BOOKST AND BACTERUA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 180, 25 April 1908, Page 12

BOOKST AND BACTERUA.

Tilers is good .'news , for-. those,,-who:- read .book's.:in epidemic:.'days," and particular'^for.,tKps4xwhojborrow; them..v, < Most of dread 'of germs .'in j things :of,'/eyery-day'. uso; wc grow reckless, and wo cutntbe 'knot of op - fears iby.'.dcciaiiig/ttott'-.it ,to chance our luck than to bccomo.'the'slaves of-'a minute • ■ ' 'i .' , : V • v But the .possibilities( elf-i-infection' througha book, a' ; . thiflg '.whichis '.not consumed by. use and'-is. of., relative, durability/.and : which' we ..take into :th'e sidk room ; with |us : to fight" the - stoutest'; 'pausoi : -ahd : :;iiypjyjm wrestled with his faiicywhenTiandlirig a.volume bor- , .rowed- froniJa plVblie'library: Books,. wo. are .told,' gbrms, ; and, scionco have npt | jhithorto : agre^'.tli.at-rW 1 Y as ®ny.-!a'ssiirld ' ■wayof. beyond ,;thd; ' heroic'; \ .remedy-"of' cbmmittingo thmA.to .' A I'Yench doctor-, howdver, named Berlioz has ijust invented I paper read. befojo'.thd -Academy, of ;Medioine'. •and';Siimiriari^--\ , \m^ ;l 'thb. , .'\.":JdilrnaL- i 'ae3' . Debats',!' :. i? Entirely .'satisfactory.'. Tlie.bookv . "is/ put' intp' i stove; and. sub jdcted to, an under-100 of-hours: ■ ; of; volumes" aro o .the.bigger, the' - (volume ,thb' , which" fortifies' . tlio? man's' 'prejudice' : j .llO "dam-': ,' or. paper; VOiir l wli'at thejf have )• to'doVto.save us,fibm ; iphysical infectibn. They ;,have long 'understood . hoiy; to" save us from jSpiritual Manchester Guardian." ' i, BOOKISHNESS? AND STATES- - - ' MANSHIP. • In .the; current- number- of ,thc " North 'American Hosebery' his a ;.shortv;papbr "j-Bookishness ipanship,M.\the; r sub'stance of-,which, was. de- ; livored as. an; 'ad^e^'in' Edinburgh, some • ;.tjm6 ago. .J.Wo.nbfe./by .the way, lord'Hoso- ■ .beryls announcement: in' ; the . " Westminster : Gazette," .'..tliat tlio.-republication 'r of,- this : p'aper; .was ribt'Hqutlibrised " by: him. The' 1 editor; of the ;l}'.Ncrth . American llevibw" : ■ says : that .'ho received : the article from : an agency Uand ;,we" are -that -. he ■ acted' , in ■ good., I faith. ; .,:'|.J3ookishness'' and statesman-' ' " aro, ono would • -think,, scarcely, Compatible."' -Yet he-proves , _that. though the^;combination is rare,-it.is , possible. Ho -finds'- that it existed in ; a I supremo''degree'Jin- Mr. 1 Gladstone,'- and :that most -.nearly" the'' -samc : !lbvQ 'of .bo6ks"in' tlie, same way: as Mr.: . ; Gladstone"was, Charles, Jaines Fox; The word "bgbkishiiQ.sg7' ! tlien/js.used by Lord Rose-' - bery in the" particular :senso' which 'describes, - a' man who has not,reached -the- superlative and morbid, state, of ithb bookworm, ..but' has a general love: bf;<books—not ihercly the love of reading them, but' of buying,'"'handling, - and hunting for them. - • : : ~, ./ To ;be " bookish'"/'is clearly, not the same thing; as to, bo "literary." A man -might' liavo a love of : great,, 1 literature, and even havo produced a great piece of literature himself, and yet bookish. . We cannot think'of Cervantes'or ; Defoe as bookish, yet Bacon'and Sir .Thomas Brdwne probably wore, . Bookishness is^v'itoljty 1 .'which is not neces' sarily good or bad; but:■which distinguishes the possessor of i Arid 'it > extends - down-, wards'into classes-which', havo not even a 1 .firm - appreciation of literature; the man who habitually rummages among the boxes of books' in,' Charing ; Cross Road is bookish; ; thougrn he • -may iievor have been able to . illuminate - his ■. labours in life by means of his liking for literature. Ho may have only a dull,-, vaguo ; feelirig ; that thero is a romance ; in books,. and a-satisfaction 1 in being among them; and he,would not: be ablo to produce a