wonted time for beginning his day. If he
		colored his remark so as to make us think
		he got up and dressed before reading, he may
		be forgiven. It was innocently spoken. Just
		as a man who lives in one room will somehow
		involuntarily fall into the habit of speaking
		of that one room in the plural, so the doctor
		added a touch which would render him heroic
		in the eyes of those who knew him. I should
		like a pictorial book-plate representing Dr.
		Johnson, in gown and nightcap, sitting up in
		bed reading the <i class="title">Anatomy of Melancholy</i>, with
		Hodge, the cat, curled up contentedly at his
		feet.</p>

		<p>It would be interesting to know whether
		Johnson ever read, in bed or out, a book called
		<i class="title">Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit</i>. It was published
		in the spring of 1579 by Gabriel Cawood,
		&#8216;dwelling in Paules Churchyard,&#8217; and was followed
		one year later by a second part, <i class="title">Euphues
		and his England</i>. These books were the work
		of John Lyly, a young Oxford Master of Arts.
		According to the easy orthography of that time
		(if the word orthography may be applied to a
		practice by virtue of which every man spelled
		as seemed right in his own eyes), Lyly&#8217;s name
		is found in at least six forms: Lilye, Lylie,
		Lilly, Lyllie, Lyly, and Lylly. Remembering
		the willingness of <em>i</em> and <em>y</em> to bear one another&#8217;s
		burdens, we may still exclaim, with Dr. Ingleby,
		&#8216;Great is the mystery of archaic spelling!&#8217;
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_139" title="139"></a>Great indeed when a man sometimes had more
		suits of letters to his name than suits of clothes
		to his back. That the name of this young author
		was pronounced as was the name of the
		flower, lily, seems the obvious inference from
		Henry Upchear&#8217;s verses, which contain punning
		allusions to Lyly and Robert Greene:&#8212;</p>

		<blockquote>
		<p class="verse">&#8216;Of all the flowers a Lillie once I lov&#8217;d<br />
			Whose laboring beautie brancht itself abroad,&#8217; etc.</p>
		</blockquote>

		<p>Original editions of the <i class="title">Anatomy of Wit</i> and
		its fellow are very rare. Probably there is not
		a copy of either book in the United States.
		This statement is ventured in good faith, and
		may have the effect of bringing to light a
		hitherto neglected copy.<sup class="note_marker"><a href="#note_1" id="fnm1" title="The writer of this paper...">1</a></sup> Strange it is that
		princely collectors of yore appear not to have
		cared for <i class="title">Euphues</i>. Surely one would not venture
		to affirm that John, Duke of Roxburghe,
		might not have had it if he had wanted it. The
		book is not to be found in his sale catalogue;
		he had Lyly&#8217;s plays in quarto, seven of them
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_140" title="140"></a>each marked &#8216;rare,&#8217; and he had two copies
		of a well-known book called <i class="title">Euphues Golden
		Legacie</i>, written by Thomas Nash. The Perkins
		Sale catalogue shows neither of Lyly&#8217;s
		novels. List after list of the spoils of mighty
		book-hunters has only a blank where the <i class="title">Anatomy
		of Wit</i> ought to be. From this we may
		argue great scarcity, or great indifference, or
		both. In the compact little reprint made by
		Professor Arber one may read this moral tale,
		which was fashionable when Shakespeare was
		a youth of sixteen. For convenience it will be
		advisable to speak of it as a single work in two
		parts, for such it practically is.</p>

		<p>To pronounce upon this romance is not easy.
		We read a dozen or two of pages, and say, &#8216;This
		is very fantastical humours.&#8217; We read further,
		and are tempted to follow Sir Hugh to the
		extent of declaring, &#8216;This is lunatics.&#8217; One
		may venture the not profound remark that it
		takes all sorts of books to make a literature.
		<i class="title">Euphues</i> is one of the books that would prompt
		to that very remark. For he who first said
		that it takes all sorts of people to make a world
		was markedly impressed with the differences
		between those people and himself. He had in
		mind eccentric folk, types which deviate from
		the normal and the sane. So <i class="title">Euphues</i> is a
		very Malvolio among books, cross-gartered and
		wreathed as to its countenance with set smiles.
		The curious in literary history will always enjoy
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_141" title="141"></a>such a production. The verdict of that part of
		the reading world which keeps a book alive by
		calling for fresh copies of it after the old copies
		are worn out is against <i class="title">Euphues</i>. It had a vivacious
		existence between 1579 and 1636, and
		then went into a literary retirement lasting two
		hundred and thirty-six years. When it again
		came before the public it was introduced as
		&#8216;a great bibliographical rarity.&#8217; Its fatal old-fashionedness
		hangs like a millstone about its
		neck. In the poems of Chaucer and the dramas
		of Shakespeare are a thousand touches which
		make the reader feel that Chaucer and Shakespeare
		are his contemporaries, that they have
		written in his own time, and published but yesterday.
		Read <i class="title">Euphues</i>, and you will say to
		yourself, &#8216;That book must have been written
		three hundred years ago, and it looks its age.&#8217;
		Yet it has its virtues. One may not say of it,
		as Johnson said of the <i class="title">Rehearsal</i>, that it &#8216;has
		not wit enough to keep it sweet.&#8217; Neither may
		he, upon second thought, conclude that &#8216;it has
		not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.&#8217;
		It has, indeed, a bottom of good
		sense; and so had Malvolio. It is filled from
		end to beginning with wit, or with what passed
		for wit among many readers of that day. Often
		the wit is of a tawdry and spectacular sort,&#8212;mere
		verbal wit, the use of a given word not
		because it is the best word, the most fitting
		word, but because the author wants a word
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_142" title="142"></a>beginning with the letter G, or the letter M, or
		the letter F, as the case may be. On the second
		page of Greene&#8217;s <i class="title">Arbasto</i> is this sentence:
		&#8216;He did not so much as vouchsafe to give an
		<em>eare</em> to my <em>parle</em>, or an <em>eye</em> to my <em>person</em>.&#8217;
		Greene learned this trick from Lyly, who was
		a master of the art. The sentence represents
		one of the common forms in <i class="title">Euphues</i>, such as
		this: &#8216;To the stomach <em>quatted</em> with <em>dainties</em>
		all <em>delicates</em> seem <em>queasie</em>.&#8217; Sometimes the balance
		is preserved by three words on a side.
		For example, the companions whom Euphues
		found in Naples practiced arts &#8216;whereby they
		might either <em>soake</em> his <em>purse</em> to reape <em>commodotie</em>,
		or <em>sooth</em> his <em>person</em> to winne <em>credite</em>.&#8217;
		Other illustrations are these: I can neither
		&#8216;<em>remember</em> our <em>miseries</em> without <em>griefe</em>, nor <em>redresse</em>
		our <em>mishaps</em> without <em>grones</em>.&#8217; &#8216;If the
		<em>wasting</em> of our <em>money</em> might not <em>dehort</em> us, yet
		the <em>wounding</em> of our <em>mindes</em> should <em>deterre</em>
		us.&#8217; This next sentence, with its combination
		of K sounds, clatters like a pair of castanets:
		&#8216;Though Curio bee as hot as a toast, yet
		Euphues is as cold as a clocke, though hee
		bee a cocke of the game, yet Euphues is content
		to bee craven and crye creake.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Excess of alliteration is the most obvious
		feature of Lyly&#8217;s style. That style has been
		carefully analyzed by those who are learned in
		such things. The study is interesting, with its
		talk of alliteration and transverse alliteration,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_143" title="143"></a>antithesis, climax, and assonance. In truth,
		one does not know which to admire the more,
		the ingenuity of the man who constructed the
		book, or the ingenuity of the scholars who have
		explained how he did it. Between Lyly on the
		one hand, and the grammarians on the other,
		the reader is almost tempted to ask if this be
		literature or mathematics. Whether Lyly got
		his style from Pettie or Guevara is an important
		question, but he made it emphatically his
		own, and it will never be called by any other
		name than Euphuism. The making of a book
		on this plan is largely the result of astonishing
		mental gymnastics. It commands respect in
		no small degree, because Lyly was able to keep
		it up so long. To walk from New York to
		Albany, as did the venerable Weston not so
		very long since, is a great test of human endurance.
		But walking is the employment of
		one&#8217;s legs and body in God&#8217;s appointed way of
		getting over the ground. Suppose a man were
		to undertake to hop on one leg from New York
		to Albany, the utility or the &aelig;sthetic value of
		the performance would be less obvious. The
		most successful artist in hopping could hardly
		expect applause from the right-minded. He
		would excite attention because he was able to
		hop so far, and not because he was the exponent
		of a praiseworthy method of locomotion.
		Lyly gained eminence by doing to a greater extent
		than any man a thing that was not worth
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_144" title="144"></a>doing at all. One is more astonished at Lyly&#8217;s
		power of endurance as author than at his own
		power of endurance as reader. For the volume
		is actually readable even at this day. Did
		Lyly not grow wearied of perpetually riding
		these alliterative trick-ponies? Apparently not.
		The book is &#8216;executed&#8217; with a vivacity, a dash,
		a &#8216;go,&#8217; that will captivate any reader who is
		willing to meet the author halfway. <i class="title">Euphues</i>
		became the rage, and its literary style the fashion.
		How or why must be left to him to explain
		who can tell why sleeves grow small and
		then grow big, why skirts are at one time only
		two and a half yards around and at another
		time five and a half or eight yards around. An
		Elizabethan gentleman might be too poor to
		dress well, but he would squander his last penny
		in getting his ruff starched. Lyly&#8217;s style bristles
		with extravagances of the starched ruff
		sort, which only serve to call attention to the
		intellectual deficiencies in the matter of doublet
		and hose.</p>

		<p>Of plot or story there is but little. The
		hero, Euphues, who gives the title to the romance,
		is a young, clever, and rich Athenian.
		He visits Naples, where his money and wit
		attract many to his side. By his careless,
		pleasure-seeking mode of life he wakens the
		fatherly interest of a wise old gentleman, Eubulus,
		who calls upon him to warn him of his
		danger. The conversation between the two is
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_145" title="145"></a>the first and not the least amusing illustration
		of the courtly verbal fencing with which the
		book is filled. The advice of the old man only
		provokes Euphues into making the sophistical
		plea that his style of living is right because
		nature prompts him to it; and he leaves Eubulus
		&#8216;in a great quandary&#8217; and in tears. Nevertheless,
		the old gentleman has the righteous
		energy which prompts him to say to the departing
		Euphues, already out of hearing, &#8216;Seeing
		thou wilt not buy counsel at the first hand
		good cheap, thou shalt buy repentance at the
		second hand, at such unreasonable rate, that
		thou wilt curse thy hard pennyworth, and ban
		thy hard heart.&#8217; Euphues takes to himself a
		new sworn brother, one Philautus, who carries
		him to visit his lady-love, Lucilla. Lucilla is
		rude at first, but becomes enamored of Euphues&#8217;s
		conversational power, and finally of
		himself. In fact, she unceremoniously throws
		over her former lover, and tells her father that
		she will either marry Euphues or else lead apes
		in hell. This causes a break in the friendship
		between Euphues and Philautus, and there is
		an exchange of formidably worded letters, in
		which Philautus reminds Euphues that all
		Greeks are liars, and Euphues quotes Euripides
		to the effect that all is lawful in love. Lucilla,
		who is fickle, suddenly dismisses her new cavalier
		for yet a third, while Euphues and Philautus,
		in the light of their common misfortune,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_146" title="146"></a>fall upon each other&#8217;s necks and are reconciled.
		Both profess themselves to have been fools,
		while Euphues, as the greater and more recent
		fool, composes a pamphlet against love. This
		he calls a &#8216;cooling-card.&#8217; It is addressed primarily
		to Philautus, but contains general advice
		for &#8216;all fond lovers.&#8217; Euphues&#8217;s own cure was
		radical, for he says, &#8216;Now do I give a farewell
		to the world, meaning rather to macerate myself
		with melancholy, than pine in folly, rather
		choosing to die in my study amidst my books
		than to court it in Italy in the company of
		ladies.&#8217; He returns to Athens, applies himself
		to the study of philosophy, becomes public
		reader in the University, and, as crowning evidence
		that he has finished sowing his wild oats,
		produces three volumes of lectures. Realizing
		how much of his own youth has been wasted,
		he writes a pamphlet on the education of the
		young, a dialogue with an atheist, and these,
		with a bundle of letters, make up the first part
		of the <i class="title">Anatomy of Wit</i>. From one of the letters
		we learn that Lucilla was as frail as she
		was beautiful, and that she died in evil report.
		The story, including the diatribe against love,
		is about as long as <i class="title">The Vicar of Wakefield</i>.
		It begins as a romance and ends as a sermon.</p>

		<p>The continuation of the novel, <i class="title">Euphues and
		his England</i>, is a little over a third longer than
		Part One. The two friends carry out their project
		of visiting England. After a wearisome
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_147" title="147"></a>voyage they reach Dover, view the cliffs and
		the castle, and then proceed to Canterbury.
		Between Canterbury and London they stop for
		a while with a &#8216;comely olde gentleman,&#8217; Fidus,
		who keeps bees and tells good stories. He
		also gives sound advice as to the way in which
		strangers should conduct themselves. A lively
		bit of writing is the account which Fidus gives
		of his commonwealth of bees. It is not according
		to Lubbock, but is none the less amusing.
		In London the two travelers become favorites
		at the court. Philautus falls in love, to the
		great annoyance of Euphues, who argues
		mightily with him against such folly. The two
		gentlemen expend vast resources of stationery
		and language upon the subject. They quarrel
		violently, and Euphues becomes so irritated
		that he must needs go and rent new lodgings,
		&#8216;which by good friends he quickly got, and
		there fell to his <i class="title">Pater noster</i>, where awhile,&#8217;
		says Lyly innocently, &#8216;I will not trouble him in
		his prayers.&#8217; They are reconciled later, and
		Philautus obtains permission to love; but he
		has discovered in the mean time that the lady
		will not have him. The account of his passion,
		how it &#8216;boiled and bubbled,&#8217; of his visit to the
		soothsayer to purchase love charms, his stately
		declamations to Camilla and her elaborate replies
		to him, of his love letter concealed in a
		pomegranate, and her answer stitched into a
		copy of Petrarch,&#8212;is all very lively reading,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_148" title="148"></a>much more so than that dreary love-making
		between Pyrocles and Philoclea, or between
		any other pair of the many exceedingly tiresome
		folk in Sidney&#8217;s <i class="title">Arcadia</i>. Grant that it
		is deliciously absurd. It is not to be supposed
		that a clever eighteen-year-old girl, replying to
		a declaration of love, will talk in the language
		of a trained nurse, and say: &#8216;Green sores are to
		be dressed roughly lest they fester, tettars are
		to be drawn in the beginning lest they spread,
		Ringworms to be anointed when they first
		appear lest they compass the whole body, and
		the assaults of love to be beaten back at the
		first siege lest they undermine at the second.&#8217;
		Was ever suitor in this fashion rejected! It
		makes one think of some of the passages in the
		<i class="title">History of John Buncle</i>, where the hero pours
		out a torrent of passionate phrases, and the
		&#8216;glorious&#8217; Miss Noel, in reply, begs that they
		may take up some rational topic of conversation;
		for example, what is <em>his</em> view of that
		opinion which ascribes &#8216;prim&aelig;vity and sacred
		prerogatives&#8217; to the Hebrew language.</p>

		<p>But Philautus does not break his heart over
		Camilla&#8217;s rejection. He is consoled with the
		love of another fair maiden, marries her, and
		settles in England. Euphues goes back to
		Athens, and presently retires to the country,
		where he follows the calling of one whose profession
		is melancholy. Like most hermits of
		culture, he leaves his address with his banker.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_149" title="149"></a>We assume this, for he was very rich; it is not
		difficult to be a hermit on a large income. The
		book closes with a section called &#8216;Euphues
		Glasse for Europe,&#8217; a thirty-page panegyric on
		England and the Queen.</p>

