THEY NEVER RETURN

Evening Star, Issue 17922, 18 March 1922, Page 12

THEY NEVER RETURN

LENT BOOKS AND THEIR FATE.

(Written for the ‘ Evening Star.’)

[By Cyrano.j

At last one hears something good of the Russian. Bolsheviks. They have, I suppose, born accused of every sin and ennto from promiscuous immorality to murder with medieval forms of torture But one redeeming bit of policy .stands to their cmiit, They have made it an'offence not to return borrowed books. Iwo book borrowers, it is reported, have just been sentenced to seven and a-half months imprisonment at Moscow. The Peoples Court holds,” raid the. president, as quoted in ono of the Bolshevik organs, “ that the criminal dishonesty of some citizens about books ought to be rooted out. ’ To which a world of book-lovers bereft of some oi their precious possessions says wholehcwtedly “Hear, hear!” The pronouncement stands amid tho gloom of Russia like .Portia’s candle—“a good deed in a naughty world." What were the borrowed books in these CeiSCS i One’s curiosity is touched. Was Kail Marx’s ‘ Das Ivapital ’ —tho Gomnuini't’s Bible—one of them? If so, it would explain completely the. severity of the sentence. Human nature in .the matter of books is much the same in Russia, as in countries that still groan under the yoke of Capitalism; but Russians may pride themselves on leading tho world in devising a punishment tor tho crime. How lax morals aro in this respect! People seem to think less of keeping borrowed books than of appropriating umbrellas or defrauding the Government or dodging pannent of tram fares, bo many of one's hooks are like “ snow upon tho desell's dusty face, lighting a little, hour or two,” before they go—whither T Friends and acnua-intances borrow them, and they do not return. Umbrellas .strayed from clubland s halls Come back, though not in silk; The man who gocth out to balls Returneth with the milk.. Tho swalxnvs come again with spring, That Hit when summer’s spout, But all the seasons fail to bring Me back the books I lent. My senses strayed when Celia smiled, Because her eyes were black;. But now, no more by love beguiled. I've got them safely back. My heart I gave returned to mo As lightly as it went: E’en hopes long lost once more I see, But not the books I lent. All things return; in twilight grey

Day dies to dawn anew; The beef that’s sent below to-day Will be to-morrow’s stow. The bill collector comcth back With covetous intent. All things return, except, alack! The books that I have lent. They stood in “russia" side by side. They filled one rosewood shelf;

They now belonging, far and wide, To any but myself. Oh, take my word, this world of pain Will fizzle out and end Before you’ll ever see again The books—the books you-lend.

Who wrote this I do not know. I£ anyone who reads this does know, let him declare the author’s name, that we ma.y thank him. Where is that ‘Lorna Doone,’ so dear to me because it is the copy in which I first followed the immortal story of Lorna and John Rich!? Where is Masefield’s ‘Salt-water Ballads'? Where is—but I have forgotten the names of the other books whoso ownership the borrowers have forgotten. A friend of mine offered me the other day the last volume of Mr John Buchan’s ‘History of the War ’ so that I could complete my set, and when I expressed surprise that he should spoil his he explained in a pained voice that it was already hopelessly spoilt through various borrowers not having returned various • volumes. I hear the superior person ask: “Why don’t you keep a note of your lendings?’’ Why not, (indeed? But there are so few of us that are so methodical as that, , 1 started keeping such a check, but it went the way of 1 many other good resolutions. Sometimes it is a case of “ never the time and the place and the record all together.’’ A friend comes in to spend the evening or drops in when you are working. “ May I borrow this, old chap?” “Certainly; with the greatest of pleasure.” Then when he is gone you resume your reading by the.fire or plunge again into your work. The list of borrowed books may bo in another room, or you haven’t a pencil in your pocket. Then some weeks or months later you want that book. You want it at once, and you want it very badly. “ Now, who did I lend that book to?” You try Brown, but Brown pleads not guilty; and then you try Smith, and so on, until you give it up. ,-V year or two later, if you are lucky, Robinson meets you and says: “ I say, old man, I’m awfully sorryj I was going over my books the other .day and I found one of yours.” You feel inclined to gay: “Confound you for a careless idiot. I’ve wanted that book badly.” But what you do say is: “That's all right. There’s no hurry. Return it whenever you like.” Now, it this were Russia you could summon a Red Guard and say sternly; “Away with this malefactor to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat." Apart from their carelessness in keeping no record of transactions, lenders are to blame in one respect. Too often they do not write their names in books. Months afterwards the borrower perhaps says “Now, whose is this book?” and, not being able to answer the question, absorbs the volume into his collection. That is the advantage of having a bookplate. It requires some nerve to keep a book if it has someone else’s name on the flyleaf, but more if it has an impossible “ Ex Hhrls—John Brown ” on the inside of the cover. But when all is said about the carelessness of the lender, the offence of the procrastinating or acquisitive borrower stands out monumentally. To the book-lover books are more than possessions ; they are part of himself, and their loss lists about it a touch of bereavement.

It was at this point in the article that someone intervened. “ I quite agree with all you have written,” said tho intruder, “ but I have just been going through your shelves, and here (indicating a number of volumes) are some books that you really ought to return.”

Moral: Wo are all sinners in tho matter of borrowed books. The difference between us is that some resist temptation and try to lead a better life, while others are beyond 1 redemption, The latter ought to go to Prussia.