The Pleasures of a Book-Worm/Chapter 1

"I picked it up" has become a recognised phrase in all kinds of collecting manias, and in simple English means that for a few pence, shillings, or pounds—very much, of course, below its actual value—an article of some peculiar and undoubted worth has been secured. When a man declares with gusto to a friend, "I picked it up," it is tantamount to a boast, on his part, of superior knowledge as well as good luck. The unexpressed sentence runs just thus: "You see this article was for sale; I knew its value, but the seller ​didn't; therefore my knowledge was to me power, inasmuch as through it I was enabled to take advantage of the seller and to 'pick up' what I wanted for a mere song."

In the list of numerous hobbies,^[1] that of accumulating books of more than ordinary interest, especially books which on account of associations have become unique, has procured for itself quite a prominent position. And why should it not? Carefully and judiciously pursued, the collecting of books is not expensive, and is likely to ruin no one;^[2] carried out as the result of knowledge, it is a good investment for ​one's spare sovereigns; as an occupation for odd moments it is pleasurable, and just exciting enough to keep the head in healthy exercise and the blood warm and freely flowing; as co-ordinate with a love of what the books actually contain of wisdom or imagination, it is elevating and purifying; as dependent on a hero-worship of great authors, it lifts one up through sympathy into communion with them, thus giving a mental access to their friendship which external circumstances can neither hinder nor take away. In short, it seems to me that a great love of books has in it at all times the power to enlarge men's hearts, and to fill them with wider and truly educating sympathies. This education may be misunderstood and neglected by the many, but its effects are as certain and decided as those which came to Hawthorne's Ernest, ​from his persistent fellowship with The Great Stone Face.

The pleasure of possessing a unique volume does not lie solely in the fact that by so much one is wealthier than anybody else at the same time; it depends rather on a laying hold of the associations which constitute the real value of the book. The worth of a copy of the first edition of an early work by a famous author, arises not so much from its containing the original expression of thoughts, which in subsequent issues get so polished or twisted as to become, in many instances, scarcely recognisable, as that it tells to one capable of creeping into the author's soul the tale of his hopes and fears, his ambitions and disappointments, his yearnings and successes. The book speaks, to an appreciative possessor, of the circumstances, happy or sorrowful, under which it was conceived, written, ​published; the difficulty or ease with which it found its way through the press to the public; and its reception, favourable or otherwise, by critics and general readers. Nothing, in short, is too trivial about a book to interest the genuine book-lover; the amount gained or lost by its publication; the particulars of the disposal of the copyright; the letters or opinions of competent judges regarding it, all help to fill up the nook allotted in his mind to that particular work.

If, however, the book, by dedication or inscription, carries indication of a friendship existing between its author and one of the world's great men, so far is its value, as a centre of association of ideas, enhanced. If, in addition to this, it bears upon it, by autograph marks or otherwise, unmistakable proof of having been read and loved by some famous ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/16 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/17 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/18 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/19 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/20 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/21 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/22 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/23 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/24 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/25 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/26 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/27 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/28 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/29 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/30 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/31 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/32 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/33 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/34 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/35 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/36 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/37 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/38 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/39 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/40 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/41 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/42 ​Page:The Pleasures of a Book-Worm - Rees (1886).djvu/43 ​tion expressed by Lamb in the quiet kiss with which he sometimes greeted his best-loved books, and the careful, fondling manner with which rare spirits handle the companions of their most blissful moments. What a broad gleam of sunshine is shot through the dark dotage of Southey's last days by his son, who thus writes: "His dearly prized books were a pleasure to him almost to the end, and he would walk slowly round his library looking at them, and taking them down mechanically." Wordsworth, on visiting the poet, found him "patting with both hands his books affectionately like a child."