		<p>They say that this novel was very popular,
		and certain causes of its popularity are not
		difficult to come at. A large measure of the
		success that <i class="title">Euphues</i> had is due to the commonplaceness
		of its observations. It abounds
		in proverbs and copy-book wisdom. In this
		respect it is as homely as an almanac. John
		Lyly had a great store of &#8216;miscellany thoughts,&#8217;
		and he cheerfully parted with them. His book
		succeeded as Tupper&#8217;s <i class="title">Proverbial Philosophy</i>
		and Watts&#8217; <i class="title">On the Mind</i> succeeded. People
		believed that they were getting ideas, and people
		like what they suppose to be ideas if no
		great effort is required in the getting of them.
		It is astonishing how often the world needs to
		be advised of the brevity of time. Yet every
		person who can wade in the shallows of his own
		mind and not wet his shoe-tops finds a sweet
		melancholy and a stimulating freshness in the
		thought that time is short. John Lyly said,
		&#8216;There is nothing more swifter than time,
		nothing more sweeter,&#8217;&#8212;and countless Elizabethan
		gentlemen and ladies underscored that
		sentence, or transferred it to their commonplace
		books,&#8212;if they had such painful aids to
		culture,&#8212;and were comforted and edified by
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_150" title="150"></a>the discovery that brilliant John Lyly had
		made. This glib command of the matter-of-course,
		with a ready use of the proverb and the
		&#8216;old said saw,&#8217; is a marked characteristic of the
		work. It emphasizes the youth of its author.
		We learn what could not have been new even
		in 1579, that &#8216;in misery it is a great comfort to
		have a companion;&#8217; that &#8216;a new broom sweepeth
		clean;&#8217; that &#8216;delays breed dangers;&#8217; that
		&#8216;nothing is so perilous as procrastination;&#8217; that
		&#8216;a burnt child dreadeth the fire;&#8217; that it is well
		not to make comparisons &#8216;lest comparisons
		should seem odious;&#8217; that &#8216;it is too late to
		shut the stable door when the steed is stolen;&#8217;
		that &#8216;many things fall between the cup and the
		lip;&#8217; and that &#8216;marriages are made in heaven,
		though consummated on earth.&#8217; With these
		old friends come others, not altogether familiar
		of countenance, and quaintly archaic in their
		dress: &#8216;It must be a wily mouse that shall
		breed in the cat&#8217;s ear;&#8217; &#8216;It is a mad hare that
		will be caught with a tabor, and a foolish bird
		that stayeth the laying salt on her tail, and a
		blind goose that cometh to the fox&#8217;s sermon.&#8217;
		Lyly would sometimes translate a proverb; he
		does not tell us that fine words butter no parsnips,
		but says, &#8216;Fair words fat few,&#8217;&#8212;which is
		delightfully alliterative, but hardly to be accounted
		an improvement. Expressions that
		are surprisingly modern turn up now and then.
		One American street urchin taunts another by
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_151" title="151"></a>telling him that he doesn&#8217;t know enough to
		come in when it rains. The saying is at least
		three hundred years old, for Lyly says, in a
		dyspeptic moment, &#8216;So much wit is sufficient
		for a woman as when she is in the rain can
		warn her to come out of it.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Another cause of the popularity of <i class="title">Euphues</i>
		is its sermonizing. The world loves to hear
		good advice. The world is not nervously anxious
		to follow the advice, but it understands
		the edification that comes by preaching. With
		many persons, to have heard a sermon is almost
		equivalent to having practiced the virtues taught
		in the sermon. Churches are generally accepted
		as evidences of civilization. A man
		who is exploiting the interests of a new Western
		town will invariably tell you that it has so
		many churches. Also, an opera-house. The
		English world above all other worlds loves to
		hear good advice. England is the natural
		home of the sermon. Jusserand notes, almost
		with wonder, that in the annual statistics of
		the London publishers the highest numbers
		indicate the output of sermons and theological
		works. Then come novels. John Lyly was
		ingenious; he combined good advice and storytelling.
		Not skillfully, hiding the sermon amid
		lively talk and adventure, but blazoning the
		fact that he was going to moralize as long as
		he would. He shows no timidity, even declares
		upon one of his title-pages that in this volume
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_152" title="152"></a>&#8216;there is small offense by lightness given to the
		wise, and less occasion of looseness proffered
		to the wanton.&#8217; Such courage in this day
		would be apt seriously to injure the sale of a
		novel. Did not Ruskin declare that Miss
		Edgeworth had made virtue so obnoxious that
		since her time one hardly dared express the
		slightest bias in favor of the Ten Commandments?
		Lyly knew the public for which he
		acted as literary caterer. They liked sermons,
		and sermons they should have. Nearly every
		character in the book preaches, and Euphues is
		the most gifted of them all. Even that old
		gentleman of Naples who came first to Euphues
		because his heart bled to see so noble a youth
		given to loose living has the tables turned upon
		him, for Euphues preaches to the preacher
		upon the sovereign duty of resignation to the
		will of God.</p>

		<p>A noteworthy characteristic is the frequency
		of Lyly&#8217;s classical allusions. If the only definition
		of pedantry be &#8216;vain and ostentatious display
		of learning,&#8217; I question if we may dismiss
		Lyly&#8217;s wealth of classical lore with the word
		&#8216;pedantry.&#8217; He was fresh from his university
		life. If he studied at all when he was at Oxford,
		he must have studied Latin and Greek,
		for after these literatures little else was studied.
		Young men and their staid tutors were compelled
		to know ancient history and mythology.
		Like Heine, they may have taken a &#8216;real
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_153" title="153"></a>delight in the mob of gods and goddesses who
		ran so jolly naked about the world.&#8217; In the
		first three pages of the <i class="title">Anatomy of Wit</i> there
		are twenty classical names, ten of them coupled
		each with an allusion. Nobody begins a speech
		without a reference of this nature within calling
		distance. Euphues and Philautus fill their
		talk with evidences of a classical training. The
		ladies are provided with apt remarks drawn
		from the experiences of Helen, of Cornelia, of
		Venus, of Diana, and Vesta. Even the master
		of the ship which conveyed Euphues from
		Naples to England declaims about Ulysses and
		Julius C&aelig;sar. This naturally destroys all dramatic
		effect. Everybody speaks Euphuism,
		though classical allusion alone is not essentially
		Euphuistic. John Lyly would be the last man
		to merit any portion of that fine praise bestowed
		by Hazlitt upon Shakespeare when he said that
		Shakespeare&#8217;s genius &#8216;consisted in the faculty
		of transforming himself at will into whatever
		he chose.&#8217; Lyly&#8217;s genius was the opposite of
		this; it consisted in the faculty of transforming
		everybody into a reduplication of himself.
		There is no change in style when the narrative
		parts end and the dialogue begins. All the
		persons of the drama utter one strange tongue.
		They are no better than the characters in a
		Punch and Judy show, where one concealed
		manipulator furnishes voice for each of the
		figures. But in Lyly&#8217;s novel there is not even
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_154" title="154"></a>an attempt at the most rudimentary ventriloquism.</p>

		<p>What makes the book still less a reflection
		of life is that the speakers indulge in interminably
		long harangues. No man (unless he were
		a Coleridge) would be tolerated who talked in
		society at such inordinate length. When the
		characters can&#8217;t talk to one another they retire
		to their chambers and declaim to themselves.
		They polish their language with the same care,
		open the classical dictionary, and have at themselves
		in good set terms. Philautus, inflamed
		with love of Camilla, goes to his room and pronounces
		a ten-minute discourse on the pangs of
		love, having only himself for auditor. They
		are amazingly patient under the verbal inflictions
		of one another. Euphues, angry with
		Philautus for having allowed himself to fall in
		love, takes him to task in a single speech containing
		four thousand words. If Lyly had set
		out with the end in view of constructing a story
		by putting into it alone &#8216;what is not life,&#8217; his
		product would have been what we find it now.
		One could easily believe the whole affair to
		have been intended for a tremendous joke were
		it not that the tone is so serious. We are
		accustomed to think of youth as light-hearted:
		but look at a serious child,&#8212;there is nothing
		more serious in the world. Lyly was twenty-six
		years when he first published. Much of the
		seriousness in his romance is the burden of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_155" title="155"></a>twenty-six years&#8217; experience of life, a burden
		greater perhaps than he ever afterward carried.</p>

		<p>Being, as we take it, an unmarried man, Lyly
		gives directions for managing a wife. He believes
		in the wholesome doctrine that a man
		should select his own wife. &#8216;Made marriages
		by friends&#8217; are dangerous. &#8216;I had as lief
		another should take measure by his back of my
		apparel as appoint what wife I shall have by
		his mind.&#8217; He prefers in a wife &#8216;beauty before
		riches, and virtue before blood.&#8217; He holds to
		the radical English doctrine of wifely submission;
		there is no swerving from the position
		that the man is the woman&#8217;s &#8216;earthly master,&#8217;<sup class="note_marker"><a href="#note_2" id="fnm2" title="Lady Burton&#8217;s Dedication...">2</a></sup>
		but in taming a wife no violence is to be employed.
		Wives are to be subdued with kindness.
		&#8216;If their husbands with great threatenings,
		with jars, with brawls, seek to make them
		tractable, or bend their knees, the more stiff
		they make them in the joints, the oftener they
		go about by force to rule them, the more froward
		they find them; but using mild words,
		gentle persuasions, familiar counsel, entreaty,
		submission, they shall not only make them to
		bow their knees, but to hold up their hands,
		not only cause them to honor them, but to
		stand in awe of them.&#8217; By such methods will
		that supremest good of an English home be
		brought about, namely, that the wife shall stand
		in awe of her husband.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_156" title="156"></a>The young author admits that some wives
		have the domineering instinct, and that way
		danger lies. A man must look out for himself.
		If he is not to make a slave of his wife, he is
		also not to be too submissive; &#8216;that will cause
		her to disdain thee.&#8217; Moreover, he must have
		an eye to the expenditure. She may keep the
		keys, but he will control the pocket-book. The
		model wife in Ecclesiastes had greater privileges;
		she could not only consider a piece of
		ground, but she could buy it if she liked it.
		Not so this well-trained wife of Lyly&#8217;s novel.
		&#8216;Let all the keys hang at her girdle, but the
		purse at thine, so shalt thou know what thou
		dost spend, and how she can spare.&#8217; But in
		setting forth his theory for being happy though
		married, Lyly, methinks, preaches a dangerous
		doctrine in this respect: he hints at the possibility
		of a man&#8217;s wanting, in vulgar parlance, to
		go on a spree, expresses no question as to the
		propriety of his so doing, but says that if a man
		does let himself loose in this fashion his wife
		must not know it. &#8216;Imitate the kings of Persia,
		who when they were given to riot kept no
		company with their wives, but when they used
		good order had their queens even at the table.&#8217;
		In short, the wife was to duplicate the moods
		of her husband. &#8216;Thou must be a glass to thy
		wife, for in thy face must she see her own; for
		if when thou laughest she weep, when thou
		mournest she giggle, the one is a manifest sign
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_157" title="157"></a>she delighteth in others, the other a token she
		despiseth thee.&#8217; John Lyly was a wise youth.
		He struck the keynote of the mode in which
		most incompatible marriages are played when
		he said that it was a bad sign if one&#8217;s wife giggled
		when one was disposed to be melancholy.</p>

		<p>An interesting study is the author&#8217;s attitude
		toward foreign travel. It would appear to have
		been the fashion of the time to indulge in much
		invective against foreign travel, but nevertheless&#8212;to
		travel. Many men believed with
		young Valentine that &#8216;home keeping youth
		have ever homely wits,&#8217; while others were rather
		of Ascham&#8217;s mind when he said, &#8216;I was once in
		Italy, but I thank God my stay there was only
		nine days.&#8217; Lyly came of a nation of travelers.
		Then as now it was true that there was no
		accessible spot of the globe upon which the
		Englishman had not set his foot. Nomadic
		England went abroad; sedentary England
		stayed at home to rail at him for so doing.
		Aside from that prejudice which declared that
		all foreigners were fools, there was a well-founded
		objection to the sort of traveling usually
		described as seeing the world. Young
		men went upon the continent to see questionable
		forms of pleasure, perhaps to practice
		them. Whether justly or not, common report
		named Italy as the higher school of pleasurable
		vices, and Naples as the city where one&#8217;s doctorate
		was to be obtained. Gluttony and licentiousness
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_158" title="158"></a>are the sins of Naples. Eubulus tells
		Euphues that in that city are those who &#8216;sleep
		with meat in their mouths, with sin in their
		hearts, and with shame in their houses.&#8217; There
		is no limit to the inconveniences of traveling.
		&#8216;Thou must have the back of an ass to bear all,
		and the snout of a swine to say nothing&#8230;.
		Travelers must sleep with their eyes open lest
		they be slain in their beds, and wake with their
		eyes shut lest they be suspected by their looks.&#8217;
		Journeys by the fireside are better. &#8216;If thou
		covet to travel strange countries, search the
		maps, there shalt thou see much with great
		pleasure and small pains, if to be conversant in
		all courts, read histories, where thou shalt
		understand both what the men have been and
		what their manners are, and methinketh there
		must be much delight where there is no danger.&#8217;
		Perhaps Lyly intended to condemn traveling
		with character unformed. A boy returned
		with more vices than he went forth with pence,
		and was able to sin both by experience and
		authority. Lest he should be thought to speak
		with uncertain voice upon this matter Lyly
		gives Euphues a story to tell in which the chief
		character describes the effect of traveling upon
		himself. &#8216;There was no crime so barbarous,
		no murder so bloody, no oath so blasphemous,
		no vice so execrable, but that I could readily
		recite where I learned it, and by rote repeat the
		peculiar crime of every particular country, city,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_159" title="159"></a>town, village, house, or chamber.&#8217; Here, indeed,
		is no lack of plain speech.</p>

		<p>In the section called &#8216;Euphues and his
		Eph&oelig;bus&#8217; twenty-nine pages are devoted to
		the question of the education of youth. It is
		largely taken from Plutarch. Some of the
		points are these: that a mother shall herself
		nurse her child, that the child shall be early
		framed to manners, &#8216;for as the steele is imprinted
		in the soft waxe, so learning is engraven
		in ye minde of an young Impe.&#8217; He is not to
		hear &#8216;fonde fables or filthy tales.&#8217; He is to
		learn to pronounce distinctly and to be kept
		from &#8216;barbarous talk,&#8217; that is, no dialect and no
		slang. He is to become expert in martial
		affairs, in shooting and darting, and he must
		hunt and hawk for his &#8216;honest recreation.&#8217; If
		he will not study, he is not to be &#8216;scourged
		with stripes, but threatened with words, not
		<em>dulled with blows</em>, like servants, the which, the
		more they are beaten the better they bear it,
		and the less they care for it.&#8217; In taking this
		position Lyly is said to be only following Ascham.
		Ascham was not the first in his own
		time to preach such doctrine. Forty years before
		the publication of <i class="title">The Schoolmaster</i>, Sir
		Thomas Elyot, in his book called <i class="title">The Governour</i>,
		raised his voice against the barbarity of
		teachers &#8216;by whom the wits of children be
		dulled,&#8217;&#8212;almost the very words of John Lyly.</p>

