The Bibliotaph | Page 6

when I may, and worms when I must.'
His inscriptions in books given to his friends were often singularly happy. He presented a copy of Lowell's Letters to a gentleman and his wife. The first volume was inscribed to the husband as follows:--
'To Mr. ---- ----, 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's another equally as good, if not better.'
In volume two was the inscription to the wife, worded in this manner:--
'To Mrs. ---- ----, without whom the owner of the first volume of these Letters would be as that first volume without this one: interesting, but incomplete.'
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 'the Kid.' Among her holiday gifts for a certain year was a book from the Bibliotaph, a copy of Old-Fashioned Roses, with this dedication: 'To a Kid, had Abraham possessed which, Isaac had been the burnt-offering.'
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.
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's hands. He who observes the clouds shall not 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--its owner knew not where.
He differed from Heber in that he was not 'a classical scholar of the old school,' 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 as 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 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, 'I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here!' In making love there are other resources; all wooers are not as ill equipped as Slender was. But in hunting rare