colourable, imitation of, good writing, as easily, as some .plausible fellow who opens a book only once , in a bluo moon, but has withiil him the ,tasto and" feel and sound of harmonious', prose., , This class includes, too ■ those whoso-interests, in books 'is merely external; Wo beliovo that thero • are people who love tlio appearanco of -well-arranged book-shelves, but who do ndt' feel caflcd upon to examino.tbe contents of the books. Their love of books extends only to thoir dccorativc use, or they derivo a kind of spiritual gratification from having all that learning formally in their possession. But bookishness may imply a profound knowledge which is cognate to literary knowledge, and ybt is something quite .different. There sire, for oxamploj tlio'experts in ancient editions, and, indeed; in all editions. There is the man who knows all about them in the spirit of the collector, but who has no moro appreciation'' of, tlie' quality of the writing than : moßt' of tlio relative artistic value of-different stamps. . He can tell you that the fourth, edition contain? a pas&ge which is omitted in the third, but perhaps ho lms no opinion whethdr tlio passage is inclusion at all. . So far as tlio-bookishness is that of the inveterate collcctol', it may. artificial as tlio tastes of the printrcollcctor. A friond of tlio present writer sont Bomb:'mezzotints to an auction, some of them being portraits of men and somo of women. Thfe-portraits of tne women wero sold for, over a hundred. pgunds .each, but no offer higheF'than ten pounds'. was

(made for any ono portrait of a.man. Tho pictures were all early and good impressions by famous mozzotintors, nnd technically and artistically tlioro was nothing to Choose botween the portraits of tho moil and the women; but it happonod that pictures of women with largo "Gainsborough" - hats wore in fashion. Similarly tliero aro bookmen who ,liavo carried their rivalry into fields wlioro tliero is 110 real senso- in preferring ono edition to another. - They, aro bibliomaniacs. Sonic first editions aro about as valuable as tho first editions of ovening newspapers. Biit wo must not explore bookishncss as a frame of mind farther; for Lord Rosobery's purposo it is-only necessary to imagino a man who finds that his greatest pleasure in life'is to. bo in a library, and then to admit that that man is not generally best suited' for. tho stresses and collisions of public life. Yot Mr. Gladstono had a genius for public lifo combined with his bookishness. His.political principles wero not rendered visionary and unpractical by -meditations indulged in seclusion; ho was tho most practical sort of politician; ho was a great financier. One could not say of him what the Duko of York says in Shakespeare's " Henry VI" of the King:— .- . .- . " And, forco perforce, I'll make him yield tho crown, , > Whose .-bookish rule hath pull'd fair England : down." . . , • , ■ | For his.rule was not.-bookish. '"Bookishness," nono tho_ less, is the very word for Mr/ Gladstone in his other aspect. "He had," says Lord Kosebery, " noud of what is technically called bibliomania: to first editions, or broad margins, or vellum copifes ho avas indifforent." But he loved buying books, and handling them—have we not all heard of his'habit of making "the usual discount" a condition of his purchases from secondhand booksellers. . It is not necessary to agreement with Lord Kosebery's thesis that ono should believo Mr. Gladstone's knowledge of books to have been profound. -It is a threadbare . criticism of' him that he . was held to bo a theologian.by the Homeric scholars and an Homeric -scholar by tho . theologians, and an authority, on Dante by those who jvero not Italian scholar?. It is onough to admit j that, he had the heart of bookishncss in him; and that with encdurago.mont