		<p><i class="title">Euphues</i>, besides being a treatise on love
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_160" title="160"></a>and education, is a sort of Tudor tract upon
		animated nature. It should be a source of joy
		unspeakable to the general reader if only for
		what it teaches him in the way of natural history.
		How much of what is most gravely
		stated here did John Lyly actually believe? It
		is easy to grant so orthodox a statement of
		physical fact as that &#8216;the Sunne doth harden
		the durte, and melte the waxe;&#8217; but ere the
		sentence be finished, the author calls upon us
		to believe that &#8216;Perfumes doth refresh the
		Dove and kill the Betill.&#8217; The same reckless
		extravagance of remark is to be noted whenever
		bird, beast, or reptile is mentioned. The
		crocodile of Shakespeare&#8217;s time must have been
		a very contortionist among beasts, for, says
		Lyly, &#8216;when one approacheth neere unto him,
		[he] gathereth up himselfe into the roundnesse
		of a ball, but running from him, stretcheth
		himselfe into the length of a tree.&#8217; Perhaps
		the fame of this creature&#8217;s powers grew in the
		transmission of the narrative from the banks of
		the Nile to the banks of the Thames. The
		ostrich was human in its vanity according to
		Lyly; men and women sometimes pull out
		their white hairs, but &#8216;the Estritch, that taketh
		the greatest pride in her feathers, picketh some
		of the worst out and burneth them.&#8217; Nay,
		more than that, being in &#8216;great haste she pricketh
		none but hirselfe which causeth hir to
		runne when she would rest.&#8217; We shall presently
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_161" title="161"></a>expect to hear that ostriches wear boots
		by the straps of which they lift themselves
		over ten-foot woven-wire fences. But Lyly
		used the conventional natural history that was
		at hand, and troubled himself in no respect to
		inquire about its truth or falsity.</p>

		<p>There is yet another cause of the popularity
		of this book in its own time, which has been
		too little emphasized. It is that trumpet blast
		of patriotism with which the volume ends. We
		feel, as we read the thirty pages devoted to the
		praise of England and the Queen, that this is
		right, fitting, artistic, and we hope that it is tolerably
		sincere. Flattery came easily to men in
		those days, and there was small hope of advancement
		for one who did not master the art. But
		there is a glow of earnestness in these paragraphs
		rather convincing to the skeptic. Nor
		would the book be complete without this eulogy.
		We have had everything else; a story for who
		wanted a story, theories upon the education of
		children, a body of mythological divinity, a discussion
		of methods of public speaking, advice
		for men who are about to marry, a theological
		sparring match, in which a man of straw is set
		up to be knocked down, and <em>is</em> knocked down,
		a thousand illustrations of wit and curious reading,
		and now, as a thing that all men could
		understand, the author tells Englishmen of
		their own good fortune in being Englishmen,
		and is finely outspoken in praise of what he
		calls &#8216;the blessed Island.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_162" title="162"></a>This is an old-fashioned vein, to be sure,&#8212;the
		<i lang="la">ad captandum</i> trick of a popular orator
		bent upon making a success. It is not looked
		upon in all places with approval. &#8216;Our unrivaled
		prosperity&#8217; was a phrase which greatly
		irritated Matthew Arnold. Here in America,
		are we not taught by a highly fastidious journal
		that we may be patriotic if we choose, but we
		must be careful how we let people know it?
		We mustn&#8217;t make a fuss about it. We
		mustn&#8217;t be blatant. The star-spangled banner
		on the public schools is at best a cheap and
		vulgar expression of patriotism. But somehow
		even this sort of patriotism goes with the people,
		and perhaps these instincts of the common
		folk are not entirely to be despised. Many a
		reader of <i class="title">Euphues</i>, who cared but little for its
		elaborated style, who was not moved by its
		orthodoxy, who didn&#8217;t read books simply because
		they were fashionable, must have felt his
		pulse stirred by Lyly&#8217;s chant of England&#8217;s
		greatness. For Euphues is John Lyly, and
		John Lyly&#8217;s creed was substantially that of
		the well-known hero of a now forgotten comic
		opera, &#8216;I am an Englishman.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In the thin disguise of the chief character of
		his story the author describes the happy island,
		its brave gentlemen and rich merchants, its fair
		ladies and its noble Queen. The glories of
		London, which he calls the storehouse and
		mart of all Europe, and the excellence of English
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_163" title="163"></a>universities, &#8216;out of which do daily proceed
		men of great wisdom,&#8217; are alike celebrated.
		England&#8217;s material wealth in mines and quarries
		is amply set forth, also the fine qualities of
		the breed of cattle, and the virtues of English
		spaniels, hounds, and mastiffs; for these constitute
		a sort of good that all could appreciate.
		He is satirical at the expense of his countrymen&#8217;s
		dress,&#8212;&#8216;there is nothing in England
		more constant than the inconstancie of attire,&#8217;&#8212;but
		praises their silence and gravity at their
		meals. They have wise ministers in the court,
		and devout guardians of the true religion and
		of the church. &#8216;O thrice happy England,
		where such councilors are, where such people
		live, where such virtue springeth.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In the paragraphs relating to the queen, Lyly
		grows positively eloquent. He praises her
		matchless beauty, her mercy, patience, and
		moderation, and emphasizes the fact of her virginity
		to a degree that would have satisfied the
		imperial votaress herself if but once she had
		considered her admirer&#8217;s words: &#8216;O fortunate
		England that hath such a Queen; ungratefull,
		if thou pray not for her; wicked, if thou do not
		love her; miserable, if thou lose her.&#8217; He calls
		down Heaven&#8217;s blessings upon her that she
		may be &#8216;triumphant in victories like the Palm
		tree, fruitful in her age like the Vine, in all
		ages prosperous, to all men gracious, in all
		places glorious: so that there be no end of her
		praise, until the end of all flesh.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_164" title="164"></a>With passages such as these, this interesting
		book draws to a conclusion. A most singular
		and original book, worthy to be read, unless,
		indeed, the reading of these out-of-the-way volumes
		were found to encroach upon time belonging
		by right of eminent intellectual domain to
		Chaucer and to Shakespeare, to Spenser and
		to Milton. That <i class="title">Euphues</i> is in no exact sense
		a novel admits of little question. It is also a
		brilliant illustration of how not to write English.
		Nevertheless it is very amusing, and its
		disappearance would be a misfortune, since it
		would eclipse the innocent gayety of many a
		man who loves to bask in that golden sunshine
		which streams from the pages of old English
		books.</p>

		<div id="novelist_notes" class="notes">
			<ol>
				<li id="note_1" class="footnote">
					<p>	The writer of this paper once sent to that fine scholar
						and gracious gentleman, Professor Edward Arber, to inquire
						whether in his opinion one might hope to buy at a modest
						price a copy of either the first or the second part of <i class="title">Euphues</i>.
						Professor Arber&#8217;s reply was amusingly emphatic: &#8216;You might
						as well try to purchase one of Mahomet&#8217;s old slippers.&#8217; But
						in July of 1896 there were four copies of this old novel on
						sale at one New York bookstore. One of the copies was
						of great beauty, consisting of the two parts of the story bound
						up together in a really sumptuous fashion. The price was
						not large as prices of such books go, but on the other hand
						&#8216;&#8217;a was not small.&#8217;
						<span class="note_return"><a href="#fnm1" title="Back to text">Return</a></span>
					</p>
				</li>
				<li id="note_2" class="footnote">
					<p> Lady Burton&#8217;s Dedication of her husband&#8217;s biography,&#8212;&#8216;To
						my earthly master,&#8217; etc.
						<span class="note_return"><a href="#fnm2" title="Back to text">Return</a></span>
					</p>
				</li>
			</ol>
		</div>
	</div>
	<div id="autobiography" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_165" title="165"></a>THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FAIR-MINDED MAN</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">It</span> is by no means necessary that one be a
		man of letters in order to write a good book.
		Some very admirable books have been written
		by men who gave no especial thought to literature
		as an art. They wrote because they were
		so fortunate as to find themselves in possession
		of ideas, and not because they had determined
		to become authors. Literature as such implies
		sophistication, and people who devote themselves
		to literature do so from a variety of
		motives. But these writers of whom I now
		speak have a less complex thought back of their
		work. They do not, for example, propose pleasure
		to the reader as an object in writing.
		Their aim is single. They recount an experience,
		or plead a cause. Literature with them
		is always a means to an end. They are like
		pedestrians who never look upon walking as
		other than a rational process for reaching a
		given place. It does not occur to them that
		walking makes for health and pleasure, and that
		it is also an exercise for displaying a graceful
		carriage, the set of the shoulders, the poise of
		the head.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_166" title="166"></a>To be sure one runs the risk of being deceived
		in this matter. The actress who plays
		the part of an unaffected young girl, for aught
		that the spectator knows to the contrary may
		be a pronounced woman of the world. Not
		every author who says to the public &#8216;excuse
		my untaught manner&#8217; is on this account to be
		regarded as a literary ingénu. His simplicity
		awakens distrust. The fact that he professes
		to be a layman is a reason for suspecting him.
		He is probably an adept, a master of the wiles
		by which readers are snared.</p>

		<p>But aside from the cases in which deception
		is practiced, or at least attempted, there is in
		the world a respectable body of literature which
		is not the work of literary men. Its chief
		characteristic is sincerity. The writers of these
		books are so busy in telling the truth that they
		have no time to think of literature.</p>

		<p>Among the more readable of these pieces is
		that unpretentious volume in which Dr. Joseph
		Priestley relates the story of his life. For in
		classing this book with the writings of authors
		who are not men of letters one surely does not
		go wide of the mark. There is a sense in
		which it is entirely proper to say that Priestley
		was not a literary man. He produced twenty-five
		volumes of &#8216;works,&#8217; but they were for use
		rather than for art. He wrote on science, on
		grammar, on theology, on law. He published
		controversial tracts: &#8216;Did So-and-So believe
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_167" title="167"></a>so-and-so or something quite different?&#8217; and
		then a discussion of the &#8216;grounds&#8217; of this belief.
		He made &#8216;rejoinders,&#8217; &#8216;defenses,&#8217; &#8216;animadversions,&#8217;
		and printed the details of his
		<i class="title">Experiments on Different Kinds of Air</i>. This
		is distinctly uninviting. Let me propose an
		off-hand test by which to determine whether or
		no a given book is literature. <em>Can you imagine
		Charles Lamb in the act of reading that book?</em>
		If you can; it&#8217;s literature; if you can&#8217;t, it isn&#8217;t.
		I find it difficult to conceive of Charles Lamb
		as mentally immersed in the <i class="title">Letter to an Anti-p&aelig;dobaptist</i>
		or the <i class="title">Doctrine of Phlogiston
		Established</i>, but it is natural to think of him
		turning the pages of Priestley&#8217;s Memoir, reading
		each page with honest satisfaction and pronouncing
		the volume to be worthy the title of
		A BOOK.</p>

		<p>It is a plain unvarnished tale and entirely
		innocent of those arts by the practice of which
		authors please their public. There is no eloquence,
		no rhetoric, no fine writing of any sort.
		The two or three really dramatic events in
		Priestley&#8217;s career are not handled with a view
		to producing dramatic effect. There are places
		where the author might easily have become
		impassioned. But he did not become impassioned.
		Not a few paragraphs contain unwritten
		poems. The simple-hearted Priestley was
		unconscious of this, or if conscious, then too
		modest to make capital of it. He had never
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_168" title="168"></a>aspired to the reputation of a clever writer, but
		rather of a useful one. His aim was quite as
		simple when he wrote the Memoir as when he
		wrote his various philosophical reports. He
		never deviated into brilliancy. He set down
		plain statements about events which had happened
		to him, and people whom he had known.
		Nevertheless the narrative is charming, and the
		reasons of its charm are in part these:&#8212;</p>

		<p>In the first place the book belongs to that
		department of literature known as autobiography.
		Autobiography has peculiar virtues. The
		poorest of it is not without some flavor of life,
		and at its best it is transcendent. A notable
		value lies in its power to stimulate. This
		power is very marked in Priestley&#8217;s case, where
		the self-delineated portrait is of a man who met
		and overcame enormous difficulties. He knew
		poverty and calumny, both brutal things. He
		had a thorn in the flesh,&#8212;for so he himself
		characterized that impediment in his speech
		which he tried more or less unsuccessfully all
		his life to cure. He found his scientific usefulness
		impaired by religious and political
		antagonisms. He tasted the bitterness of mob
		violence; his house was sacked, his philosophical
		instruments destroyed, his manuscripts and
		books scattered along the highway. But as he
		looked back upon these things he was not
		moved to impatience. There is a high serenity
		in his narrative as becomes a man who has
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_169" title="169"></a>learned to distinguish between the ephemeral
		and the permanent elements of life.</p>

		<p>Yet it is not impossible that autobiography
		of this sort has an effect the reverse of stimulating
		upon some people. It is pleasanter to
		read of heroes than to be a hero oneself. The
		story of conquest is inspiring, but the actual
		process is apt to be tedious. One&#8217;s nerves are
		tuned to a fine energy in reading of Priestley&#8217;s
		efforts to accomplish a given task. &#8216;I spent
		the latter part of every week with Mr. Thomas,
		a Baptist minister, &#8230; who had no liberal
		education. Him I instructed in Hebrew, and
		by that means made myself a considerable proficient
		in that language. At the same time I
		learned Chaldee and Syriac and just began to
		read Arabic&#8217; This seems easy in the telling,
		but in reality it was a long, a monotonous, an
		exhausting process. Think of the expenditure
		of hours and eyesight over barbarous alphabets
		and horrid grammatical details. One must
		needs have had a mind of leather to endure such
		philological and linguistic wear and tear. Priestley&#8217;s
		mind not only cheerfully endured it but
		actually toughened under it. The man was
		never afraid of work. Take as an illustration
		his experience in keeping school.</p>

		<p>He had pronounced objections to this business,
		and he registered his protest. But suppose
		the alternative is to teach school or to
		starve. A man will then teach school. I don&#8217;t
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_170" title="170"></a>know that this was quite the situation in which
		Priestley found himself, though he needed
		money. He may have hesitated to enter a profession
		which in his time required a more extensive
		muscular equipment than he was able
		to furnish. The old English schoolmasters
		were &#8216;bruisers.&#8217; They had thick skins, hard
		heads, and solid fists. The symbols of their
		office were a Greek grammar and a flexible rod.
		They were skillful either with the book or the
		birch. It has taken many years to convince
		the world that the short road to the moods and
		tenses does not necessarily lie through the
		valley of the shadow of flogging. Perhaps
		Priestley objected to school-mastering because
		it was laborious. It was indeed laborious as he
		practiced it. One marvels at his endurance.
		His school consisted of about thirty boys, and
		he had a separate room for about half-a-dozen
		young ladies. &#8216;Thus I was employed from
		seven in the morning until four in the afternoon,
		without any interval except one hour for
		dinner; and I never gave a holiday on any consideration,
		the red letter days excepted. Immediately
		after this employment in my own
		school-rooms I went to teach in the family of
		Mr. Tomkinson, an eminent attorney, &#8230; and
		here I continued until seven in the evening.&#8217;
		Twelve consecutive hours of teaching, less one
		hour for dinner! It was hardly necessary for
		Priestley to add that he had &#8216;but little leisure
		for reading.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_171" title="171"></a>He laid up no money from teaching, but like
		a true man of genius spent it upon books, a
		small air-pump, an electrical machine. By
		training his advanced pupils to manipulate
		these he &#8216;extended the reputation&#8217; of his
		school. This was playing at science. Several
		years were yet to elapse before he should acquire
		fame as an original investigator.</p>

