The Book-Hunter at Home. P. B. M. Allan
book-collecting. Whether we are contented now to let our library be slow of growth, or whether we are still imbued with the ardour of our early youth, we are none the less under the spell of books. Our paths may lie outside the pale of book-land for years, but the chance handling of a valuable or scarce volume will instantly awaken all our bibliophilic desires. Book-collecting is not like other pursuits. In after years we may realise that many of our hobbies are but vanities, but the love of good books is something far beyond all these ephemeral pursuits.
Doubtless few of us realised at the outset of our careers as book collectors how completely we should be mastered by this love of books. Who did not think that it comprised but occasional visits to the book-shops and bookstalls, perhaps even to an auction-room, and the reading of nondescript catalogues? But it is like all other hobbies: ridden at first with too little restraint, it soon gets the upper hand, and off it goes, bit between teeth, carrying its rider ever farther and farther afield. And no man of spirit would think of seeking to curb his hobby's gallop. We have mounted of our own free will, determined to pursue the chase, and never shall it be said that we were too timid to face the difficulties of the country ahead. The greater the difficulties the greater the sport, and in our enthusiasm we are determined to overcome all obstacles. So that, though our hobby may at length become our master, so enthralled are we in the pursuit that there is little danger of it assuming the semblance of a nightmare.
The farther we go, the wider the fields which open to our view, and there is interest for us in all of them. We roam at our pleasure over vast fields of literature, digressing here and there just as our fancy takes us. There is no danger, moreover, in being side-tracked, for such divagations in the realms of bibliography as we may make will serve but to increase our knowledge of books in the right direction. The only risk that we shall incur is that of becoming specialists, which is precisely what we should most desire.
And how delightful are these digressions in the world of books! There is no other occupation in which one may wander so innocuously. In most of the learned professions digressions are fatal to success. Anthony Despeisses was a lawyer who used frequently to digress. Beginning one day in Court to talk of Ethiopia, an attorney who sat behind him remarked 'Heavens! He is got into Ethiopia, he will never come back.' Despeisses, we are told, was so abashed with the ridicule that he chose rather to leave off pleading than to correct himself of this unfortunate habit, and quitted the Bar for ever. Doubtless he found solace among his books, for here at least he could digress to his heart's content.
Although, from a worldly point of view, side-tracks are fatal to success, yet they are as necessary a part of our literary education as is the application to study itself. Without digressing as we applied ourselves to books, narrow indeed would be the views that we acquired. Of what value is a vast acquaintance with the material details of a war, if we are ignorant as to the causes which brought it about, or the reasons why the nations were warring? 'Ah yes,' perhaps you may exclaim, 'but politics and history are all one, for the former creates the latter.' Precisely: so that in order to obtain a knowledge of the one, we must deviate to the other. Sharon Turner in his 'History of England during the Middle Ages' passes abruptly from the death of King Henry the Second to the military spirit of Mohammedanism, from the Troubadours to the early dissipations of King John, and devotes two of his five volumes to the Literature of England with copious examples of early poetry. It is all history, yet how indispensable are the side-tracks.
It is a subtle art, however, this knowledge of how and when to digress, and not easy to be learnt. Gerard de St. Amand died of grief in his middle age because Louis xiv. could not bear his reading of a poem on the Moon, in which he praised the King for his skill in swimming. On the other hand Madame de Staël obtained almost all the material for her literary work by a consummate skill in directing the digressions of conversation. Upon whatever subject her pen was engaged, that was the theme to which she led all talk.
Sir Thomas Browne's famous letter 'To a friend upon occasion of the death of his intimate friend' is a masterpiece of the art of digressing. Surely it is one of the quaintest letters of condolence ever written, if indeed it were ever intended to be such, for it has that stamp of careful literary composition which is usually so apparent in all letters written with a view to publication. The friend in question died of a consumption, and Sir Thomas recapitulates his disease, symptoms and death; contrasting each feature with the celebrated examples of history; moralising and discussing the opinions of the ancients upon these points as he goes along; and showing by his own experience that a man 'after a cough of almost fifty years, in whom all the lobes adhered unto the Pleura,' might yet die of stone in the bladder. Doubtless the friend to whom the letter was indited was highly edified by the aged doctor's learning, yet one cannot conceive that he would be greatly consoled by being informed, when discussing the patient's cough, that 'in cetaceous Fishes, who have large and strong lungs, the same is not observed; nor yet in oviparous Quadrupeds.' Digressing in this manner is a risky business, and if the grief were still fresh, it is more than likely that the bereaved one would exclaim 'A fig for your fishes, Sir.' But Sir Thomas was a wise and worldly man, and would know from experience precisely when to administer his soothing draught.
The attractions of digressing are far more insidious than would appear at first sight. It is so easy, one finds such delightful things, it is all in the daily task of gathering knowledge, it may be useful to us some day, and so on. But, unwisely employed, it is a more terrible thief of time even than Young's 'procrastination.' Worse still, it is a waster; for the scrappy knowledge so often acquired by this means becomes invariably the 'little learning' which is so dangerous—and useless—a thing. So that unless we are strongly imbued with the spirit of scholarly research, determined that we will not deviate one iota from the particular side-track which we are exploring, we are in grave danger of becoming lost in the maze of paths. Digressions in conversation and books can be of immense value, but he must be a man of iron will who can utilise to permanent advantage his resources in this direction. Constant and purposeless digressions, in reading no less than in talk, are just as injurious as interruptions. The mind is switched from one subject to another, and an entire sequence of reasoning which we may have been building up by the study of some days is destroyed in a few moments by the opening up of an unexplored tract of thought.
For many years there was a learned man at work in one of our ancient abbey libraries, cataloguing the manuscripts and monastic charters of the ancient foundation. Their number runs into many thousands, and at the outset the Keeper[17] realised that if this task of providing an index and précis of the entire collection (which would be of incalculable value to the historical students who came after him) were to be accomplished in his lifetime, it would be necessary to adhere rigidly to his plan. Any deviation, however slight, would mean the loss of valuable time. To the historian and antiquary such a determination must have cost more than we can imagine; for every now and again he came across some charter of great historical interest. 'Ah,' he would sigh, reading it through, 'and now I suppose you must go back again into the obscurity in which you have lain for eight hundred years.' He quietly made his précis, indexed the document, and replaced it in the oaken press. There, thanks to his labours, it will be turned to at some future date to add laurels to the 'researches' of another man.
Perhaps the most innocuous way in which we may digress is by compiling one of those delectable literary hotch-potches known as 'commonplace books.' Here, with careful selection, we may garner those delightful thoughts, those gay conceits or pithy stories, that strike our fancy as we read. And though perhaps it may be urged that such collections resemble a casket of loose jewels plucked from their settings, yet they are jewels none the less. We may store all our collections within one cover, or we may preserve separately our extracts from the poets, our biographies, our meditations, or our anecdotes.
The first 'commonplacer' of whom I have seen mention was one Photius, a colonel in the Life Guards at Constantinople during the ninth century, or—as he was then called—Protospatharius. Later he became ambassador to the court of Baghdad, and amused himself by compiling a volume which he called Myriobiblon, a collection of extracts of the authors which he had read. He was a man, we are told, of extraordinary vigour of mind, and of encyclopædical knowledge, and he was so devoted to reading that he passed whole nights without sleep. Accordingly we are not surprised to find that the