The Haunted Bookshop | Page 6

cat if she had to live in a
room tapestried with catnip? She would go crazy!"
"Truly, I had never thought of that phase of bookselling," said the
young man. "How is it, though, that libraries are shrines of such austere
calm? If books are as provocative as you suggest, one would expect
every librarian to utter the shrill screams of a hierophant, to clash
ecstatic castanets in his silent alcoves!"
"Ah, my boy, you forget the card index! Librarians invented that
soothing device for the febrifuge of their souls, just as I fall back upon
the rites of the kitchen. Librarians would all go mad, those capable of
concentrated thought, if they did not have the cool and healing card
index as medicament! Some more of the eggs?"
"Thank you," said Gilbert. "Who was the butler whose name was
associated with the dish?"
"What?" cried Mifflin, in agitation, "you have not heard of Samuel
Butler, the author of The Way of All Flesh? My dear young man,
whoever permits himself to die before he has read that book, and also

Erewhon, has deliberately forfeited his chances of paradise. For
paradise in the world to come is uncertain, but there is indeed a heaven
on this earth, a heaven which we inhabit when we read a good book.
Pour yourself another glass of wine, and permit me----"
(Here followed an enthusiastic development of the perverse philosophy
of Samuel Butler, which, in deference to my readers, I omit. Mr.
Gilbert took notes of the conversation in his pocketbook, and I am
pleased to say that his heart was moved to a realization of his iniquity,
for he was observed at the Public Library a few days later asking for a
copy of The Way of All Flesh. After inquiring at four libraries, and
finding all copies of the book in circulation, he was compelled to buy
one. He never regretted doing so.)
"But I am forgetting my duties as host," said Mifflin. "Our dessert
consists of apple sauce, gingerbread, and coffee." He rapidly cleared
the empty dishes from the table and brought on the second course.
"I have been noticing the warning over the sideboard," said Gilbert. "I
hope you will let me help you this evening?" He pointed to a card
hanging near the kitchen door. It read:
ALWAYS WASH DISHES IMMEDIATELY AFTER MEALS IT
SAVES TROUBLE
"I'm afraid I don't always obey that precept," said the bookseller as he
poured the coffee. "Mrs. Mifflin hangs it there whenever she goes away,
to remind me. But, as our friend Samuel Butler says, he that is stupid in
little will also be stupid in much. I have a different theory about
dish-washing, and I please myself by indulging it.
"I used to regard dish-washing merely as an ignoble chore, a kind of
hateful discipline which had to be undergone with knitted brow and
brazen fortitude. When my wife went away the first time, I erected a
reading stand and an electric light over the sink, and used to read while
my hands went automatically through base gestures of purification. I
made the great spirits of literature partners of my sorrow, and learned
by heart a good deal of Paradise Lost and of Walt Mason, while I
soused and wallowed among pots and pans. I used to comfort myself
with two lines of Keats:
'The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round
earth's human shores----'
Then a new conception of the matter struck me. It is intolerable for a

human being to go on doing any task as a penance, under duress. No
matter what the work is, one must spiritualize it in some way, shatter
the old idea of it into bits and rebuild it nearer to the heart's desire. How
was I to do this with dish-washing?
"I broke a good many plates while I was pondering over the matter.
Then it occurred to me that here was just the relaxation I needed. I had
been worrying over the mental strain of being surrounded all day long
by vociferous books, crying out at me their conflicting views as to the
glories and agonies of life. Why not make dish-washing my balm and
poultice?
"When one views a stubborn fact from a new angle, it is amazing how
all its contours and edges change shape! Immediately my dishpan
began to glow with a kind of philosophic halo! The warm, soapy water
became a sovereign medicine to retract hot blood from the head; the
homely act of washing and drying cups and saucers became a symbol
of the order and cleanliness that man imposes on the unruly world
about him. I tore down my book rack and reading lamp from over the
sink.
"Mr. Gilbert," he went on, "do not laugh