		<p>This autobiography is valuable because it
		illustrates the events of a remarkable time.
		He who cares about the history of theological
		opinion, the history of chemical science, the
		history of liberty, will read these pages with
		keen interest. Priestley was active in each of
		these fields. Men famous for their connection
		with the great movements of the period were
		among his friends and acquaintance. He knew
		Franklin and Richard Price. John Canton,
		who was the first man in England to verify
		Franklin&#8217;s experiments, was a friend of Priestley.
		So too were Smeaton the engineer, James
		Watt, Boulton, Josiah Wedgewood, and Erasmus
		Darwin. He knew Kippis, Lardner, Parr,
		and had met Porson and Dr. Johnson. His
		closest friend for many years was Theophilus
		Lindsey. One might also mention the great
		Lavoisier, Magellan the Jesuit philosopher, and
		a dozen other scientific, ecclesiastical, and political
		celebrities. The Memoir, however, is almost
		as remarkable for what it does not tell
		concerning these people as for what it does.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_172" title="172"></a>Priestley was not anecdotal. And he is only a
		little less reticent about himself than he is
		about others. He does indeed describe his early
		struggles as a dissenting minister, but the
		reader would like a little more expansiveness in
		the account of his friendships and his chemical
		discoveries. These discoveries were made during
		the time that he was minister at the Mill-hill
		Chapel, Leeds. Here he began the serious
		study of chemistry. And that without training
		in the science as it was then understood. At
		Warrington he had heard a series of chemical
		lectures by Dr. Turner of Liverpool, a gentleman
		whom Americans ought to regard with
		amused interest, for he was the man who congratulated
		his fellows in a Liverpool debating
		society that while they had just lost the <i lang="la">terra
		firma</i> of thirteen colonies in America, they had
		gained, under the generalship of Dr. Herschel,
		a <i lang="la">terra incognita</i> of much greater extent <i lang="la">in
		nubibus</i>. Priestley not only began his experiments
		without any great store of knowledge,
		but also without apparatus save what he devised
		for himself of the cheapest materials. In 1772
		he published his first important scientific tract,
		&#8216;a small pamphlet on the method of impregnating
		water with fixed air.&#8217; For this he received
		the Copley medal from the Royal Society. On
		the first of August, 1774, he discovered oxygen.
		Nobody in Leeds troubled particularly to inquire
		what this dissenting minister was about
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_173" title="173"></a>with his vials and tubes, his mice and his
		plants. Priestley says that the only person
		who took &#8216;much interest&#8217; was Mr. Hey, a surgeon.
		Mr. Hey was a &#8216;zealous Methodist&#8217; and
		wrote answers to Priestley&#8217;s theological papers.
		Arminian and Socinian were at peace if science
		was the theme. When Priestley departed from
		Leeds, Hey begged of him the &#8216;earthen trough&#8217;
		in which all his experiments had been made.
		This earthen trough was nothing more nor less
		than a washtub of the sort in common local
		use. So independent is genius of the elaborate
		appliances with which talent must produce results.</p>

		<p>The discoveries brought fame, especially
		upon the Continent, and led Lord Shelburne
		to invite Priestley to become his &#8216;literary companion.&#8217;
		Dr. Price was the intermediary in
		effecting this arrangement. Priestley&#8217;s nominal
		post was that of &#8216;librarian,&#8217; and he now and
		then officiated as experimentalist extraordinary
		before Lord Shelburne&#8217;s guests. The compensation
		was not illiberal, and the relation
		seems to have been as free from degrading elements
		as such relations can be. Priestley was
		not a sycophant even in the day when men of
		genius thought it no great sin to give flattery
		in exchange for dinners. It was never his
		habit to burn incense before the great simply
		because the great liked the smell of incense and
		were accustomed to it. On the other hand,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_174" title="174"></a>Shelburne appears to have treated the philosopher
		with kindness and delicacy, and the situation
		was not without difficulties for his lordship.</p>

		<p>Among obvious advantages which Priestley
		derived from this residence were freedom from
		financial worry, time for writing and experimenting,
		a tour on the Continent, and the privilege
		of spending the winter season of each
		year in London.</p>

		<p>It was during these London visits that he
		renewed his acquaintance with Dr. Franklin.
		They were members of a club of &#8216;philosophical
		gentlemen&#8217; which met at stated times at the
		London Coffee House, Ludgate Hill. There
		were few days upon which the Father of Pneumatic
		Chemistry and the Father of Electrical
		Science did not meet. When their talk was
		not of dephlogisticated air and like matters it
		was pretty certain to be political. The war
		between England and America was imminent.
		Franklin dreaded it. He often said to Priestley
		that &#8216;if the difference should come to an
		open rupture, it would be a war of <em>ten years</em>,
		and he should not live to see the end of it.&#8217;
		He had no doubt as to the issue. &#8216;The English
		may take all our great towns, but that will
		not give them possession of the country,&#8217; he
		used to say. Franklin&#8217;s last day in England
		was given to Priestley. The two friends spent
		much of the time in reading American newspapers,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_175" title="175"></a>especially accounts of the reception
		which the Boston Port Bill met with in America,
		and as Franklin read the addresses to the
		inhabitants of Boston, from the places in the
		neighborhood, &#8216;the tears trickled down his
		cheeks.&#8217; He wrote to Priestley from Philadelphia
		just a month after the battle of Lexington,
		briefly describing that lively episode, and mentioning
		his pleasant six weeks voyage with
		weather &#8216;so moderate that a London wherry
		might have accompanied us all the way.&#8217; At
		the close of his letter he says: &#8216;In coming
		over I made a valuable philosophical discovery,
		which I shall communicate to you when I can
		get a little time. At present I am extremely
		hurried.&#8217; In October of that year, 1775, Franklin
		wrote to Priestley about the state of affairs
		in America. His letter contains one passage
		which can hardly be hackneyed from over-quotation.
		Franklin wants Priestley to tell &#8216;our
		dear good friend,&#8217; Dr. Price, that America is
		&#8216;determined and unanimous.&#8217; &#8216;Britain at the
		expense of three millions has killed 150 yankees
		this campaign, which is 20,000 l. a head; and
		at Bunker&#8217;s Hill, she gained a mile of ground,
		all of which she lost again, by our taking post
		on Ploughed Hill. During the same time
		60,000 children have been born in America.&#8217;
		From these data Dr. Price is to calculate &#8216;the
		time and expense necessary to kill us all, and
		conquer the whole of our territory.&#8217; Then the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_176" title="176"></a>letter closes with greetings &#8216;to the club of honest
		whigs at the London Coffee House.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Seven years later Franklin&#8217;s heart was still
		faithful to the club. He writes to Priestley
		from France: &#8216;I love you as much as ever, and
		I love all the honest souls that meet at the
		London Coffee House&#8230;. I labor for peace
		with more earnestness that I may again be
		happy in your sweet society.&#8217; Franklin thought
		that war was folly. In a letter to Dr. Price,
		he speaks of the great improvements in natural
		philosophy, and then says: &#8216;There is one improvement
		in moral philosophy which I wish to
		see: the discovery of a plan that would induce
		and oblige nations to settle their disputes without
		first cutting one another&#8217;s throats.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Priestley lamented that a man of Franklin&#8217;s
		character and influence &#8216;should have been an
		unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done
		as much as he did to make others unbelievers.&#8217;
		Franklin acknowledged that he had not given
		much attention to the evidences of Christianity,
		and asked Priestley to recommend some &#8216;treatises&#8217;
		on the subject &#8216;but not of great length.&#8217;
		Priestley suggested certain chapters of Hartley&#8217;s
		<i class="title">Observations on Man</i>, and also what he
		himself had written on the subject in his <i class="title">Institutes
		of Natural and Revealed Religion</i>.
		Franklin had promised to read whatever books
		his friend might advise and give his &#8216;sentiments
		on them.&#8217; &#8216;But the American war breaking out
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_177" title="177"></a>soon after, I do not believe,&#8217; says Priestley,
		&#8216;that he ever found himself sufficiently at leisure
		for the discussion.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Priestley valued his own scientific reputation
		not a little for the weight it gave, among skeptics,
		to his arguments in support of his religious
		belief. He found that all the philosophers in
		Paris were unbelievers. They looked at him
		with mild astonishment when they learned that
		he was not of the same mind. They may even
		have thought him a phenomenon which required
		scientific investigation. &#8216;As I chose on
		all occasions to appear as a Christian, I was
		told by some of them that I was the only person
		they had ever met with, of whose understanding
		they had any opinion, who professed
		to believe Christianity.&#8217; Priestley began to
		question them as to what they supposed Christianity
		was, and with the usual result,&#8212;they
		were not posted on the subject.</p>

		<p>In 1780 Priestley went to Birmingham. In
		the summer of 1791 occurred that remarkable
		riot, perhaps the most dramatic event in the
		philosopher&#8217;s not unpicturesque career. This
		storm had long been gathering, and when it
		broke, the principal victim of its anger was, I
		verily believe, more astonished than frightened.
		The Dissenters were making unusual efforts to
		have some of their civil disabilities removed.
		Feeling against them was especially bitter. In
		Birmingham this hostility was intensified by
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_178" title="178"></a>the public discourses of Mr. Madan, &#8216;the most
		respectable clergyman of the town,&#8217; says Priestley.
		He published &#8216;a very inflammatory sermon &#8230; inveighing
		against the Dissenters in
		general, and myself in particular.&#8217; Priestley
		made a defense under the title of <i class="title">Familiar
		Letters to the Inhabitants of Birmingham</i>.
		This produced a &#8216;reply&#8217; from Madan, and
		&#8216;other letters&#8217; from his opponent. Being a
		conspicuous representative of that body which
		was most &#8216;obnoxious to the court&#8217; it is not surprising
		that Priestley should have been singled
		out for unwelcome honors. The feeling of
		intolerance was unusually strong. It was said&#8212;I
		don&#8217;t know how truly&#8212;that at a confirmation
		in Birmingham tracts were distributed
		against Socinianism in general and Priestley in
		particular. Very reputable men thought they
		did God service in inflaming the minds of the
		rabble against this liberal-minded gentleman.
		Priestley&#8217;s account of the riot in the Memoir
		is singularly temperate. It might even be
		called tame. He was quite incapable of posing,
		or of playing martyr to an audience of which
		a goodly part was sympathetic and ready to
		believe his sufferings as great as he chose to
		make them appear. One could forgive a slight
		outburst of indignation had the doctor chosen
		so to relieve himself. &#8216;On occasion of the
		celebration of the anniversary of the French
		revolution, on July 14, 1791, by several of my
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_179" title="179"></a>friends, but with which I had little to do, a mob,
		encouraged by some persons in power, first
		burned the meeting-house in which I preached,
		then another meeting-house in the town, and
		then my dwelling-house, demolishing my library,
		apparatus, and as far as they could everything
		belonging to me.&#8230; Being in some personal
		danger on this occasion I went to London.&#8217;</p>

		<p>A much livelier account from Priestley&#8217;s
		own hand and written the next day after the
		riot is found in a letter to Theophilus Lindsay.
		&#8216;The company were hardly gone from the inn
		before a drunken mob rushed into the house
		and broke all the windows. They then set fire
		to our meeting-house and it is burned to the
		ground. After that they gutted, and some say
		burned the old meeting. In the mean time
		some friends came to tell me that I and my
		house were threatened, and another brought a
		chaise to convey me and my wife away. I had
		not presence of mind to take even my MSS.;
		and after we were gone the mob came and demolished
		everything, household goods, library,
		and apparatus.&#8217; The letter differs from the
		Memoir in saying that &#8216;happily no fire could
		be got.&#8217; Priestley afterwards heard that &#8216;much
		pains was taken, but without effect, to get fire
		from my large electrical machine which stood in
		the Library.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It is rather a curious fact that Priestley was
		not at the inn where the anniversary was celebrating.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_180" title="180"></a>While the company there were chanting
		the praises of liberty he was at home playing
		backgammon with his wife, a remarkably
		innocent and untreasonable occupation. Mr.
		Arthur Young visited the scene of the riot a
		few days later and had thoughts upon it. &#8216;Seeing,
		as I passed, a house in ruins, on inquiry I
		found that it was Dr. Priestley&#8217;s. I alighted
		from my horse, and walked over the ruins of
		that laboratory which I had left home with the
		expectation of reaping instruction in; of that
		laboratory, the labours of which have not only
		illuminated mankind but enlarged the sphere
		of science itself; which has carried its master&#8217;s
		fame to the remotest corner of the civilized
		world; and will now with equal celerity convey
		the infamy of its destruction to the disgrace
		of the age and the scandal of the British
		name.&#8217; It is not necessary to supplement
		Arthur Young&#8217;s burst of indignation with private
		bursts of our own. We can afford to be
		as philosophic over the matter as Priestley was.
		That feeling was hot against him even in London
		is manifest from the fact that the day after
		his arrival a hand-bill was distributed beginning
		with the words: &#8216;Dr. Priestley is a damned
		rascal, an enemy both to the religious and political
		constitution of this country, a fellow of a
		treasonable mind, consequently a bad Christian.&#8217;
		The &#8216;bad Christian&#8217; thought it showed
		&#8216;no small degree of courage&#8217; in Mr. William
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_181" title="181"></a>Vaughan to receive him into his house. &#8216;But
		it showed more in Dr. Price&#8217;s congregation at
		Hackney to invite me to succeed him.&#8217; The
		invitation was not unanimous, as Priestley with
		his characteristic passion for exactness is at
		pains to tell the reader. Some of the members
		withdrew, &#8216;which was not undesirable.&#8217;</p>

		<p>People generally looked askance at him. If
		he was upon one side of the street the respectable
		part of the world made it convenient to
		pass by on the other side. He even found his
		relations with his philosophical acquaintance
		&#8216;much restricted.&#8217; &#8216;Most of the members of
		the Royal Society shunned him,&#8217; he says. This
		seems amusing and unfortunate. Apparently
		one&#8217;s qualifications as a scientist were of little
		avail if one happened to hold heterodox views
		on the Trinity, or were of opinion that more
		liberty than Englishmen then had would be
		good for them. Priestley resigned his fellowship
		in the Royal Society.</p>

		<p>One does not need even mildly to anathematize
		the instigators of that historic riot. They
		were unquestionably zealous for what they believed
		to be the truth. Moreover, as William
		Hutton observed at the time, &#8216;It&#8217;s the right of
		every Englishman to walk in darkness if he
		chooses.&#8217; The method employed defeated its
		own end. Persecution is an unsafe investment
		and at best pays a low rate of interest. No
		dignified person can afford to indulge in it.
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_182" title="182"></a>There&#8217;s the danger of being held up to the
		laughter of posterity. It has happened so
		many times that the unpopular cause has become
		popular. This ought to teach zealots to
		be cautious. What would Madan have thought
		if he could have been told that within thirty
		years one of his own coadjutors in this affair
		would have publicly expressed regret for the
		share he had in it? Madan has his reward,
		three quarters of a column in the <i class="title">Dictionary of
		National Biography</i>. But to-day Priestley&#8217;s
		statue stands in a public square of Birmingham
		opposite the Council House. Thus do
		matters get themselves readjusted in this very
		interesting world.</p>

		<p>Rutt&#8217;s Life of Priestley (that remarkable illustration
		of how to make a very poor book out
		of the best materials) contains a selection of
		the addresses and letters of condolence which
		were forthcoming at this time. Some of them
		are stilted and dull, but they are actual &#8216;documents,&#8217;
		and the words in them are alive with
		the passion of that day. They make the transaction
		very real and close at hand.</p>

		<p>Priestley was comparatively at ease in his
		new home. Yet he could not entirely escape
		punishment. There were &#8216;a few personal insults
		from the lowest of the rabble.&#8217; Anxiety
		was felt lest he might again receive the attentions
		of a mob. He humorously remarked: &#8216;On
		the 14th of July, 1792, it was taken for granted
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_183" title="183"></a>by many of my neighbors that my house was
		to come down just as at Birmingham the year
		before.&#8217; The house did not come down, but
		its occupant grew ill at ease, and within another
		two years he had found a new home in the new
		nation across the sea.</p>

		<p>It is hardly exact to say that he was &#8216;driven&#8217;
		from England, as some accounts of his life have
		it. Mere personal unpopularity would not have
		sufficed for this. But at sixty-one a man
		hasn&#8217;t as much fight in him as at forty-five.
		He is not averse to quiet. Priestley&#8217;s three
		sons were going to America because their
		father thought that they could not be &#8216;placed&#8217;
		to advantage in a country so &#8216;bigoted&#8217; as their
		native land was then. &#8216;My own situation, if
		not hazardous, was become unpleasant, so that
		I thought my removal would be of more service
		to the cause of truth than my longer stay in
		England.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The sons went first and laid the foundations
		of the home in Northumberland, Pennsylvania.
		The word &#8216;Susquehanna&#8217; had a magic sound
		to Englishmen. On March 30, 1794, Priestley
		delivered his farewell discourse. April 6 he
		passed with his friends the Lindsays in Essex
		Street, and a day later went to Gravesend.
		For the details of the journey one must go to
		his correspondence.</p>

