The Bibliotaph, and Other People Part 1

The Bibliotaph.

by Leon H. Vincent.

THE BIBLIOTAPH: A PORTRAIT NOT WHOLLY IMAGINARY

A popular 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 _Books and Bookmen_ knows about Thomas Blinton. He was a man who wickedly adorned his volumes with morocco bindings, while his wife 'sighed in vain for some old _point d'Alencon lace_.' 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 'exactly the amount which he owed his plumber and gas-fitter, a worthy man with a large family.' From this fict.i.tious 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.

The name of Heber suggests the thought that all men who buy books are not bibliophiles. He alone is worthy the t.i.tle who acquires his volumes with something like pa.s.sion. 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.

You may find an account of Heber in an old file of _The Gentleman's Magazine_. He began in his youth by making a library of the cla.s.sics.

Then he became interested in rare English books, and collected them _con amore_ 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 pa.s.sion without stint. He bought only the best books, and he bought them by thousands and by tens of thousands. He would have held as foolishness that saying from the Greek which exhorts one to do nothing too much. According to Heber'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. 'His residence in Pimlico, where he died, was filled, like Magliabecchi's at Florence, with books from the top to the bottom; every chair, every table, every pa.s.sage containing piles of erudition.' 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.

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: 'Why, you see, sir, no man can comfortably do without _three_ 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 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.'

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. '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.' 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.

A life devoted to such a pa.s.sion 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,--business which added to life nothing more significant than that useful thing called money. Th.o.r.eau 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.

Heber had a genius for friends.h.i.+p 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 _Athenaeus_.

To him was inscribed Dr. Ferrier's poetical epistle on Bibliomania.

His virtues were celebrated by Dibdin and by Burton. In brief, the sketch of Heber in The_ Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1834, contains a list of forty-six names,--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.

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

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's _Recollections of James_ _Lenox_. And if it were equally readable it were a readable book indeed.

Dibdin thought that Heber's tastes were so catholic as to make it difficult to cla.s.sify him among hunters of books. The implication is that most men can be cla.s.sified. They have their specialties. What pleases one collector much pleases another but little or not at all.

Collectors differ radically in the att.i.tude 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 gla.s.s 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 _biblio_; you may have a _biblio_ almost anything.

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 t.i.tle-pages. 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.

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 acc.u.mulate them in the country, against the day when he shall have a town house with proper library.

The most genial lover of books who has walked city streets for many a day was a bibliotaph. He acc.u.mulated books for years in the huge garret of a farmhouse standing upon the outskirts of a Westchester County village. A good relative 'mothered' 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 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'

Monument.

By shading one's eyes to keep away the glare of the light, it was possible to make out tall carved oaken cases with gla.s.s 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, 'It's almost like a cathedral, ain't it?'

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 'political revivalist,' if I knew what that was.

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 citizens.h.i.+p, upon the higher politics, and upon themes of like character. 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 'wicked.' 'He goes from New York to Beersheba, and from Chicago to Dan, buying books. Never reads 'em because he hardly ever comes here.'

It became possible to identify the Bibliotaph of the country store with a certain mature youth who some time since 'gave his friends the slip, chose land-travel or seafaring,' 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 circ.u.mstance that, in days when people with the slightest excuse therefor have themselves regularly photographed, this old-fas.h.i.+oned youth refused to allow his 'likeness' to be taken,--this circ.u.mstance 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.

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, 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.

His head might be described as leonine. It was a ma.s.sive 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 const.i.tuted 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 _his_ hair; whereupon he cried out, 'I am embarra.s.sed by this unnecessary display of interest in my Samsonian a.s.sertiveness.'

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's unkind salutation, 'Bene sit tibi c.u.m tuo calvitio,' and multiply amusing variations upon it.

He delighted in sending them prescriptions and advertis.e.m.e.nts clipped from newspapers and medical journals. He quoted at them the remark of a pale, bald, blond young literary aspirant, who, seeing him, the Bibliotaph, pa.s.sing by, exclaimed audibly and almost pa.s.sionately, 'Oh, I perfectly adore _hair_!'

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 fas.h.i.+onably cut, but he lived in them so violently--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--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.

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's insanity was that he did not love clean linen.

His appet.i.te was large, as became a large and active person. He was a very valiant trencher-man; and yet he could not have been said to love eating for eating'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, cuc.u.mbers, onions, with a gla.s.s 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 cuc.u.mbers and milk.

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 aesthetically, the other dietetically. He remarked of some particularly large Spanish onions that there was 'a globular wholesomeness about them which was very gratifying;' and after eating one he observed expansively that he felt 'as if he had swallowed the earth and the fullness thereof.' 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 'it looked like the sanguinary output of the whole Crimean war.'

High-priced restaurants did not please him as well as humbler and less obtrusive places. But it was all one,--Delmonico's, the Bellevue, a stool in the Twelfth Street Market, or a German cafe on Van Buren Street. The humors of certain eating-houses gave him infinite delight.

He went frequently to the Diner'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, 'The very G.o.d of peace sanctify you wholly;' the second, 'Look out for your Hat and Coat.'

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. 'Why, sir,' he would remark, 'Fleet Street has a very animated appearance, but I think the full tide of human existence is at the corner of Madison and State.'

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 ill.u.s.trate the encyclopaedic fullness of his miscellaneous information.

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. 'A man,' he would sometimes say, 'may come by the mystery of childbirth into Omaha or Kansas City and be content, but he can't come by Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.' Then, a moment later, paraphrasing his remark, he would add, 'To go to Omaha or Kansas City by way of New York and Philadelphia is like being translated heavenward with such violence that one _pa.s.ses through_--into a less comfortable region!'

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.

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'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: 'Leave him to me, sir; I'll make him rear.'

The superficial parts of his talk were more easily retained. In mere banter, good-humored 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,--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, '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's house.' 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, 'Jane wors.h.i.+ps but little at the shrine of politeness because so much of her time is mortgaged to the shrine of truth.'

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's joys, he responded, 'Send him this: "_You don't look it, but you've lived like it._"'

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 a.s.sault of the critic. At a small and familiar supper of bookish men, when there was general dissatisfaction over an expensive but ill-made salad, he alone ate with apparent relish. The host, who was of like mind with his guests, said, 'The Bibliotaph doesn't care for the quality of his food, if it has filling power.' To which he at once responded, 'You merely imply that I am like a robin: I eat cherries 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 ill.u.s.trate 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-Fas.h.i.+oned 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 p.r.o.ne 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.