books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested"; but the revised version is, Some books are to be read, others are to be collected. Mere reading books, the five-foot shelf, or the hundred best, every one knows at least by name. But at the moment I am concerned with collectors' books and the amenities of book-collecting; for, frankly, I am one of those who seek Some subjects are not for me. Sydney Smith's question, "Who reads an American book?" has, I am sure, been answered; and I am equally sure that I do not know what the answer is. "Americana" which was not what Sydney Smith meant - have never caught me, nor has "black letter." It is not necessary for me to study how to tell a Caxton. Caxtons do not fall in my way, except single leaves now and then, and these I take as Goldsmith took his religion, on faith. Nor am I the rival of the man who buys all his books from Quaritch. Buying from Quaritch is rather too much like the German idea of hunting: namely, sitting in an easy chair near a breach in the wall through which game, big or little, is shooed within easy reach of your gun. No, my idea of collecting is "watchful waiting," in season and out, in places likely and unlikely, most of all in London. But one need not begin in London: one can begin wherever one has pitched one's tent. I have long wanted Franklin's "Cato Major." A copy was found not long ago in a farmhouse garret in my own county; but, unluckily, I did not hear of it until its price, through successive hands, had reached three hundred dollars. But if one does not be gin in London, one ends M. T. CICERO's there. It is the great CATO MAJOR, market of the world for collectors' books-the best market, not necessarily the cheapest. My first purchase was a Bohn edition of Pope's Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey in two volumes not a bad start for a boy; and under my youthful signature, with a fine flourish, is the date, 1882. I read them with delight, and was sorry OR HIS DISCOURSE OF OLD-AGE: With Explanatory NOTES. PHILADELPHIA, Printed and Sold by B. FRANKLIN, when I learned that Pope is by no means Homer. I have been a little chary about reading ever since. We collectors might just as well wait until scholars settle these questions. I have always liked Pope. In reading him one has the sense of progress from idea to idea, not a mere floundering about in Arcady amid star-stuff. When Dr. Johnson was asked what poetry is, he replied, "It is much easier to say what it is not." He was sparring for time and finally remarked, "If Pope is not poetry it is useless to look for it." Years later, when I learned from Oscar Wilde that there are two ways of disliking poetry, one is to dislike it, and the other, to like Pope, - I found that I was not entirely prepared to change my mind about Pope. In 1884 I went to London for the first time, and there I fell under the lure of Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb. After that, the deluge! The London of 1884 was the London of Dickens. There have been greater changes since I first wandered in the purlieus of the Strand and Holborn than there were in the hundred years before. Dickens's London has vanished almost as completely as the London of Johnson. One landmark after another disappeared, until finally the County Council made one grand sweep with Aldwych and Kingsway. But never to be forgotten are the rambles I enjoyed with my first bookseller, Fred Hutt of Clement's Inn Passage, subsequently of Red Lion Passage, now no more. Poor fellow! when, early in 1914, I went to look him up, I found that he had passed away, and his shop was being dismantled. He was the last of three brothers, all booksellers. From Hutt I received my first lesson in bibliography; from him I bought my first "Christmas Carol," with "Stave 1," not "Stave One," and with the green end-papers. I winced at the price: it was thirty shillings. I saw one marked twenty guineas not long ago. From Hutt, too, I got a copy of Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads," 1866, with the Moxon imprint, and had pointed out to me the curious eccentricity of type on page 222. I did not then take his advice and pay something over two pounds for a copy of "Desperate Remedies." It seemed wiser to wait until the price reached forty pounds, which I subsequently paid for it. But I did buy from him for five shillings an autograph letter of Thomas Hardy to his first publisher, " old Tinsley." As the details throw some light on the subject of Hardy's first book, I reproduce the letter, from which it will be seen that Hardy financed the publication himself. When, thirty years ago, I picked up my Hardy letter for a few shillings, I never supposed that the time would come when I would own the complete manuscript of one of his most famous novels. Yet so it is. Not long since, quite unexpectedly, the original draft of "Far from the Madding Crowd" turned up in London. Its author, when informed of its discovery, wrote saying that he had "supposed the manuscript had been pulped ages ago." One page only was missing; Mr. Hardy supplied it. Then arose the question of ownership, which was gracefully settled by sending it to the auction-room, the proceeds of the sale to go to the British Red Cross. I cannot say that the bookseller who bought it gave it to me exactly, but we both agree that it is an item standing you Buckhampton ip the gross I believe I am right ins under = terms Murs - that if receipts reach be coits of publishing I shell receive the ₤45 back gaine, & if they are more than the costs I shall have ₤15, added to half the receipts be you the costs experditing the ₤100 the receipt. I show have returned t me ₤75+50 = 125.) Will you be good enough to say too if the same includes adverting to the customary extent, & about how long after my hagy the book would appear? the money Your faithfully LETTER OF THOMAS HARDY TO HIS FIRST PUBLISHER, "OLD TINSLEY " I paid five shillings for this letter many years ago, in London. Maggs, in his last catalogue, prices at fifteen guineas a much less interesting letter from Hardy to Arthur Symons, dated December 4, 1915, on the same subject. |