		<p>His last letters were written from Deal and
		Falmouth, April 9 and 11. The vessel was
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_184" title="184"></a>six weeks in making the passage. The weather
		was bad and the travelers experienced everything
		&#8216;but shipwreck and famine.&#8217; There was
		no lack of entertainment, for the ocean was
		fantastic and spectacular. Not alone were
		there the usual exhibitions of flying-fish, whales,
		porpoises, and sharks, but also &#8216;mountains of
		ice larger than the captain had ever seen before,&#8217;&#8212;for
		thus early had transatlantic captains
		learned the art of pronouncing upon the exceptional
		character of a particular voyage for the
		benefit of the traveler who is making that voyage.
		They saw water-spouts, &#8216;four at one
		time.&#8217; The billows were &#8216;mountain-high, and
		at night appeared to be all on fire.&#8217; They had
		infinite leisure, and scarcely knew how to use
		it. Mrs. Priestley wrote &#8216;thirty-two large
		pages of paper.&#8217; The doctor read &#8216;the whole
		of the Greek Testament and the Hebrew Bible
		as far as the first book of Samuel.&#8217; He also
		read through Hartley&#8217;s second volume, and
		&#8216;for amusement several books of voyages and
		Ovid&#8217;s Metamorphoses.&#8217; &#8216;If I had [had] a
		Virgil I should have read him through, too. I
		read a great deal of Buchanan&#8217;s poems, and
		some of Petrarch&#8217;s <i lang="la">de remediis</i>, and Erasmus&#8217;s
		Dialogues; also Peter Pindar&#8217;s poems, &#8230;
		which pleased me much more than I expected.
		He is Paine in verse.&#8217;</p>

		<p>On June 1 the ship reached Sandy Hook.
		Three days later Dr. and Mrs. Priestley &#8216;landed
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_185" title="185"></a>at the Battery in as private a manner as possible,
		and went immediately to Mrs. Loring&#8217;s
		lodging-house close by.&#8217; The next morning
		the principal inhabitants of New York came to
		pay their respects and congratulations; among
		others Governor Clinton, Dr. Prevoost, bishop
		of New York; Mr. Osgood, late envoy to Great
		Britain; the heads of the college; most of the
		principal merchants, and many others; for an
		account of which amenities one must read
		Henry Wansey&#8217;s <i class="title">Excursion to the United States
		in the Summer of 1794</i>, published by Salisbury
		in 1796, a most amusing and delectable volume.</p>

		<p>Priestley missed seeing Vice-president John
		Adams by one day. Adams had sailed for Boston
		on the third. But he left word that Boston
		was &#8216;better calculated&#8217; for Priestley than any
		other part of America, and that &#8216;he would find
		himself very well received if he should be inclined
		to settle there.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Mrs. Priestley in a letter home says: &#8216;Dr. P.
		is wonderfully pleased with everything, and
		indeed I think he has great reason from the
		attentions paid him.&#8217; The good people became
		almost frivolous with their dinner-parties, receptions,
		calls, and so forth. Then there were
		the usual addresses from the various organizations,&#8212;one
		from the Tammany Society, who
		described themselves as &#8216;a numerous body of
		freemen, who associate to cultivate among
		them the love of liberty, and the enjoyment of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_186" title="186"></a>the happy republican government under which
		they live.&#8217; There was an address from the
		&#8216;Democratic Society,&#8217; one from the &#8216;Associated
		Teachers in the City of New York,&#8217; one from
		the &#8216;Republican Natives of Great Britain and
		Ireland,&#8217; one from the &#8216;Medical Society.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The pleasure was not unmixed. Dr. Priestley
		the theologian had a less cordial reception
		than Dr. Priestley the philosopher and martyr.
		The orthodox were considerably disturbed by
		his coming. &#8216;Nobody asks me to preach, and
		I hear there is much jealousy and dread of me.&#8217;
		In Philadelphia at a Baptist meeting the minister
		bade his people beware, for &#8216;a Priestley had
		entered the land.&#8217; But the heretic was very
		patient and earnest to do what he might for
		the cause of &#8216;rational&#8217; Christianity. The widespread
		infidelity distressed him. He mentioned
		it as a thing to be wondered at that in America
		the lawyers were almost universally unbelievers.
		He lost no time in getting to work. On
		August 27, when he had been settled in Northumberland
		only a month, he wrote to a friend
		that he had just got Paine&#8217;s <i class="title">Age of Reason</i>, and
		thought to answer it. By September 14 he
		had done so. &#8216;I have transcribed for the press
		my answer to Mr. Paine, whose work is the
		weakest and most absurd as well as most arrogant
		of anything I have yet seen.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Priestley was fully conscious of the humor of
		his situation. He was trying to save the public,
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_187" title="187"></a>including lawyers, from the mentally debilitating
		effects of reading Paine&#8217;s <i class="title">Age of Reason</i>,
		while at the same time all the orthodox divines
		were warning their flocks of the danger consequent
		upon having anything to do with <em>him</em>.</p>

		<p>Honors and rumors of honors came to him.
		He was talked of for the presidency of colleges
		yet to be founded, and was invited to professorships
		in colleges that actually were. He went
		occasionally to Philadelphia, a frightful journey
		from Northumberland in those days. Through
		his influence a Unitarian society was established.
		He gave public discourses, and there
		was considerable curiosity to see and hear so
		famous a man. &#8216;I have the use of Mr. Winchester&#8217;s
		pulpit every morning &#8230; and yesterday
		preached my first sermon.&#8217; He was told
		that &#8216;a great proportion of the members of
		Congress were present,&#8217; and we know that
		&#8216;Mr. Vice-President Adams was a regular attendant.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In company with his friend Mr. Russell,
		Priestley went to take tea with President Washington.
		They stayed two hours &#8216;as in any private
		family,&#8217; and at leavetaking were invited
		&#8216;to come at any time without ceremony.&#8217;</p>

		<p>About a year later Priestley saw again Washington,
		who had finished his second term of
		office. &#8216;I went to take leave of the late president.
		He seemed not to be in very good spirits.
		He invited me to Mt. Vernon, and said he
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_188" title="188"></a>thought he should hardly go from home twenty
		miles as long as he lived.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Priestley was not to have the full measure of
		the rest which he coveted. He had left England
		to escape persecution, and persecution followed
		him. Cobbett, who had assailed him in
		a scurrilous pamphlet at the time of his emigration,
		continued his attacks. Priestley was
		objectionable because he was a friend of France.
		Moreover he had opinions about things, some
		of which he freely expressed,&#8212;a habit he had
		contracted so early in life as to render it hopeless
		that he should ever break himself of it.
		Cobbett&#8217;s virulence was so great as to excite
		the astonishment of Mr. Adams, who said to
		Priestley, &#8216;I wonder why the man abuses you;&#8217;
		when a hint from Adams, Priestley thought,
		would have prevented it all. But it was not
		easy to control William Cobbett. Adams may
		have thought that Cobbett was a being created
		for the express purpose of being let alone.
		There are such beings. Every one knows, or
		can guess, to what sort of animal Churton Collins
		compared Dean Swift, when the Dean was
		in certain moods. William Cobbett, too, had his
		moods.</p>

		<p>Yet it is impossible to read Priestley&#8217;s letters
		between 1798 and 1801 without indignation
		against those who preyed upon his peace of
		mind. He writes to Lindsay: &#8216;It is nothing
		but a firm faith in a good Providence that is
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_189" title="189"></a>my support at present: but it is an effectual
		one.&#8217; His &#8216;never failing resource&#8217; was the
		&#8216;daily study of the Scriptures.&#8217; In moments
		of depression he loved to read the introduction
		to Hartley&#8217;s second volume, those noble passages
		beginning: &#8216;Whatever be our doubts,
		fears, or anxieties, whether selfish or social,
		whether for time or eternity, our only hope
		and refuge must be in the infinite power, knowledge
		and goodness of God.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Priestley was indeed a remarkable man. His
		services to science were very great. He laid
		the foundations of notable structures which,
		however, other men were to rear. He might
		have been a greater man had he been less versatile.
		And yet his versatility was one source
		of his greatness. He clung to old-fashioned
		notions, defending the doctrine of &#8216;philogiston&#8217;
		after it had been abandoned by nearly every
		other chemist of repute. For this he has been
		ridiculed. But he was not ridiculous, he was
		singularly open-minded. He knew that his
		reputation as a philosopher was under a cloud.
		&#8216;Though all the world is at present against me,
		I see no reason to despair of the old system;
		and yet, <em>if I should see reason to change my
		opinion, I think I should rather feel a pride in
		making the most public acknowledgment of it</em>.&#8217;
		These are words which Professor Huxley might
		well have quoted in his beautiful address on
		Priestley delivered at Birmingham, for they are
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_190" title="190"></a>the perfect expression and symbol of the fair-minded
		man.</p>

		<p>He was as modest as he was fair-minded.
		When it was proposed that he should accompany
		Captain Cook&#8217;s expedition to the South
		Seas, and the arrangements were really completed,
		he was objected to because of his political
		and religious opinions. Dr. Reinhold
		Foster was appointed in his stead. He was
		a person &#8216;far better qualified,&#8217; said Priestley.
		Again when he was invited to take the chair of
		Chemistry at Philadelphia he refused. This for
		several reasons, the chief of which was that he
		did not believe himself fitted for it. One would
		naturally suppose that the inventor of soda-water
		and the discoverer of oxygen would have
		been able to give lectures to young men on
		chemistry. But Priestley believed that he
		&#8216;could not have acquitted himself in it to proper
		advantage.&#8217; &#8216;Though I have made discoveries
		in some branches of chemistry, I never gave
		much attention to the common routine of it,
		and know but little of the common processes.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Priestley still awaits a biographer. The two
		thick volumes compiled by Rutt more than
		sixty-three years ago have not been reprinted,
		nor are they likely to be. But a life so precious
		in its lessons should be recorded in just terms.
		It would be an inspiring book, and its title
		might well be &#8216;The Story of a Man of Character.&#8217;
		Not the least of its virtues would consist
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_191" title="191"></a>in ample recognition of Joseph Priestley&#8217;s
		unwavering confidence that all things were
		ordered for the best; and then of his piety,
		which prompted him to say, as he looked back
		upon his life: &#8216;I am thankful to that good Providence
		which always took more care of me
		than ever I took of myself.&#8217;</p>
	</div>
	<div id="waistcoat" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_192" title="192"></a>CONCERNING A RED WAISTCOAT</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">Hero-worship</span> is appropriate only to youth.
		With age one becomes cynical, or indifferent,
		or perhaps too busy. Either the sense of the
		marvelous is dulled, or one&#8217;s boys are just
		entering college and life is agreeably practical.
		Marriage and family cares are good if only for
		the reason that they keep a man from getting
		bored. But they also stifle his yearnings after
		the ideal. They make hero-worship appear
		foolish. How can a man go mooning about
		when he has just had a good cup of coffee and
		a snatch of what purports to be the news,
		while an attractive and well-dressed woman sits
		opposite him at breakfast-table, and by her
		mere presence, to say nothing of her wit, compels
		him to be respectable and to carry a level
		head? The father of a family and husband of
		a federated club woman has no business with
		hero-worship. Let him leave such folly to
		beardless youth.</p>

		<p>But if a man has never outgrown the boy
		that was in him, or has never married, then
		may he do this thing. He will be happy himself,
		and others will be happy as they consider
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_193" title="193"></a>him. Indeed, there is something altogether
		charming about the personality of him who
		proves faithful to his early loves in literature
		and art; who continues a graceful hero-worship
		through all the caprices of literary fortune;
		and who, even though his idol may have been
		dethroned, sets up a private shrine at which he
		pays his devotions, unmindful of the crowd
		which hurries by on its way to do homage to
		strange gods.</p>

		<p>Some men are born to be hero-worshipers.
		Théophile Gautier is an example. If one did
		not love Gautier for his wit and his good-nature,
		one would certainly love him because
		he dared to be sentimental. He displayed an
		almost comic excess of emotion at his first
		meeting with Victor Hugo. Gautier smiles as
		he tells the story; but he tells it exactly, not
		being afraid of ridicule. He went to call upon
		Hugo with his friends Gérard de Nerval and
		Pétrus Borel. Twice he mounted the staircase
		leading to the poet&#8217;s door. His feet dragged
		as if they had been shod with lead instead of
		leather. His heart throbbed; cold sweat
		moistened his brow. As he was on the point
		of ringing the bell, an idiotic terror seized him,
		and he fled down the stairs, four steps at a
		time, Gérard and Pétrus after him, shouting
		with laughter. But the third attempt was successful.
		Gautier saw Victor Hugo&#8212;and
		lived. The author of <i class="title">Odes et Ballades</i> was
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_194" title="194"></a>just twenty-eight years old. Youth worshiped
		youth in those great days.</p>

		<p>Gautier said little during that visit, but he
		stared at the poet with all his might. He
		explained afterwards that one may look at gods,
		kings, pretty women, and great poets rather
		more scrutinizingly than at other persons, and
		this too without annoying them. &#8216;We gazed
		at Hugo with admiring intensity, but he did
		not appear to be inconvenienced.&#8217;</p>

		<p>What brings Gautier especially to mind is
		the appearance within a few weeks of an amusing
		little volume entitled <i class="title">Le Romantisme et
		l&#8217;éditeur Renduel</i>. Its chief value consists, no
		doubt, in what the author, M. Adolphe Jullien,
		has to say about Renduel. That noted publisher
		must have been a man of unusual gifts
		and unusual fortune. He was a fortunate man
		because he had the luck to publish some of the
		best works of Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, Théophile
		Gautier, Alfred de Musset, Gérard de
		Nerval, Charles Nodier, and Paul Lacroix; and
		he was a gifted man because he was able successfully
		to manage his troop of geniuses,
		neither quarreling with them himself nor allowing
		them to quarrel overmuch with one another.
		Renduel&#8217;s portrait faces the title-page of the
		volume, and there are two portraits of him
		besides. There are fac-similes of agreements
		between the great publisher and his geniuses.
		There is a famous caricature of Victor Hugo
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_195" title="195"></a>with a brow truly monumental. There is a caricature
		of Alfred de Musset with a figure like
		a Regency dandy,&#8212;a figure which could have
		been acquired only by much patience and unremitted
		tight-lacing; also one of Balzac, which
		shows that that great novelist&#8217;s waist-line had
		long since disappeared, and that he had long
		since ceased to care. What was a figure to
		him in comparison with the flesh-pots of Paris!</p>

		<p>One of the best of these pictorial satires is
		Roubaud&#8217;s sketch of Gautier. It has a teasing
		quality, it is diabolically fascinating. It shows
		how great an art caricature is in the hands of a
		master.</p>

		<p>But the highest virtue of a good new book
		is that it usually sends the reader back to a
		good old book. One can hardly spend much
		time upon Renduel; he will remember that
		Gautier has described that period when hero-worship
		was in the air, when the sap of a new
		life circulated everywhere, and when he himself
		was one of many loyal and enthusiastic
		youths who bowed the head at mention of Victor
		Hugo&#8217;s name. The reader will remember,
		too, that Gautier was conspicuous in that band
		of Romanticists who helped to make <i class="title">Hernani</i>
		a success the night of its first presentation.
		Gautier believed that to be the great event of
		his life. He loved to talk about it, dream
		about it, write of it.</p>

		<p>There was a world of good fellowship among
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_196" title="196"></a>the young artists, sculptors, and poets of that
		day. They took real pleasure in shouting Hosanna
		to Victor Hugo and to one another.
		Even Zola, the Unsentimental, speaks of <i lang="fr">ma
		tristesse</i> as he reviews that delightful past. He
		cannot remember it, to be sure, but he has
		read about it. He thinks ill of the present as
		he compares the present with &#8216;those dead
		years.&#8217; Writers then belonged to a sort of
		heroic brotherhood. They went out like soldiers
		to conquer their literary liberties. They
		were kings of the Paris streets. &#8216;But we,&#8217;
		says Zola in a pensive strain, &#8216;we live like
		wolves each in his hole.&#8217; I do not know how
		true a description this is of modern French literary
		society, but it is not difficult to make
		one&#8217;s self think that those other days were the
		days of magnificent friendships between young
		men of genius. It certainly was a more brilliant
		time than ours. It was flamboyant, to
		use one of Gautier&#8217;s favorite words.</p>

