Part 6 (1/2)
Do you remember that hymn, as one may call it, of Lucretius to Death, to Death which does not harm us. ”For as we knew no hurt of old, in ages when the Carthaginian thronged against us in war, and the world was shaken with the shock of fight, and dubious hung the empire over all things mortal by sea and land, even so careless, so unmoved, shall we remain, in days when we shall no more exist, when the bond of body and soul that makes our life is broken. Then naught shall move us, nor wake a single sense, not though earth with sea be mingled, and sea with sky.”
There is no h.e.l.l, he cries, or, like Omar, he says, ”h.e.l.l is the vision of a soul on fire.”
Your true t.i.tyus, gnawed by the vulture, is only the slave of pa.s.sion and of love; your true Sisyphus (like Lord Salisbury in _Punch_) is only the politician, striving always, never attaining; the stone rolls down again from the hill-crest, and thunders far along the plain.
Thus his philosophy, which gives him such a delightful sense of freedom, is rejected after all these years of trial by men. They feel that since those remotest days
”_Quum Venus in silvis jungebat corpora amantum_,”
they have travelled the long, the weary way Lucretius describes to little avail, if they may not keep their hopes and fears. Robbed of these we are robbed of all; it serves us nothing to have conquered the soil and fought the winds and waves, to have built cities, and tamed fire, if the world is to be ”dispeopled of its dreams.” Better were the old life we started from, and dreams therewith, better the free days--
”_Novitas tum florida mundi_ _Pabula dia tulit, miseris mortablibus ampla_;”
than wealth or power, and neither hope nor fear, but one certain end of all before the eyes of all.
Thus the heart of man has answered, and will answer Lucretius, the n.o.blest Roman poet, and the least beloved, who sought, at last, by his own hand, they say, the doom that Virgil waited for in the season appointed.
TO A YOUNG AMERICAN BOOK-HUNTER
_To Philip Dodsworth, Esq., New York_.
Dear Dodsworth,--Let me congratulate you on having joined the army of book-hunters. ”Everywhere have I sought peace and found it nowhere,”
says the blessed Thomas a Kempis, ”save in a corner with a book.” Whether that good monk wrote the ”De Imitatione Christi” or not, one always likes him for his love of books. Perhaps he was the only book-hunter that ever wrought a miracle. ”Other signs and miracles which he was wont to tell as having happened at the prayer of an unnamed person, are believed to have been granted to his own, such as the sudden reappearance of a lost book in his cell.” Ah, if Faith, that moveth mountains, could only bring back the books we have lost, the books that have been borrowed from us!
But we are a faithless generation.
From a collector so much older and better experienced in misfortune than yourself, you ask for some advice on the sport of book-hunting. Well, I will give it; but you will not take it. No; you will hunt wild, like young pointers before they are properly broken.
Let me suppose that you are ”to middle fortune born,” and that you cannot stroll into the great book-marts and give your orders freely for all that is rich and rare. You are obliged to wait and watch an opportunity, to practise that maxim of the Stoic's, ”Endure and abstain.” Then abstain from rus.h.i.+ng at every volume, however out of the line of your literary interests, which seems to be a bargain. Probably it is not even a bargain; it can seldom be cheap to you, if you do not need it, and do not mean to read it.
Not that any collector reads all his books. I may have, and indeed do possess, an Aldine Homer and Caliergus his Theocritus; but I prefer to study the authors in a cheap German edition. The old editions we buy mainly for their beauty, and the sentiment of their antiquity and their a.s.sociations.
But I don't take my own advice. The shelves are crowded with books quite out of my line--a whole small library of tomes on the pastime of curling, and I don't curl; and ”G.o.d's Revenge against Murther,” though (so far) I am not an a.s.sa.s.sin. Probably it was for love of Sir Walter Scott, and his mention of this truculent treatise, that I purchased it. The full t.i.tle of it is ”The Triumphs of G.o.d's Revenge against the Crying and Execrable Sinne of (willful and premeditated) Murther.” Or rather there is nearly a column more of t.i.tle, which I spare you. But the pictures are so bad as to be nearly worth the price. Do not waste your money, like your foolish adviser, on books like that, or on ”Les Sept Visions de Don Francisco de Quevedo,” published at Cologne, in 1682.
Why in the world did I purchase this, with the t.i.tle-page showing Quevedo asleep, and all his seven visions floating round him in little circles like soap-bubbles? Probably because the book was published by Clement Mala.s.sis, and perhaps he was a forefather of that whimsical Frenchman, Poulet Mala.s.sis, who published for Banville, and Baudelaire, and Charles a.s.selineau. It was a bad reason. More likely the mere cheapness attracted me.
Curiosity, not cheapness, a.s.suredly, betrayed me into another purchase.
If I want to read ”The Pilgrim's Progress,” of course I read it in John Bunyan's good English. Then why must I ruin myself to acquire ”Voyage d'un Chrestien vers l'Eternite. Ecrit en Anglois, par Monsieur Bunjan, F.M., en Bedtfort, et nouvellement traduit en Francois. Avec Figures. A Amsterdam, chez Jean Boekholt Libraire pres de la Bourse, 1685”? I suppose this is the oldest French version of the famed allegory. Do you know an older? Bunyan was still living and, indeed, had just published the second part of the book, about Christian's wife and children, and the deplorable young woman whose name was Dull.
As the little volume, the Elzevir size, is bound in blue morocco, by Cuzin, I hope it is not wholly a foolish bargain; but what do I want, after all, with a French ”Pilgrim's Progress”? These are the errors a man is always making who does not collect books with system, with a conscience and an aim.
Do have a specially. Make a collection of works on few subjects, well chosen. And what subjects shall they be? That depends on taste.
Probably it is well to avoid the latest fas.h.i.+on. For example, the ill.u.s.trated French books of the eighteenth century are, at this moment, _en hausse_. There is a ”boom” in them. Fifty years ago Brunet, the author of the great ”Manuel,” sneered at them. But, in his, ”Library Companion,” Dr. Dibdin, admitted their merit. The ill.u.s.trations by Gravelot, Moreau, Marillier, and the rest, are certainly delicate, graceful, full of character, stamped with style. But only the proofs before letters are very much valued, and for these wild prices are given by compet.i.tive millionaires. You cannot compete with them.
It is better wholly to turn the back on these books and on any others at the height of the fas.h.i.+on, unless you meet them for fourpence on a stall.
Even then should a gentleman take advantage of a poor bookseller's ignorance? I don't know. I never fell into the temptation, because I never was tempted. Bargains, real bargains, are so rare that you may hunt for a lifetime and never meet one.
The best plan for a man who has to see that his collection is worth what it cost him, is probably to confine one's self to a single line, say, in your case, first editions of new English, French, and American books that are likely to rise in value. I would try, were I you, to collect first editions of Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Poe, and Hawthorne.
As to Poe, you probably will never have a chance. Outside of the British Museum, where they have the ”Tamerlane” of 1827, I have only seen one early example of Poe's poems. It is ”Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, by Edgar A. Poe. Baltimore: Hatch and Dunning, 1829, 8vo, pp.