Part 5

He was always capital in these teasing moods. To be sure, he buffeted one about tremendously, but his claws were sheathed, and there was a contagiousness in his frolicsome humor. Moreover one learned to look upon one's self in the light of a public benefactor. To submit to be knocked about by the Bibliotaph was in a modest way to contribute to the gayety of nations. If one was not absolutely happy one's self, there was a chastened comfort in beholding the happiness of the on-lookers.

A small author wrote a small book, so small that it could be read in less time than it takes to cover an umbrella, that is, 'while you wait.' The Bibliotaph had Brobdingnagian joy of this book. He sat and read it to himself in the author's presence, and particularly diminutive that book appeared as its light cloth cover was outlined against the Bibliotaph's ample black waistcoat. From time to time he would vent 'a series of small private laughs,' especially if he was on the point of announcing some fresh illustration of the fallibility of inexperienced writers. Finally the uncomfortable author said, 'Don't sit there and pick out the mistakes.' To which the Bibliotaph triumphantly replied, 'What other motive is there for reading it at all?'

He purchased every copy of this book which he could find, and when asked by the author why he did so, replied, 'In order to withdraw it from circulation.' A moment afterwards he added reflectively, 'But how may I hope to withdraw a book from that which it has never had?'

He was apt to be severe in his judgment of books, as when he said of a very popular but very feeble literary performance that it was an argument for the existence of God. 'Such intensity of stupidity was not realized without Infinite assistance.'

He could be equally emphatic in his comments upon men. Among his acquaintance was a church dignitary who blew alternately hot and cold upon him. When advised of some new illustration of the divine's uncertainty of attitude, the Bibliotaph merely said, 'He's more of a chameleon than he is a clergyman.'

That Bostonian would be deficient in wit who failed to enjoy this remark. Speaking of the characteristics of American cities, the Bibliotaph said, 'It never occurs to the Hub that anything of importance can possibly happen at the periphery.'

He greatly admired the genial and philanthropic editor of a well-known Philadelphia newspaper. Shortly after Mr. Childs's death some one wrote to the Bibliotaph that in a quiet Kentucky town he had noticed a sign over a shop-door which read, 'G. W. Childs, dealer in Tobacco and Cigars.' There was something graceful in the Bibliotaph's reply. He expressed surprise at Mr. Childs's new occupation, but declared that for his own part he was 'glad to know that the location of Heaven had at last been definitely ascertained.'

The Bibliotaph habitually indulged himself in the practice of hero-worship. This propensity led him to make those glorified scrap-books which were so striking a feature in his collection. They were no commonplace affairs, the ugly result of a union of cheap leather, newspaper-clippings and paste, but sumptuous books resplendent in morocco and gilt tooling, the creations of an artist who was eminent among binders. These scrap-books were chiefly devoted to living men,--men who were famous, or who were believed to be on the high road to fame. There was a book for each man. In this way did the Bibliotaph burn incense before his Dii majores et minores.

These books were enriched with everything that could illustrate the gifts and virtues of the men in whose honor they were made. They contained rare manuscripts, rare pictures, autograph comments and notes, a bewildering variety of records,--memorabilia which were above price. Poets wrote humorous verse, and artists who justly held their time as too precious to permit of their working for love decorated the pages of the Bibliotaph's scrap-books. One does not abuse the word 'unique' when he applies it to these striking volumes.

The Bibliotaph did not always follow contemporary judgment in his selection of men to be so canonized. He now and then honored a man whose sense of the relation of achievement to fame would not allow him to admit to himself that he deserved the distinction, and whose sense of humor could not but be strongly excited at the thought of deification by so unusual a process. It might be pleasant to consider that the Bibliotaph cared so much for one's letters as to wish not to destroy them, but it was awful to think of those letters as bound and annotated. This was to get a taste of posthumous fame before posthumous fame was due. The Bibliotaph added a new terror to life, for he compelled one to live up to one's scrap-book. He reversed the old Pagan formula, which was to the effect that 'So-and-So died and was made a god.' According to the Bibliotaph's prophetic method, a man was made a god first and allowed to die at his leisure afterward. Not every one of that little company which his wisdom and love have marked for great reputation will be able to achieve it. They are unanimously grateful that he cared enough for them to wish to drag their humble gifts into the broad light of publicity. But their gratitude is tempered by the thought that perhaps he was only elaborately humorous at their expense.