		<p>Youth was responsible for much of the enthusiasm
		which obtained among the champions
		of artistic liberty. These young men who did
		honor to the name of Hugo were actually
		young. They rejoiced in their youth. They
		flaunted it, so to speak, in the faces of those
		who were without it. Gautier says that young
		men of that day differed in one respect from
		young men of this day; modern young men
		are generally in the neighborhood of fifty years
		of age.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_197" title="197"></a>Gautier has described his friends and comrades
		most felicitously. All were boys, and all
		were clever. They were poor and they were
		happy. They swore by Scott and Shakespeare,
		and they planned great futures for themselves.</p>

		<p>Take for an example Jules Vabre, who owed
		his reputation to a certain Essay on the Inconvenience
		of Conveniences. You will search the
		libraries in vain for this treatise. The author
		did not finish it. He did not even commence
		it,&#8212;only talked about it. Jules Vabre had a
		passion for Shakespeare, and wanted to translate
		him. He thought of Shakespeare by day
		and dreamed of Shakespeare by night. He
		stopped people in the street to ask them if they
		had read Shakespeare.</p>

		<p>He had a curious theory concerning language.
		Jules Vabre would not have said, As a
		man thinks so is he, but, As a man drinks so is
		he. According to Gautier&#8217;s statement, Vabre
		maintained the paradox that the Latin languages
		needed to be &#8216;watered&#8217; (<i lang="fr">arroser</i>) with
		wine, and the Anglo-Saxon languages with
		beer. Vabre found that he made extraordinary
		progress in English upon stout and extra stout.
		He went over to England to get the very atmosphere
		of Shakespeare. There he continued
		for some time regularly &#8216;watering&#8217; his language
		with English ale, and nourishing his body with
		English beef. He would not look at a French
		newspaper, nor would he even read a letter
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_198" title="198"></a>from home. Finally he came back to Paris,
		anglicized to his very galoshes. Gautier says
		that when they met, Vabre gave him a &#8216;shake
		hand&#8217; almost energetic enough to pull the arm
		from the shoulder. He spoke with so strong
		an English accent that it was difficult to understand
		him; Vabre had almost forgotten his
		mother tongue. Gautier congratulated the exile
		upon his return, and said, &#8216;My dear Jules
		Vabre, in order to translate Shakespeare it is
		now only necessary for you to learn French.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Gautier laid the foundations of his great fame
		by wearing a red waistcoat the first night of
		<i class="title">Hernani</i>. All the young men were fantastic
		in those days, and the spirit of carnival was in
		the whole romantic movement. Gautier was
		more courageously fantastic than other young
		men. His costume was effective, and the public
		never forgot him. He says with humorous
		resignation: &#8216;If you pronounce the name of
		Théophile Gautier before a Philistine who has
		never read a line of our works, the Philistine
		knows us, and remarks with a satisfied air, &#8220;Oh
		yes, the young man with the red waistcoat and
		the long hair.&#8221; &#8230; Our poems are forgotten,
		but our red waistcoat is remembered.&#8217; Gautier
		cheerfully grants that when everything about
		him has faded into oblivion this gleam of light
		will remain, to distinguish him from literary
		contemporaries whose waistcoats were of soberer
		hue.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_199" title="199"></a>The chapter in his <i class="title">Histoire du Romantisme</i>
		in which Gautier tells how he went to the tailor
		to arrange for the most spectacular feature of
		his costume is lively and amusing. He spread
		out the magnificent piece of cherry-colored
		satin, and then unfolded his design for a &#8216;pour-point,&#8217;
		like a &#8216;Milan cuirass.&#8217; Says Gautier,
		using always his quaint editorial <em>we</em>, &#8216;It has
		been said that we know a great many words,
		but we don&#8217;t know words enough to express
		the astonishment of our tailor when we lay before
		him our plan for a waistcoat.&#8217; The man
		of shears had doubts as to his customer&#8217;s sanity.</p>

		<p>&#8216;Monsieur,&#8217; he exclaimed, &#8216;this is not the
		fashion!&#8217;</p>

		<p>&#8216;It will be the fashion when we have worn
		the waistcoat once,&#8217; was Gautier&#8217;s reply. And
		he declares that he delivered the answer with a
		self-possession worthy of a Brummel or &#8216;any
		other celebrity of dandyism.&#8217;</p>

		<p>It is no part of this paper to describe the
		innocently absurd and good-naturedly extravagant
		things which Gautier and his companions
		did, not alone the first night of <i class="title">Hernani</i>, but at
		all times and in all places. They unquestionably
		saw to it that Victor Hugo had fair play
		the evening of February 25, 1830. The occasion
		was an historic one, and they with their
		Merovingian hair, their beards, their waistcoats,
		and their enthusiasm helped to make it an unusually
		lively and picturesque occasion.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_200" title="200"></a>I have quoted a very few of the good things
		which one may read in Gautier&#8217;s <i class="title">Histoire du
		Romantisme</i>. The narrative is one of much
		sweetness and humor. It ought to be translated
		for the benefit of readers who know
		Gautier chiefly by <i class="title">Mademoiselle de Maupin</i>
		and that for reasons among which love of literature
		is perhaps the least influential.</p>

		<p>It is pleasant to find that Renduel confirms
		the popular view of Gautier&#8217;s character. M.
		Jullien says that Renduel never spoke of Gautier
		but in praise. &#8216;Quel bon garçon!&#8217; he used
		to say. &#8216;Quel brave c&oelig;ur!&#8217; M. Jullien has
		naturally no large number of new facts to give
		concerning Gautier. But there are eight or
		nine letters from Gautier to Renduel which
		will be read with pleasure, especially the one in
		which the poet says to the publisher, &#8216;Heaven
		preserve you from historical novels, and your
		eldest child from the smallpox.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Gautier must have been both generous and
		modest. No mere egoist could have been so
		faithful in his hero-worship or so unpretentious
		in his allusions to himself. One has only to
		read the most superficial accounts of French
		literature to learn how universally it is granted
		that Gautier had skillful command of that language
		to which he was born. Yet he himself
		was by no means sure that he deserved a master&#8217;s
		degree. He quotes one of Goethe&#8217;s sayings,&#8212;a
		saying in which the great German
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_201" title="201"></a>poet declares that after the practice of many
		arts there was but one art in which he could be
		said to excel, namely, the art of writing in German;
		in that he was almost a master. Then
		Gautier exclaims, &#8216;Would that <em>we</em>, after so
		many years of labor, had become almost a master
		of the art of writing in French! But such
		ambitions are not for us!&#8217;</p>

		<p>Yet they were for him; and it is a satisfaction
		to note how invariably he is accounted, by
		the artists in literature, an eminent man among
		many eminent men in whose touch language
		was plastic.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="vagabond" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_202" title="202"></a>STEVENSON: THE VAGABOND AND THE PHILOSOPHER</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">A certain</span> critic said of Stevenson that he
		was &#8216;incurably literary;&#8217; the phrase is a good
		one, being both humorous and true. There is
		comfort in the thought that such efforts as
		may have been made to keep him in the path
		of virtuous respectability failed. Rather than
		<em>do</em> anything Stevenson preferred to loaf and to
		write books. And he early learned that considerable
		loafing is necessary if one expects to
		become a writer. There is a sense in which it
		is true that only lazy people are fit for literature.
		Nothing is so fruitful as a fine gift for
		idleness. The most prolific writers have been
		people who seemed to have nothing to do.
		Every one has read that description of George
		Sand in her latter years, &#8216;an old lady who came
		out into the garden at mid-day in a broad-brimmed
		hat and sat down on a bench or wandered
		slowly about. So she remained for hours
		looking about her, musing, contemplating. She
		was gathering impressions, absorbing the universe,
		steeping herself in Nature; and at night
		she would give all this forth as a sort of emanation.&#8217;
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_203" title="203"></a>One shudders to think what the result
		might have been if instead of absorbing the
		universe George Sand had done something
		practical during those hours. But the Scotchman
		was not like George Sand in any particular
		that I know of save in his perfect willingness
		to bask in the sunshine and steep himself in
		Nature. His books did not &#8216;emanate.&#8217; The
		one way in which he certainly did not produce
		literature was by improvisation. George Sand
		never revised her work; it might almost be said
		that Robert Louis Stevenson never did anything
		else.</p>

		<p>Of his method we know this much. He
		himself has said that when he went for a walk
		he usually carried two books in his pocket, one
		a book to read, the other a note-book in which
		to put down the ideas that came to him. This
		remark has undoubtedly been seized upon and
		treasured in the memory as embodying a secret
		of his success. Trusting young souls have
		begun to walk about with note-books: only to
		learn that the note-book was a detail, not an
		essential, in the process.</p>

		<p>He who writes while he walks cannot write
		very much, but he may, if he chooses, write
		very well. He may turn over the rubbish of
		his vocabulary until he finds some exquisite and
		perfect word with which to bring out his meaning.
		This word need not be unusual; and if it
		is &#8216;exquisite&#8217; then exquisite only in the sense
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_204" title="204"></a>of being fitted with rare exactness to the idea.
		Stevenson wrote so well in part because he
		wrote so deliberately. He knew the vulgarity
		of haste, especially in the making of literature.
		He knew that finish counted for much, perhaps
		for half. Has he not been reported as
		saying that it wasn&#8217;t worth a man&#8217;s while to
		attempt to be a writer unless he was quite willing
		to spend a day if the need were, on the
		turn of a single sentence? In general this
		means the sacrifice of earthly reward; it means
		that a man must work for love and let the ravens
		feed him. That scriptural source has been
		distinctly unfruitful in these latter days, and
		few authors are willing to take a prophet&#8217;s
		chances. But Stevenson was one of the few.</p>

		<p>He laid the foundations of his reputation
		with two little volumes of travel. <i class="title">An Inland
		Voyage</i> appeared in 1878; <i class="title">Travels with a
		Donkey in the Cevennes</i>, in 1879. These books
		are not dry chronicles of drier facts. They
		bear much the same relation to conventional
		accounts of travel that flowers growing in a
		garden bear to dried plants in a herbarium.
		They are the most friendly and urbane things
		in modern English literature. They have been
		likened to Sterne&#8217;s <i class="title">Sentimental Journey</i>. The
		criticism would be better if one were able to
		imagine Stevenson writing the adventure of the
		<i lang="fr">fille de chambre</i>, or could conceive of Lawrence
		Sterne writing the account of the meeting with
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_205" title="205"></a>the Plymouth Brother. &#8216;And if ever at length,
		out of our separate and sad ways, we should all
		come together into one common-house, I have
		a hope to which I cling dearly, that my mountain
		Plymouth Brother will hasten to shake
		hands with me again.&#8217; That was written
		twenty years ago and the Brother was an old
		man then. And now Stevenson is gone. How
		impossible it is not to wonder whether they
		have yet met in that &#8216;one common-house.&#8217; &#8216;He
		feared to intrude, but he would not willingly
		forego one moment of my society; and he
		seemed never weary of shaking me by the
		hand.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The <i class="title">Inland Voyage</i> contains passages hardly
		to be matched for beauty. Let him who would
		be convinced read the description of the forest
		Mormal, that forest whose breath was perfumed
		with nothing less delicate than sweet brier. &#8216;I
		wish our way had always lain among woods,&#8217;
		says Stevenson. &#8216;Trees are the most civil
		society.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Stevenson&#8217;s traveling companion was a young
		English baronet. The two adventurers paddled
		in canoes through the pleasant rivers and
		canals of Belgium and North France. They
		had plenty of rain and a variety of small misadventures;
		but they also had sunshine, fresh
		air, and experiences among the people of the
		country such as they could have got in no other
		way. They excited not a little wonder, and
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_206" title="206"></a>the common opinion was that they were doing
		the journey for a wager; there seemed to be
		no other reason why two respectable gentlemen,
		not poor, should work so hard and get so
		wet.</p>

		<p>This was conceived in a more adventurous
		vein than appears at first sight. In an unsubdued
		country one contends with beasts and
		men who are openly hostile. But when one is
		a stranger in the midst of civilization and meets
		civilization at its back door, he is astonished
		to find how little removed civilization is from
		downright savagery. Stevenson and his companion
		learned as they could not have learned
		otherwise how great deference the world pays
		to clothes. Whether your heart is all right
		turns out a matter of minor importance; but&#8212;<em>are
		your clothes all right?</em> If so, smiles, and
		good beds at respectable inns; if not, a lodging
		in a cow-shed or beneath any poor roof which
		suffices to keep off the rain. The voyagers
		had constantly to meet the accusation of being
		peddlers. They denied it and were suspected
		afresh while the denial was on their lips. The
		public mind was singularly alert and critical on
		the subject of peddlers.</p>

		<p>At La Fere, &#8216;of Cursed Memory,&#8217; they had
		a rebuff which nearly spoiled their tempers.
		They arrived in a rain. It was the finest kind
		of a night to be indoors &#8216;and hear the rain upon
		the windows.&#8217; They were told of a famous
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_207" title="207"></a>inn. When they reached the carriage entry
		&#8216;the rattle of many dishes fell upon their ears.&#8217;
		They sighted a great field of snowy table-cloth,
		the kitchen glowed like a forge. They made
		their triumphal entry, &#8216;a pair of damp rag-and-bone
		men, each with a limp India-rubber bag
		upon his arm.&#8217; Stevenson declares that he
		never had a sound view of that kitchen. It
		seemed to him a culinary paradise &#8216;crowded
		with the snowy caps of cookmen, who all turned
		round from their sauce-pans and looked at us
		with surprise.&#8217; But the landlady&#8212;a flushed,
		angry woman full of affairs&#8212;there was no
		mistaking her. They asked for beds and were
		told to find beds in the suburbs: &#8216;We are too
		busy for the like of you!&#8217; They said they
		would dine then, and were for putting down
		their luggage. The landlady made a run at
		them and stamped her foot: &#8216;Out with you&#8212;out
		of the door,&#8217; she screeched.</p>

		<p>I once heard a young Englishman who had
		been drawn into some altercation at a continental
		hotel explain a discreet movement on his
		own part by saying: &#8216;Now a French cook running
		amuck with a carving knife in his hand
		would have bean a nahsty thing to meet, you
		know.&#8217; There were no knives in this case,
		only a woman&#8217;s tongue. Stevenson says that
		he doesn&#8217;t know how it happened, &#8216;but next
		moment we were out in the rain, and I was
		cursing before the carriage entry like a disappointed
		mendicant.&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_208" title="208"></a>&#8216;It&#8217;s all very fine to talk about tramps and
		morality. Six hours of police surveillance
		(such as I have had) or one brutal rejection
		from an inn door change your views upon the
		subject, like a course of lectures. As long as
		you keep in the upper regions, with all the
		world bowing to you as you go, social arrangements
		have a very handsome air; but once get
		under the wheels and you wish society were at
		the devil. I will give most respectable men a
		fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer
		them twopence for what remains of their morality.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Stevenson declares that he could have set
		the temple of Diana on fire that night if it had
		been handy. &#8216;There was no crime complete
		enough to express my disapproval of human
		institutions.&#8217; As for the baronet, he was horrified
		to learn that he had been taken for a peddler
		again; and he registered a vow before
		Heaven never to be uncivil to a peddler. But
		before making that vow he particularized a
		complaint for every joint in the landlady&#8217;s
		body.</p>

