The Idiot at Home Page 4

  III

  IN THE LIBRARY

  The Bibliomaniac had come off into the country to spend Sunday with theIdiot, and, as fortune would have it, Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog also appearedon the scene. After the mid-day dinner the little party withdrew to thelibrary, where the Bibliomaniac began to discourse somewhat learnedlyupon his hobby.

  "I am glad to see, my dear Idiot," he observed, as he glanced about theroom at the well-filled shelves, "that as you grow older you arecultivating a love of good literature."

  "I heartily echo the sentiment," said Mr. Pedagog, as he noted thetitles of some of the volumes. "I may add that I am pleasurablysurprised at some of your selections. I never knew, for instance, thatyou cared for Dryden, and yet I see here on the top shelf a voluminousedition of that poet."

  "Yes," said the Idiot. "I have found Dryden very useful indeed.Particularly in that binding and in so many volumes. The color goes verywell with the hangings, and the space the books occupy, eked out by adozen others of the same color, gives to that top shelf all the estheticeffect of an attractive and tasteful frieze. Then, too, it is alwayswell," he added, with a sly wink at Mrs. Idiot, "to have a lot of booksfor a top shelf that is difficult to reach that nothing under the canopycould induce you to read. It is not healthful to be stretching upward,and with Dryden upon the top shelf my wife and I are never tempted toundermine our constitutions by taking him down."

  The Bibliomaniac laughed.

  "Your view is at least characteristic," said he, "and to tell you theabsolute truth, I do not know that your judgment of the literary valueof Dryden is at variance with my own. Somebody called him the GreatestPoet of a Little Age. Perhaps if the age had been bigger he'd not haveshone so brilliantly."

  "Lowell," observed Mr. Pedagog, "was responsible for that remark, if Iremember rightly, and I have no doubt it is a just one, and yet I do nothold it up against Dryden. Man does not make the age. The age makes theman. Had there been any inspiring influences at work to give him amotive, an incentive, Dryden might have been a greater poet. To excelhis fellows was all that could rightly be expected of him, and that hedid."

  "Assuredly," said the Idiot. "That has always been my view, and to-daywe benefit by it. If he had gone directly to oblivion, Mrs. Idiot and Ishould have been utterly at a loss to know what to put on that topshelf."

  The Idiot offered his visitors a cigar.

  "Thank you," said the Bibliomaniac, taking his and sniffing at it withall the airs and graces of a connoisseur.

  "'I DID NOT SMOKE UNTIL I WAS FIFTY'"]

  "I don't know but that I will join you," said Mr. Pedagog. "I did notsmoke until I was fifty, and I suppose I ought not to have taken it upthen, but I did, and I have taken a great deal of comfort out of it. Myallowance is fifty-two cigars a year, one for each Sunday afternoon," headded, with a kindly smile.

  "Well, you want to look out you don't get smoker's heart," said theIdiot. "When a man plunges into a bad habit as rashly as that, he wantsto pull up before it is too late."

  "I have felt no ill effects since the first one," rejoined Mr. Pedagog."But you, my dear Idiot, how about your allowance? Is it still as greatas ever? As I remember you in the old days you were something of acigarette fiend."

  "'SMOKING KEEPS INSECTS FROM THE PLANTS'"]

  "I smoke just as much, but with this difference: I do not smoke forpleasure any more, Mr. Pedagog," the Idiot replied. "As a householder Ismoke from a sense of duty. It keeps moths out of the house, and insectsfrom the plants."

  "THE BIBLIOMANIAC WAS INVESTIGATING THE CONTENTS OF THELOWER SHELVES"]

  The Bibliomaniac meanwhile had been investigating the contents of thelower shelves.

  "You've got a few rare things here, I see," he observed, taking up avolume of short sketches illustrated by Leech, in color. "This smalltome is worth its weight in gold. Where did you pick it up?"

  "Auction," said the Idiot. "I didn't buy it by weight, either. I boughtit by mistake. The colored pictures fascinated me, and when it wasput up I bawled out 'fifteen.' Another fellow said 'sixteen.' I wasn'tgoing to split nickels so I bid 'twenty.' So we kept at it until it wasrun up to 'thirty-six.' Then I thought I'd break the other fellow'sheart by bidding fifty, and it was knocked down to me."

  "That's a stiff price, but on the whole it's worth it," said theBibliomaniac, stroking the back of the book caressingly.

  "But," said Mr. Pedagog, "if you bid on it consciously where did themistake come in?"

  The Idiot sighed. "I meant cents," he said, "but the other chap and theauctioneer meant dollars. I went up and planked down a half-dollar andwas immediately made aware of my error."

  "But you could have explained," said Mr. Pedagog.

  "'I PREFERRED TO PAY THE $49.50'"]

  "Oh, yes," said the Idiot, "I _could_, but after all I preferred to paythe extra $49.50 rather than make a public confession of such infernalinnocence before some sixty or seventy _habitues_ of a book-auctionroom."

  "And you were perfectly right!" said the Bibliomaniac. "You never wouldhave dared set your foot in that place again if you had explained. Theywould have made life a burden to you. Furthermore, you have not paid toodearly for the experience. The book is worth forty dollars; and to learnbetter than to despise the man who makes his bid cautiously, and whoadvances by small bids rather than by antelopian jumps, is worth manytimes ten dollars to the man who collects rare books seriously. In theearly days I scorned to break a five-dollar bill when I was bidding,just as you refused, as you put it, to split nickels, and many a time Ihave paid as high as twenty-five dollars for books that could have beenhad for twenty-one, because of that foolish sentiment."