The Bibliotaph's intellectual processes were so vigorous and his pleasure in mental activity for its own sake was so intense that he was quite capable of deciding after a topic of discussion had been introduced which side he would take. And this with a splendid disdain of the merits of the cause which he espoused. I remember that he once set out to maintain the thesis that a certain gentleman, as notable for his virtues as he was conspicuous for lack of beauty, was essentially a handsome man. The person who initiated the discussion by observing that 'Mr. Blank was unquestionably a plain man' expected from the Bibliotaph (if he expected any remark whatever) nothing beyond a Platonic 'That I do most firmly believe.' He was not a little astonished when the great book-collector began an elaborate and exhaustive defense of the gentleman whose claims to beauty had been questioned. At first it was dialogue, and the opponent had his share of talk; but when in an unlucky moment he hinted that such energy could only be the result of consciousness on the Bibliotaph's part that he was in a measure pleading his own cause, the dialogue changed to monologue. For the Bibliotaph girded up his loins and proceeded to smite his opponent hip and thigh. All in good humor, to be sure, and laughter reigned, but it was tremendous and it was logically convincing. It was clearly not safe to have a reputation for good looks while the Bibliotaph was in this temper. All the gentlemen were in terror lest something about their countenances might be construed as beauty, and men with good complexions longed for newspapers behind which to hide their disgrace.

As for the disputant who had stirred up the monster, his situation was as unenviable as it was comic to the bystanders. He had never before dropped a stone into the great geyser. He was therefore unprepared for the result. One likened him to an unprotected traveler in a heavy rain-storm. For the Bibliotaph's unpremeditated speech was a very cloud-burst of eloquence. The unhappy gentleman looked despairingly in every direction as if beseeching us for the loan of a word-proof umbrella. There was none to be had. We who had known a like experience were not sorry to stand under cover and watch a fellow mortal undergo this verbal drenching. The situation recalled one described by Lockhart when a guest differed on a point of scholarship with the great Coleridge. Coleridge began to 'exert himself.' He burst into a steady stream of talk which broadened and deepened as the moments fled. When finally it ceased the bewildered auditor pulled himself together and exclaimed, 'Zounds, I was never so be-thumped with words in my life!'

People who had opportunity of observing the Bibliotaph were tempted to speculate on what he might have become if he had not chosen to be just what he was. His versatility led them to declare for this, that, and the other profession, largely in accordance with their own personal preferences. Lawyers were sure that he should have been an advocate; ministers that he would have done well to yield to the 'call' he had in his youth; teachers were positive that he would have made an inspiring teacher. No one, so far as I know, ever told him that in becoming a book-collector he had deprived the world of a great musician; for he was like Charles Lamb in that he was sentimentally inclined to harmony but organically incapable of a tune.

Yet he was so broad-minded that it was not possible for him to hold even a neutral attitude in the presence of anything in which other people delighted. I have known him to sit through a long and heavy organ recital, not in a resigned manner but actively attentive, clearly determined that if the minutest portion of his soul was sensitive to the fugues of J. S. Bach he would allow that portion to bask in the sunshine of an unwonted experience. So that from one point of view he was the incarnation of tolerance as he certainly was the incarnation of good-humor and generosity. He envied no man his gifts from Nature or Fortune. He was not only glad to let live, but painstakingly energetic in making the living of people a pleasure to them, and he received with amused placidity adverse comments upon himself.

Words which have been used to describe a famous man of this century I will venture to apply in part to the Bibliotaph. 'He was a kind of gigantic and Olympian school-boy, ... loving-hearted, bountiful, wholesome and sterling to the heart's core.'

LAST WORDS ON THE BIBLIOTAPH

The Bibliotaph's major passion was for collecting books; but he had a minor passion, the bare mention of which caused people to lift their eyebrows suspiciously. He was a shameless, a persistent, and a successful hunter of autographs. His desire was for the signatures of living men of letters, though an occasional dead author would be allowed a place in the collection, provided he had not been dead too long. As a rule, however, the Bibliotaph coveted the 'hand of write' of the man who was now more or less conspicuously in the public eye. This autograph must be written in a representative work of the author in question. The Bibliotaph would not have crossed the street to secure a line from Ben Jonson's pen, but he mourned because the autograph of the Rev. C. L. Dodgson was not forthcoming, nor likely to be. His conception of happiness was this: to own a copy of the first edition of Alice in Wonderland, upon the fly-leaf of which Lewis Carroll had written his name, together with the statement that he had done so at the Bibliotaph's request, and because that eminent collector could not be made happy in any other Way.