arid fostering circumstance—had Ijo been feeble in health, for instance, and unlit "for.jjublie life—ho might; easily liavo boon, ,8s Lord Iloscbery says, "a bookworm, immersed, in. folios." In Mr. Gladstono bookishness arid statcsmansliip acted .and'roaeted upon .each other: He was a- great; man of affairs becauso ho had quite exceptional resources of historical and literary experience and illustration at his. command. But'is the ago past in whicli it was possiblo for a Gladstono to add book.ishness to statesmanship. with so - much j-e----nown? ' " Literature," says Lord' Rosebory,, " is constantly becoming less and less neces- : Sary for the politician." We aro. all agreed that .the period/of rhetoric and of Latin quotations is done with; the ambition of/Par-, liament to-day is to bo intensely businesslike (tho .■ only rulo for success is a close copy of tho injunction, " Say what you havo got to say, don't quote Latin, and sit down "); arid, yetwe are happily able to disngree with Lord ■Rosebory if ho means us to infer that literature, is now neither a material help nor an ornament to be. used; in a political career. We might cite Mr. Balfour and Mr. Morley and : Lord Crewe i(wlio, if. ho .' has' written little, has literary: learning arid a noticeably sound . English style)- and Mr, Birrell and others to the contrary; but first' andforemost wo should cito Lord Rosebory himself. Lord Rosebory was no doubt restrained 'by modesty from including himself among' tho bookish Prime Ministers, but wo tako leave to place him, instead of Fox*'■ aftor'Mr:; Glaastone. Wo do riot forget Lord Beaconsfield,' whoso proso,.at its best- was splendidly yivid arid eloquent—its 'merely; gradioso qualities are too often allowed to eclipso its merits T-arid whosp .'political arid social scones -will 'certainly last'as. long as the languago. , But Lord Beaconsfield \vas not .bookish''in any of tho senses in which wo have employed tho word. His father, Isaac I}isracli, on tho ;othor hand, was distinctly bookish, aiid that jalmest, define,?" the.,,-ivliolp .difference between, :them. It'is related of • a riiodern statosmari. ■that on being shown round Lord Acton's j library, lie exclaimed: " Call that a library 1 .Why, there isn't a singlo work of ( roferencol" 110 may stand for a growing, type, hut for Ourselves wo should not easily bo persuaded to .'trust the-judgment of one who, seldom Of course, wo'should 'misunderstand the explores the' treasury \of written, experience, whole of -Lord Rosobery's paper if we called ovcu a deep and reverent use. of books bookishness, and so wo como back to. the .ox- 1 plan at ion we gavo at tho beginning, that to. liavo literary tastes ; is not necessarily to bo •bookish. Tp 'put.it practically,, bookishiio'ss : 'implies a leisurely certain, affec-,. itionafo, dalliance' that is natural to ono ;who Ifeels that tho soul of a book is soniohow. mystically .expressed iii its paper and binding and a public life' to-day'requires haste, ;arid high-pressuro. It isionly in a singularly: constituted nature that the two characters; ,can\livo alongsido, .one,-another.| Wq might oxpeet to find ■iri poets thari in statesmen'. ;, Mrs. , Browning: in " Aurora Leigh-" 'describes such an On-' ginal impulse as will surely grow; into bookishness if leisure dnd, 'say, a cortain aloofness be guaranteed:— .'" . ''Books, books,'books! -I found the seerot. of' a garret-room ; .v ' •Piled'.high with' cascs in my father's' name; .. Piled ■ high, packed large—where, creeping in • and out v • • . -:..; •-Among the giant fossils of my past, " .Like /some, sniall niniblo. mouse.: between the .. ' ribs \ 1 '. Oi a mastodon, I. nibbled here and there , X At this .or that box, pulling through, the gap, In heats -of. terror, haste, victorious joy, ~; The first .'book-first." ' ' •