  "I have often wondered," Mr. Pedagog put in at this point, holding hiscigar in a gingerly and awed fashion, taking a puff at it between words,by which symptoms the man who seldom smokes may always be identified, "Ihave often wondered what was the mission of a private library, anyhow.And now that I find you two gentlemen interested in a phase ofbook-collecting with which I have had little sympathy myself, possibly Imay, without being offensive, ask a question. Do you, for instance,Mr. Idiot, collect books because you wish to have something nobody elsehas got, or do you buy your books to read?"

  "That is a deep question," said the Idiot, "and I do not know that I cananswer it off-hand. I have already confessed that I bought Dryden forhis decorative quality. I purchased my Thackeray to read. I bought myPepys Diary because I find it better reading than a Sunday newspaper,quite as gossipy, and with weather reports that are fully as reliable.But that particular Leech I bought because of my youthful love forcolored pictures."

  "But you admit that it is valuable because of its rarity, and thatcompared to fifty dollars' worth of books that are not rare it is not tobe compared with them from a literary point of view?" said Mr. Pedagog.

  "I presume," said the Idiot, "that the fifty dollars I expended on thatbook would have provided me with a complete Shakespeare in one volume;all of Byron in green cloth and gold top; all of Dickens, Thackeray,Bulwer, and Austen in six volumes, with a margin of forty-five dollarsleft with which for nine years I could have paid for a subscription tothe Mercantile Library, containing all the good reading of the presentday and all the standard works of the past. But I rather like to havethe books, and to feel that they are my own, even if it is only for thepleasure of lending them."

  "Still, if a man collects books merely for their contents--" persistedMr. Pedagog.

  "He is a wild, extravagant person," said the Idiot. "He might savehimself hundreds of dollars, not to say thousands. The library on thatplan need not occupy an honored place among the rooms of the house. Amere pigeon-hole with a subscriber's card to a circulating library filedaway in it will do as well, or if the city or town in which he livesmaintains a public library he may spare himself even that expense."

  "Good for you!" exclaimed the Bibliomaniac. "That's the best answer tothe critics of book-collectors I have heard yet."

  "I agree with you," said Mr. Pedagog. "It is a
very comprehensive reply.As for you, my dear Bibliomaniac, why do you collect books?"

  "Because I love 'em as books," replied the Bibliomaniac. "Because oftheir associations, and because when I get a treasure I have the blissof knowing I have something that others haven't."

  "Then it is selfishness?" asked Mr. Pedagog.

  "Just as everything else is," returned the Bibliomaniac. "You, sir, if Imay be personal without wishing to be offensive, are wedded to Mrs.Pedagog. You take pleasure in knowing that she belongs to you and not toany one else. The Idiot here is proud of his children, and is glad theyare his children and nobody else's. _I_ am wedded to my rare books, andit rejoices my soul to pick up a volume that is unique, and to know thatit belongs to me and to no one else. If that is selfishness, then allpossession is selfish."

  "That's about it," said the Idiot. "You collect books just as Mormonsand Solomon used to collect wives. You are called a Bibliomaniac. Isuppose Brigham Young and Solomon would have been known asGamyomaniacs--though I don't suppose that age in women as in books is arequisite of value to marrying men--and they are both of them supposedto be rather canny persons."

  Mr. Pedagog puffed away in silence. It was evident that the _argumentumad hominem_ did not please him.

  "Well," he said, after awhile, "possibly you are right. If a man wants alibrary to be a small British Museum--"

  "He will take better care of his rarities than the Idiot does," said theBibliomaniac, putting the rare Leech back into its place. "If that weremine I'd put it out of the reach of my children."

  "I didn't know you had any," said the Idiot, eagerly.

  "Oh, you know what I mean," retorted the Bibliomaniac. "You place Drydenon the top shelf where Tommy and Mollie cannot get at him. But thisbook, which is worth ten larger paper editions of Dryden, you keepbelow, where the children can easily reach it. It's a wonder to meyou've been able to keep it in its present superb condition."

  "The mind of a child," said Mr. Pedagog, sententiously, "is abovevalues, above all conceits. It is the mind of sincerity, and a rare bookhas no greater attraction to the boy or girl than one not so favored."

  "That is not my reason," said the Idiot. "I know children pretty well,and I have observed that they are ambitious, and in a sense rebellious.They want to do what they cannot do. That is why, when mothers place jamon the top shelf of the pantry, the children always climb up to get it.If they would leave it on the dining-room table, within easy reach, thechildren would soon cease to regard it as a thing to be sought for. Makejam a required article of diet and the little ones will soon cease towant it. So with that book. If I should put that out of Tommy's reach,Tommy would lie awake nights to plan his campaign to get it. Leaving itwhere it is he doesn't think about it, doesn't want it, is not forbiddento have it, and so it escapes his notice."

  "You have the right idea, the human idea," said Mr. Pedagog, and eventhe Bibliomaniac was inclined to agree. But just then Tommy happened in,with Mollie close after. The boy walked straight to the bookcase, andMollie gathered up the large shears from the Idiot's table, and togetherthey approached their father.

  "Pa," said Mollie, holding up the scissors, "can I borrow these?"

  "What for?" asked the Idiot.

  "We want to cut the pictures out o' this," said Tommy, holding up thefifty-dollar Leech.

  After all, it is difficult to lay down a cast-iron rule as to how aprivate library should be constructed or arranged, particularly whenone's loyalty is divided between one's children and one's merely bookishtreasures.