The Bibliotaph liked the autograph of the modern man of letters because it was modern, and because there was a reasonable hope of its being genuine. He loved genuineness. Everything about himself was exactly what it pretended to be. From his soul to his clothing he was honest. And his love for the genuine was only surpassed in degree by his contempt for the spurious. I remember that some one gave him a bit of silverware, a toilet article, perhaps, which he next day threw out of a car window, because he had discovered that it was not sterling. He scouted the suggestion that possibly the giver may not have known. Such ignorance was inexcusable, he said. 'The likelier interpretation was that the gift was symbolical of the giver.' The act seemed brutal, and the comment thereon even more so. But to realize the atmosphere, the setting of the incident, one must imagine the Bibliotaph's round and comfortable figure, his humorous look, and the air of genial placidity with which he would do and say a thing like this. It was as impossible to be angry with him in behalf of the unfortunate giver of cheap silver as to take offense at a tree or mountain. And it was useless to argue the matter--nay it was folly, for he would immediately become polysyllabic and talk one down.

It was this desire for genuine things which made him entirely suspicious of autographs which had been bought and sold. He had no faith in them, and he would weaken your faith, supposing you were a collector of such things. Offer him an autograph of our first president and he would reply, 'I don't believe that it's genuine; and if it were I shouldn't care for it; I never had the honor of General Washington's acquaintance.' The inference was that one could have a personal relation with a living great man, and the chances were largely in favor of getting an autograph that was not an object of suspicion.

Few collectors in this line have been as happy as the Bibliotaph. The problem was easily mastered with respect to the majority of authors. As a rule an author is not unwilling to give such additional pleasure to a reader of his book as may consist in writing his name in the reader's copy. It is conceivable that the author may be bored by too many requests of this nature, but he might be bored to an even greater degree if no one cared enough for him to ask for his autograph. Some writers resisted a little, and it was beautiful to see the Bibliotaph bring them to terms. He was a highwayman of the Tom Faggus type, just so adroit, and courteous, and daring. He was perhaps at his best in cases where he had actually to hold up his victim; one may imagine the scene,--the author resisting, the Bibliotaph determined and having the masterful air of an expert who had handled just such cases before.

A humble satellite who disapproved of these proceedings read aloud to the Bibliotaph that scorching little essay entitled Involuntary Bailees, written by perhaps the wittiest living English essayist. An involuntary bailee--as the essayist explains--is a person to whom people (generally unknown to him) send things which he does not wish to receive, but which they are anxious to have returned. If a man insists upon lending you a book, you become an involuntary bailee. You don't wish to read the book, but you have it in your possession. It has come to you by post, let us suppose, 'and to pack it up and send it back again requires a piece of string, energy, brown paper, and stamps enough to defray the postage.' And it is a question whether a casual acquaintance 'has any right thus to make demands on a man's energy, money, time, brown paper, string, and other capital and commodities.' There are other ways of making a man an involuntary bailee. You may ask him to pass judgment on your poetry, or to use his influence to get your tragedy produced, or to do any one of a half hundred things which he doesn't want to do and which you have no business to ask him to do. The essayist makes no mention of the particular form of sin which the Bibliotaph practiced, but he would probably admit that malediction was the only proper treatment for the idler who bothers respectable authors by asking them to write their names in his copies of their books. For to what greater extent could one trespass upon an author's patience, energy, brown paper, string, and commodities generally? It was amusing to watch the Bibliotaph as he listened to this arraignment of his favorite pursuit. The writer of the essay admits that there may be extenuating circumstances. If the autograph collector comes bearing gifts one may smile upon his suit. If for example he accompanies his request for an autograph with 'several brace of grouse, or a salmon of noble proportions, or rare old books bound by Derome, or a service of Worcester china with the square mark,' he may hope for success. The essayist opines that such gifts 'will not be returned by a celebrity who respects himself.' 'They bless him who gives and him who takes much more than tons of manuscript poetry, and thousands of entreaties for an autograph.'

A superficial examination of the Bibliotaph's collection revealed the fact that he had either used necromancy or given many gifts. The reader may imagine some such conversation between the great collector and one of his dazzled visitors:--

'Pray, how did you come by this?'

'His lordship has always been very kind in such matters.'

'And where did you get this?'

'I am greatly indebted to the Prime Minister for his complaisance.'

'But this poet is said to abhor Americans.'

'You see that his antipathy has not prevented his writing a stanza in my copy of his most notable volume.'