		<p>To read <i class="title">An Inland Voyage</i> is to be impressed
		anew with the thought that some men are born
		with a taste for vagabondage. They are instinctively
		for being on the move. Like the
		author of that book they travel &#8216;not to go any
		where but to go.&#8217; If they behold a stage-coach
		or a railway train in motion they heartily wish
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_209" title="209"></a>themselves aboard. They are homesick when
		they stop at home, and are only at home when
		they are on the move. Talk to them of foreign
		lands and they are seized with unspeakable
		heart-ache and longing. Stevenson met an
		omnibus driver in a Belgian village who looked
		at him with thirsty eyes because he was able
		to travel. How that omnibus driver &#8216;longed
		to be somewhere else and see the round world
		before he died.&#8217; &#8216;Here I am,&#8217; said he. &#8216;I
		drive to the station. Well. And then I drive
		back again to the hotel. And so on every day
		and all the week round. My God, is that life?&#8217;
		Stevenson opined that this man had in him the
		making of a traveler of the right sort; he
		might have gone to Africa or to the Indies
		after Drake. &#8216;But it is an evil age for the gipsily
		inclined among men. He who can sit
		squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is who
		has the wealth and glory.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In his <i class="title">Travels with a Donkey</i> the author had
		no companionship but such as the donkey afforded;
		and to tell the truth this companionship
		was almost human at times. He learned
		to love the quaint little beast which shared his
		food and his trials. &#8216;My lady-friend&#8217; he calls
		her. Modestine was her name; &#8216;she was patient,
		elegant in form, the color of an ideal
		mouse and inimitably small.&#8217; She gave him
		trouble, and at times he felt hurt and was distant
		in manner towards her. Modestine carried
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_210" title="210"></a>the luggage. She may not have known
		that R. L. Stevenson wrote books, but she
		knew as by instinct that R. L. Stevenson had
		never driven a donkey. She wrought her will
		with him, that is, she took her own gait. &#8216;What
		that pace was there is no word mean enough to
		describe; it was something as much slower
		than a walk as a walk is slower than a run.&#8217;
		He must belabor her incessantly. It was an
		ignoble toil, and he felt ashamed of himself
		besides, for he remembered her sex. &#8216;The
		sound of my own blows sickened me. Once
		when I looked at her she had a faint resemblance
		to a lady of my acquaintance who had
		formerly loaded me with kindness; and this
		increased my horror of my cruelty.&#8217;</p>

		<p>From time to time Modestine&#8217;s load would
		topple off. The villagers were delighted with
		this exhibition and laughed appreciatively.
		&#8216;Judge if I was hot!&#8217; says Stevenson. &#8216;I remembered
		having laughed myself when I had
		seen good men struggling with adversity in the
		person of a jack-ass, and the recollection filled
		me with penitence. That was in my old light
		days before this trouble came upon me.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He had a sleeping-bag, waterproof without,
		blue sheep&#8217;s wool within, and in this portable
		house he passed his nights afield. Not always
		by choice, as witness his chapter entitled &#8216;A
		Camp in the Dark.&#8217; There are two or three
		pages in that chapter which come pretty near
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_211" title="211"></a>to perfection,&#8212;if there be such a thing as perfection
		in literature. I don&#8217;t know who could
		wish for anything better than the paragraphs
		in which Stevenson describes falling asleep in
		the tempest, and awaking next morning to see
		the &#8216;world flooded with a blue light, the mother
		of dawn.&#8217; He had been in search of an adventure
		all his life, &#8216;a pure dispassionate adventure,
		such as befell early and heroic voyagers,&#8217; and
		he thinks that he realized a fraction of his daydreams
		when that morning found him, an inland
		castaway, &#8216;as strange to his surroundings
		as the first man upon the earth.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Passages like these indicate Stevenson&#8217;s quality.
		He was no carpet-knight; he had the
		true adventurer&#8217;s blood in his veins. He and
		Drake and the Belgian omnibus-driver should
		have gone to the Indies together. Better still,
		the omnibus driver should have gone with
		Drake, and Stevenson should have gone with
		Amyas Leigh. They say that Stevenson traveled
		in search of health. Without doubt; but
		think how he <em>would</em> have traveled if he had
		had good health. And one has strange mental
		experiences alone with the stars. That came
		of sleeping in the fields &#8216;where God keeps an
		open house.&#8217; &#8216;I thought I had rediscovered
		one of those truths which are revealed to savages
		and hid from political economists.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Much as he gloried in his solitude he &#8216;became
		aware of a strange lack;&#8217; for he was
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_212" title="212"></a>human. And he gave it as his opinion that &#8216;to
		live out of doors with the woman a man loves
		is of all lives the most complete and free.&#8217; It
		may be so. Such a woman would need to be
		of heroic physical mould, and there is danger
		that she would turn out of masculine mould as
		well. Isopel Berners was of such sort. Isopel
		could handle her clenched fists like a prizefighter.
		She was magnificent in the forest, and
		never so perfectly in place as when she backed
		up George Borrow in his fight with the Flaming
		Tinman. Having been in the habit of taking
		her own part, she was able to give pertinent
		advice at a critical moment. &#8216;It&#8217;s of no use
		flipping at the Flaming Tinman with your left
		hand,&#8217; she said, &#8216;why don&#8217;t you use your right?&#8217;
		Isopel called Borrow&#8217;s right arm &#8216;Long Melford.&#8217;
		And when the Flaming Tinman got his
		knock-down blow from Borrow&#8217;s right, Isopel
		exclaimed, &#8216;Hurrah for Long Melford; there
		is nothing like Long Melford for shortness all
		the world over!&#8217;</p>

		<p>But what an embarrassing personage Miss
		Berners would have been transferred from the
		dingle to the drawing-room; nay, how impossible
		it is to think of that athletic young goddess
		as <em>Miss</em> Berners! The distinctions and titles
		of conventional society refuse to cling even to
		her name. I wonder how Stevenson would
		have liked Isopel Berners.</p>

		<p>And now his philosophy. Yet somehow
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_213" title="213"></a>&#8216;philosophy&#8217; seems a big word for so unpretentious
		a theory of life as his. Stevenson didn&#8217;t
		philosophize much; he was content to live and
		to enjoy. He was deliberate, and in general
		he would not suffer himself to be driven. He
		resembled an admirable lady of my acquaintance
		who, when urged to get something done
		by a given time, usually replied that &#8216;time was
		made for slaves.&#8217; Stevenson had the same
		feeling. He says: &#8216;Hurry is the resource of
		the faithless. When a man can trust his own
		heart and those of his friends to-morrow is as
		good as to-day. And if he die in the mean
		while, why, then, there he dies, and the question
		is solved.&#8217;</p>

		<p>You think this a poor philosophy? But there
		must be all kinds of philosophy; the people in
		the world are not run into one mould like so
		much candle-grease. And because of this, his
		doctrine of Inaction and Postponement, stern
		men and practical women have frowned upon
		Stevenson. In their opinion instead of being
		up and doing he consecrated too many hours to
		the idleness of literature. They feel towards
		him as Hawthorne fancied his ancestor the
		great witch judge would have felt towards <em>him</em>.
		Hawthorne imagines that ghostly and terrible
		ancestor looking down upon him and exclaiming
		with infinite scorn, &#8216;A writer of storybooks.
		What kind of employment is that for
		an immortal soul?&#8217;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_214" title="214"></a>To many people nothing is more hateful
		than this willingness to hold aloof and let
		things drift. That any human being should
		acquiesce with the present order of the world
		appears monstrous to these earnest souls. An
		Indian critic once called Stevenson &#8216;a faddling
		Hedonist.&#8217; Stevenson quotes the phrase with
		obvious amusement and without attempting to
		gainsay its accuracy.</p>

		<p>But if he allowed the world to take its course
		he expected the same privilege. He wished
		neither to interfere nor to be interfered with.
		And he was a most cheerful nonconformist
		withal. He says: &#8216;To know what you prefer
		instead of humbly saying amen to what the
		world tells you you ought to prefer is to have
		kept your soul alive.&#8217; Independence and optimism
		are vital parts of his unformulated creed.
		He hated cynicism and sourness. He believed
		in praise of one&#8217;s own good estate. He thought
		it was an inspiriting thing to hear a man boast,
		&#8216;so long as he boasts of what he really has.&#8217;
		If people but knew this they would boast &#8216;more
		freely and with a better grace.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Stevenson was humorously alive to the old-fashioned
		quality of his doctrine of happiness
		and content. He says in the preface to an
		<i class="title">Inland Voyage</i> that although the book &#8216;runs to
		considerably over a hundred pages, it contains
		not a single reference to the imbecility of God&#8217;s
		universe, nor so much as a single hint that I
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_215" title="215"></a>could have made a better one myself&#8212;I really
		do not know where my head can have been.&#8217;
		But while this omission will, he fears, render
		his book &#8216;philosophically unimportant&#8217; he hopes
		that &#8216;the eccentricity may please in frivolous
		circles.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Stevenson could be militant. His letter on
		Father Damien shows that. But there was
		nothing of the professional reformer about him.
		He had no hobby, and he was the artist first
		and then the philanthropist. This is right;
		it was the law of his being. Other men are
		better equipped to do the work of humanity&#8217;s
		city missionaries than was he. Let their more
		rugged health and less sensitive nerves bear
		the burden; his poet&#8217;s mission was not the less
		important.</p>

		<p>The remaining point I have to note, among
		a number which might be noted, is his firm
		grasp of this idea: that whether he is his
		brother&#8217;s keeper or not he is at all events his
		brother&#8217;s brother. It is &#8216;philosophy&#8217; of a very
		good sort to have mastered this conception
		and to have made the life square with the
		theory. This doctrine is fashionable just now,
		and thick books have been written on the subject,
		filled with wise terms and arguments. I
		don&#8217;t know whether Stevenson bothered his
		head with these matters from a scientific point
		of view or not, but there are many illustrations
		of his interest. Was it this that made him so
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_216" title="216"></a>gentle in his unaffected manly way? He certainly
		understood how difficult it is for the well-to-do
		member of society to get any idea not
		wholly distorted of the feelings and motives of
		the lower classes. He believed that certain
		virtues resided more conspicuously among the
		poor than among the rich. He declared that
		the poor were more charitably disposed than
		their superiors in wealth. &#8216;A workman or a
		peddler cannot shutter himself off from his less
		comfortable neighbors. If he treats himself to
		a luxury he must do it in the face of a dozen
		who cannot. And what should more directly
		lead to charitable thoughts?&#8217; But with the
		advent of prosperity a man becomes incapable
		of understanding how the less fortunate live.
		Stevenson likens that happy individual to a
		man going up in a balloon. &#8216;He presently
		passes through a zone of clouds and after that
		merely earthly things are hidden from his gaze.
		He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in
		admirable order and positively as good as new.
		He finds himself surrounded in the most touching
		manner by the attentions of Providence,
		and compares himself involuntarily with the
		lilies and the sky-larks. He does not precisely
		sing, of course; but then he looks so unassuming
		in his open landau! If all the world dined
		at one table this philosophy would meet with
		some rude knocks.&#8217;</p>

		<p>In the three years since Stevenson&#8217;s death
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_217" title="217"></a>many additions have been made to the body of
		literature by him and about him. There are
		letters, finished and unfinished novels, and recollections
		by the heaping handful. Critics
		are considerably exercised over the question
		whether any, or all, or only two or three of his
		books are to last. The matter has, I believe,
		been definitely decided so that posterity, whatever
		other responsibilities it has, will at least
		not have that one; and anything that we can
		do to relieve the future of its burdens is altruism
		worthy the name.</p>

		<p>Stevenson was one of the best tempered
		men that ever lived. He never prated about
		goodness, but was unaffectedly good and sunny-hearted
		as long as he lived. Of how many
		men can it be said, as it <em>can</em> be said of him,
		that he was sick all his days and never uttered
		a whimper? What rare health of mind was
		this which went with such poor health of body!
		I&#8217;ve known men to complain more over toothache
		than Stevenson thought it worth while to
		do with death staring him in the face. He did
		not, like Will o&#8217; the Mill, live until the snow
		began to thicken on his head. He never knew
		that which we call middle age.</p>

		<p>He worked harder than a man in his condition
		should have done. At times he felt the
		need to write for money; and this was hostile
		to his theory of literature. He wrote to his
		friend Colvin: &#8216;I sometimes sit and yearn for
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_218" title="218"></a>anything in the nature of an income that would
		come in&#8212;mine has all got to be gone and
		fished for with the immortal mind of man.
		What I want is an income that really comes in
		of itself while all you have to do is just to
		blossom and exist and sit on chairs.&#8217;</p>

		<p>I wish he might have had it; I can think of
		no other man whose indolence would have been
		so profitable to the world.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="st_ives" class="essay">
		<h2 class="essay_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page_219" title="219"></a>STEVENSON&#8217;S ST. IVES</h2>
		<p class="return_toc"><a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a></p>
		<p><span class="first_word">With</span> the publication of <i class="title">St. Ives</i> the catalogue
		of Stevenson&#8217;s important writings has
		closed. In truth it closed several years ago,&#8212;in
		1891, to be exact,&#8212;when <i class="title">Catriona</i> was published.
		Nothing which has appeared since that
		date can modify to any great extent the best
		critical estimate of his novels. Neither <i class="title">Weir
		of Hermiston</i> nor <i class="title">St. Ives</i> affects the matter.
		You may throw them into the scales with his
		other works, and then you may take them out;
		beyond a mere trembling the balance is not
		disturbed. But suppose you were to take out
		<i class="title">Kidnapped</i>, or <i class="title">Treasure Island</i>, or <i class="title">The Master
		of Ballantrae</i>, the loss would be felt at once
		and seriously. And unless he has left behind
		him, hidden away among his loose papers, some
		rare and perfect sketch, some letter to posterity
		which shall be to his reputation what Neil Paraday&#8217;s
		lost novel in <i class="title">The Death of the Lion</i>
		might have been to his, <i class="title">St. Ives</i> may be regarded
		as the epilogue.</p>

		<p>Stevenson&#8217;s death and the publication of this
		last effort of his fine genius may tend to draw
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_220" title="220"></a>away a measure of public interest from that
		type of novel which he, his imitators, and his
		rivals have so abundantly produced. This may
		be the close of a &#8216;period&#8217; such as we read about
		in histories of literature.</p>

		<p>If the truth be told, has not our generation
		had enough of duels, hair-breadth escapes, post-chaises,
		and highwaymen, mysterious strangers
		muffled in great-coats, and pistols which always
		miss fire when they shouldn&#8217;t? To say positively
		that we <em>have</em> done with all this might
		appear extravagant in the light of the popularity
		of certain modern heroic novels. But it
		might not be too radical a view if one were to
		maintain that these books are the expression of
		something temporary and accidental, that they
		sustain a chronological relation to modern literature
		rather than an essential one.</p>

		<p>Matthew Arnold spoke of Heine as a sardonic
		smile on the face of the Zeitgeist. Let
		us say that these modern stories in the heroic
		vein are a mere heightening of color on the
		cheeks of that interesting young lady, the
		Genius of the modern novel&#8212;a heightening of
		color <em>on</em> the cheeks, for the color comes from
		without and not from within. It is a matter of
		no moment. Artificial red does no harm for
		once, and looks well under gaslight.</p>

		<p>These novels of adventure which we buy so
		cheerfully, read with such pleasure, and make
		such a good-natured fuss over, are for the
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_221" title="221"></a>greater part an expression of something altogether
		foreign to the deeper spirit of modern
		fiction. Surely the true modern novel is the
		one which reflects the life of to-day. And life
		to-day is easy, familiar, rich in material comforts,
		and on the whole without painfully striking
		contrasts and thrilling episodes. People
		have enough to eat, reasonable liberty, and a
		degree of patience with one another which suggests
		indifference. A man may shout aloud in
		the market-place the most revolutionary opinions,
		and hardly be taken to task for it; and
		then on the other hand we have got our rulers
		pretty well under control. This paragraph,
		however, is not the peroration of a eulogy upon
		&#8216;our unrivaled happiness.&#8217; It attempts merely
		to lay stress on such facts as these, that it is
		not now possible to hang a clergyman of the
		Church of England for forgery, as was done in
		1777; that a man may not be deprived of the
		custody of his own children because he holds
		heterodox religious opinions, as happened in
		1816. There is widespread toleration; and
		civilization in the sense in which Ruskin uses
		the word has much increased. Now it is possible
		for a Jew to become Prime Minister, and
		for a Roman Catholic to become England&#8217;s
		Poet Laureate.</p>

		<p>If, then, life is familiar, comfortable, unrestrained,
		and easy, as it certainly seems to be,
		how are we to account for the rise of this
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_222" title="222"></a>semihistoric, heroic literature? It is almost
		grotesque, the contrast between the books
		themselves and the manner in which they are
		produced. One may picture the incongruous
		elements of the situation,&#8212;a young society
		man going up to his suite in a handsome modern
		apartment house, and dictating romance to
		a type-writer. In the evening he dines at his
		club, and the day after the happy launching of
		his novel he is interviewed by the representative
		of a newspaper syndicate, to whom he explains
		his literary method, while the interviewer
		makes a note of his dress and a comment on
		the decoration of his mantelpiece.</p>

		<p>Surely romance written in this way&#8212;and
		we have not grossly exaggerated the way&#8212;bears
		no relation to modern literature other
		than a chronological one. <i class="title">The Prisoner of
		Zenda</i> and <i class="title">A Gentleman of France</i>, to mention
		two happy and pleasing examples of this type
		of novel, are not modern in the sense that they
		express any deep feeling or any vital characteristic
		of to-day. They are not instinct with the
		spirit of the times. One might say that these
		stories represent the novel in its theatrical
		mood. It is the novel masquerading. Just
		as a respectable bookkeeper likes to go into
		private theatricals, wear a wig with curls, a
		slouch hat with ostrich feathers, a sword and
		ruffles, and play a part to tear a cat in, so does
		the novel like to do the same. The day after
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_223" title="223"></a>the performance the whole artificial equipment
		drops away and disappears. The bookkeeper
		becomes a bookkeeper once more and a natural
		man. The hour before the footlights has done
		him no harm. True, he forgot his lines at one
		place, but what is a prompter for if not to act
		in such an emergency? Now that it is over
		the affair may be pronounced a success,&#8212;particularly
		in the light of the gratifying statement
		that a clear profit has been realized towards
		paying for the new organ.</p>

		<p>This is a not unfair comparison of the part
		played by these books in modern fiction. The
		public likes them, buys them, reads them; and
		there is no reason why the public should not.
		In proportion to the demand for color, action,
		posturing, and excessive gesticulation, these
		books have a financial success; in proportion
		to the conscientiousness of the artist who creates
		them they have a literary vitality. But
		they bear to the actual modern novel a relation
		not unlike that which <i class="title">The Castle of Otranto</i>
		bears to <i class="title">Tom Jones</i>,&#8212;making allowance of
		course for the chronological discrepancy.</p>

		<p>From one point the heroic novel is a protest
		against the commonplace and stupid elements
		of modern life. According to Mr. Frederic
		Harrison there is no romance left in us. Life
		is stale and flat; yet even Mr. Harrison would
		hardly go to the length of declaring that it is
		also commercially unprofitable. The artificial
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_224" title="224"></a>apartment-house romance is one expression of
		the revolt against the duller elements in our
		civilization; and as has often been pointed out,
		the novel of psychological horrors is another
		expression.</p>

		<p>There are a few men, however, whose work
		is not accounted for by saying that they love
		theatrical pomp and glitter for its own sake, or
		that they write fiction as a protest against the
		times in which they live. Stevenson was of
		this number. He was an adventurer by inheritance
		and by practice. He came of a race of
		adventurers, adventurers who built lighthouses
		and fought with that bold outlaw, the Sea. He
		himself honestly loved, and in a measure lived,
		a wild life. There is no truer touch of nature
		than in the scene where St. Ives tells the boy
		Rowley that he is a hunted fugitive with a price
		set upon his head, and then enjoys the tragic
		astonishment depicted in the lad&#8217;s face.</p>

		<p>Rowley &#8216;had a high sense of romance and a
		secret cultus for all soldiers and criminals.
		His traveling library consisted of a chap-book
		life of Wallace, and some sixpenny parts of the
		Old Bailey Sessions Papers; &#8230; and the
		choice depicts his character to a hair. You
		can imagine how his new prospects brightened
		on a boy of this disposition. To be the servant
		and companion of a fugitive, a soldier, and a
		murderer rolled in one&#8212;to live by stratagems,
		disguises, and false names, in an atmosphere of
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_225" title="225"></a>midnight and mystery so thick that you could
		cut it with a knife&#8212;was really, I believe, more
		dear to him than his meals, though he was a
		great trencher-man and something of a glutton
		besides. For myself, as the peg by which all
		this romantic business hung, I was simply idolized
		from that moment; and he would rather
		have sacrificed his hand than surrendered the
		privilege of serving me.&#8217;</p>

		<p>One can believe that Stevenson was a boy
		with tastes and ambitions like Rowley. But
		for that matter Rowley stands for universal
		boy-nature.</p>

		<p>Criticism of <i class="title">St. Ives</i> becomes both easy and
		difficult by reason of the fact that we know so
		much about the book from the author&#8217;s point
		of view. He wrote it in trying circumstances,
		and never completed it; the last six chapters
		are from the pen of a practiced story-teller, who
		follows the author&#8217;s known scheme of events.
		Stevenson was almost too severe in his comment
		upon his book. He says of <i class="title">St. Ives</i>:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;It is a mere tissue of adventures; the central
		figure not very well or very sharply drawn;
		no philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the
		happenings very good in themselves, I believe,
		but none of them <i lang="de">bildende</i>, none of them constructive,
		except in so far perhaps as they make
		up a kind of sham picture of the time, all in
		italics, and all out of drawing. Here and there,
		I think, it is well written; and here and there
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_226" title="226"></a>it&#8217;s not&#8230;. If it has a merit to it, I should
		say it was a sort of deliberation and swing to
		the style, which seems to me to suit the mail-coaches
		and post-chaises with which it sounds
		all through. &#8217;Tis my most prosaic book.&#8217;</p>

		<p>One must remember that this is epistolary
		self-criticism, and that it is hardly to be looked
		upon in the nature of an &#8216;advance notice.&#8217; Still
		more confidential and epistolary is the humorous
		and reckless affirmation that <i class="title">St. Ives</i> is &#8216;a
		rudderless hulk.&#8217; &#8216;It&#8217;s a pagoda,&#8217; says Stevenson
		in a letter dated September, 1894, &#8216;and you
		can just feel&#8212;or I can feel&#8212;that it might
		have been a pleasant story if it had only been
		blessed at baptism.&#8217;</p>

		<p>He had to rewrite portions of it in consequence
		of having received what Dr. Johnson
		would have called &#8216;a large accession of new
		ideas.&#8217; The ideas were historical. The first
		five chapters describe the experiences of French
		prisoners of war in Edinburgh Castle. St.
		Ives was the only &#8216;gentleman&#8217; among them,
		the only man with ancestors and a right to the
		&#8216;particle.&#8217; He suffered less from ill treatment
		than from the sense of being made ridiculous.
		The prisoners were dressed in uniform,&#8212;&#8216;jacket,
		waistcoat, and trousers of a sulphur or
		mustard yellow, and a shirt of blue-and-white
		striped cotton.&#8217; St. Ives thought that &#8216;some
		malignant genius had found his masterpiece of
		irony in that dress.&#8217; So much is made of this
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_227" title="227"></a>point that one reads with unusual interest the
		letter in which Stevenson bewails his &#8216;miserable
		luck&#8217; with <i class="title">St. Ives</i>; for he was halfway
		through it when a book, which he had ordered
		six months before, arrived, upsetting all his
		previous notions of how the prisoners were
		cared for. Now he must change the thing
		from top to bottom. &#8216;How could I have
		dreamed the French prisoners were watched
		over like a female charity school, kept in a grotesque
		livery, and shaved twice a week?&#8217; All
		his points had been made on the idea that they
		were &#8216;unshaved and clothed anyhow.&#8217; He
		welcomes the new matter, however, in spite of
		the labor it entails. And it is easy to see how
		he has enriched the earlier chapters by accentuating
		St. Ives&#8217;s disgust and mortification over
		his hideous dress and stubby chin.</p>

		<p>The book has a light-hearted note, as a romance
		of the road should have. The events
		take place in 1813; they might have occurred
		fifty or seventy-five years earlier. For the
		book lacks that convincing something which
		fastens a story immovably within certain chronological
		limits. It is the effect which Thomas
		Hardy has so wonderfully produced in that little
		tale describing Napoleon&#8217;s night-time visit
		to the coast of England; the effect which Stevenson
		himself was equally happy in making
		when he wrote the piece called <i class="title">A Lodging for
		a Night</i>.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_228" title="228"></a><i class="title">St. Ives</i> has plenty of good romantic stuff in
		it, though on the whole it is romance of the
		conventional sort. It is too well bred, let us
		say too observant of the forms and customs
		which one has learned to expect in a novel of
		the road. There is an escape from the castle
		in the sixth chapter, a flight in the darkness
		towards the cottage of the lady-love in the
		seventh chapter, an appeal to the generosity of
		the lady-love&#8217;s aunt, a dragon with gold-rimmed
		eyeglasses, in the ninth chapter. And so on.
		We would not imply that all this is lacking in
		distinction, but it seems to want that high distinction
		which Stevenson could give to his
		work. Ought one to look for it in a book confessedly
		unsatisfactory to its author, and a book
		which was left incomplete?</p>

		<p>There is a pretty account of the first meeting
		between St. Ives and Flora. One naturally
		compares it with the scene in which David Balfour
		describes his sensations and emotions when
		the spell of Catriona&#8217;s beauty came upon him.
		Says David:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;There is no greater wonder than the way
		the face of a young woman fits in a man&#8217;s
		mind and stays there, and he could never tell
		you why; it just seems it was the thing he
		wanted.&#8217;</p>

		<p>This is quite perfect, and in admirable keeping
		with the genuine simplicity of David&#8217;s character:&#8212;</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_229" title="229"></a>&#8216;She had wonderful bright eyes like stars;
		&#8230; and whatever was the cause, I stood there
		staring like a fool.&#8217;</p>

		<p>This is more concise than St. Ives&#8217;s description
		of Flora; but St. Ives was a man of the
		world who had read books, and knew how to
		compare the young Scotch beauty to Diana:&#8212;</p>

		<p>&#8216;As I saw her standing, her lips parted, a
		divine trouble in her eyes, I could have clapped
		my hands in applause, and was ready to acclaim
		her a genuine daughter of the winds.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The account of the meeting with Walter
		Scott and his daughter on the moors does not
		have the touch of reality in it that one would
		like. Here was an opportunity, however, of
		the author&#8217;s own making.</p>

		<p>There are flashes of humor, as when St.
		Ives found himself locked in the poultry-house
		&#8216;alone with half a dozen sitting hens. In the
		twilight of the place all fixed their eyes on me
		severely, and seemed to upbraid me with some
		crying impropriety.&#8217;</p>

		<p>There are sentences in which, after Stevenson&#8217;s
		own manner, real insight is combined
		with felicitous expression. St. Ives is commenting
		upon the fact that he has done a thing
		which most men learned in the wisdom of this
		world would have pronounced absurd; he has
		&#8216;made a confidant of a boy in his teens and
		positively smelling of the nursery.&#8217; But he has
		no cause to repent it. &#8216;There is none so apt
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_230" title="230"></a>as a boy to be the adviser of any man in difficulties
		like mine. To the beginnings of virile
		common sense he adds the last lights of the
		child&#8217;s imagination.&#8217;</p>

		<p>Men have been known to thank God when
		certain authors died,&#8212;not because they bore
		the slightest personal ill-will, but because they
		knew that as long as the authors lived nothing
		could prevent them from writing. In thinking
		of Stevenson, however, one cannot tell whether
		he experiences the more a feeling of personal
		or of literary loss, whether he laments chiefly
		the man or the author. It is not possible to
		separate the various cords of love, admiration,
		and gratitude which bind us to this man. He
		had a multitude of friends. He appealed to a
		wider audience than he knew. He himself
		said that he was read by journalists, by his fellow
		novelists, and by boys. Envious admiration
		might prompt a less successful writer to
		exclaim, &#8216;Well, isn&#8217;t that enough?&#8217; No, for
		to be truly blest one must have women among
		one&#8217;s readers. And there are elect ladies not a
		few who know Stevenson&#8217;s novels; yet it is a
		question whether he has reached the great
		mass of female novel-readers. Certainly he is
		not well known in that circle of fashionable
		maidens and young matrons which justly prides
		itself upon an acquaintance with Van Bibber.
		And we can hardly think he is a familiar name
		to that vast and not fashionable constituency
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_231" title="231"></a>which battens upon the romances of Marie
		Corelli under the impression that it is perusing
		literature, while he offers no comfort whatever
		to that type of reader who prefers that a novel
		shall be filled with hard thinking, with social
		riddles, theological problems, and &#8216;sexual theorems.&#8217;
		Stevenson was happy with his journalists
		and boys. Among all modern British men
		of letters he was in many ways the most highly
		blest; and his career was entirely picturesque
		and interesting. Other men have been more
		talked about, but the one thing which he did
		not lack was discriminating praise from those
		who sit in high critical places.</p>

		<p>He was prosperous, too, though not grossly
		prosperous. It is no new fact that the sales of
		his books were small in proportion to the magnitude
		of his contemporary fame. People
		praised him tremendously, but paid their dollars
		for entertainment of another quality than that
		supplied by his fine gifts. <i class="title">An Inland Voyage</i>
		has never been as popular as <i class="title">Three Men in a
		Boat</i>, nor <i class="title">Treasure Island</i> and <i class="title">Kidnapped</i> as
		<i class="title">King Solomon&#8217;s Mines</i>; while <i class="title">The Black
		Arrow</i>, which Mr. Lang does not like, and
		Professor Saintsbury insists is &#8216;a wonderfully
		good story,&#8217; has not met a wide public favor at
		all. <i class="title">Travels with a Donkey</i>, which came out
		in 1879, had only reached its sixth English edition
		in 1887. Perhaps that is good for a book
		so entirely virtuous in a literary way, but it was
		not a success to keep a man awake nights.</p>

		<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_232" title="232"></a>We have been told that it is wrong to admire
		<i class="title">Jekyll and Hyde</i>, that the story is &#8216;coarse,&#8217; an
		&#8216;outrage upon the grand allegories of the same
		motive,&#8217; and several other things; nay, it is
		even hinted that this popular tale is evidence
		of a morbid strain in the author&#8217;s nature.
		Rather than dispute the point it is a temptation
		to urge upon the critic that he is not radical
		enough, for in Stevenson&#8217;s opinion all literature
		might be only a &#8216;morbid secretion.&#8217;</p>

		<p>The critics, however, agree in allowing us to
		admire without stint those smaller works in
		which his characteristic gifts displayed themselves
		at the best. <i class="title">Thrawn Janet</i> is one of
		these, and the story of Tod Lapraik, told by
		Andie Dale in <i class="title">Catriona</i>, is another. Stevenson
		himself declared that if he had never written
		anything except these two stories he would
		still have been a writer. We hope that there
		would be votes cast for <i class="title">Will o&#8217; the Mill</i>, which
		is a lovely bit of literary workmanship. And
		there are a dozen besides these.</p>

		<p>He was an artist of undoubted gifts, but he
		was an artist in small literary forms. His
		longest good novels are after all little books.
		When he attempted a large canvas he seemed
		not perfectly in command of his materials,
		though he could use those materials as they
		could have been used by no other artist. There
		is nothing in his books akin to that broad and
		massive treatment which may be felt in a novel
		<a class="pagenum" id="page_233" title="233"></a>like <i class="title">Rhoda Fleming</i> or in a tragedy like <i class="title">Tess
		of the D&#8217;Urbervilles</i>.</p>

		<p>Andrew Lang was right when he said of
		Stevenson: He is a &#8216;Little Master,&#8217; but of the
		Little Masters the most perfect and delightful.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="printers_page" class="section">
		<p class="press">The Riverside Press</p>

		<p>CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.</p>
		<p>ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY<br />
			H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="the_end">
		&nbsp;
	</div>







<pre>





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