THE COLLECTING HABIT

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 2

THE COLLECTING HABIT

[Written by Mary Scott, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] The human conscience is a strange, dark, and l unexplored territory. You may know a person for- years, think them truthful, honest, and reasonable, and then find them out in some sxll> little deception, some feeble pretence or unnecessary lie. Worse still, if yon aro honest, you will make even more disturbing discoveries about yourself. You prido yourself upon your sincerity, yet hear your own voice uttering insincere regrets over the departure 1 of a guest who has bored you, dishonest condolences upon some entirely deserved and utterly unnecessary calamity. You may consider yourself upright beyond reproach, yet secretly gloat over cheating the Customs, or concealing a letter (a shameful weakness against which I struggle) in a posted parcel. Yes, it were well for every one of ns to take heed lest he fall—and that when he fancies himself most secure. It follows that when we condone our own idiosyncrasies (by which I mean those lapses that we call grave faults in other people) we are yet totally unable to understand the strange sins which our friends unaccountably commit. Having, by this preamble, sought to defend myself in advance from any charge of self-righteousness, I venture to say that one form of dishonesty that never ceases to amaze me is that of the book borrower who fails to return his borrowing.. It is the commonest of all forms of carelessness, (please note that I give it its most charitable name), and to the book-lover it seem& almost incredible that anyone couldi see on his shelves a book that does not ■ belong to him and yet feel no pricking of conSCI€IIC6« A similar laxity could never be practised with any other loan. Picture yourself borrowing a friend’s hat, _ coat, torch, kettle, ,or horse, and failing to return it. Every time you opened your wardrobe, looked) into your cupboard, or glanced out of the window, your conscience would prick you so uncomfortably that, for mere self-protection, if not for honesty, you would hasten the borrowing upon its homeward road. Yet many people seem able to contemplate a book upon their shelves —a dozen books —upon whose fly-leaves they know alien names to be written, and feel no unhappy stirrings of shame. I have a friend who is almost boringly meticulous about other people’s possessions, but from whose bookshelf I have taken five books in succession, each with a different name —and none of them her own, “ Dear me, I seem to have some borrowed books about,” she remarks calmly; “I must clear those shelves some day soon.’’ A year later the same books are still there; moreover, they have gathered others of the same kind! unto themselves. Call one of these careless “ borrowers ” a thief and) he would consider himself most shockingly libelled; “ some day ” the books will all be returned; that is the particular brand of conscience-salve that they use. Meantime, the unfortunate owners are pro.bably searching their houses and their memories for the volume, or else hesitating to demand) it “ because X. has had the book so long that I really don’t like to ask for it back’’—surely the most extraordinary reason of all. Why do we moderns, who pride ourselves on calling a spado a spade, treat these marauders with such strange tolerance? They are always “borrowers ” ; they' are never anything hut “ forgetful,” or, at the worst, “ careless”—ail this gentleness, when in reality they are nothing but bare-faced thieves. But we must not call them so; even a distinguished official, whose whole life is spent amongst books, doesn’t do that. It is to be remarked that the assistant librarian of Christ Church Library merely denominates them “ fastidious book-collectors ” in an article dealing with some losses and recoveries.

It is an instructive and entertaining article, describing the method by which the .writer has traced some 34 valuable books and pamphlets stolen from Christ Church almost a hundred years; ago. Most surprising of all is the place or their discovery, for these books were all found in the library of the Rev. H. F. Lyte, a well-known composer of devout hymns and a noted book collector in the stricter and more honourable sense of the word. Another amazing point is that the thieves were able to keep their booty untraced for nearly a hundred years. My Lyie’s library, was sold in 1849, yet it is only now that the presence of these purloined books has been discovered. Let all “ book borrowers ” take note of this kind fortune and be of good cheer.

To picture this devout and erudite clergyman systematically stealing books from the Christ Church Library gives the reader at first sight a distinct shock. So filled are his hymns with sorrow over sin and strivings after virtue, that the contrast with this little habit is almost incredible—and rightly so. Mr Lyte was not the guilty person. The assistant librarian goes on to prove his innocence; was ho not abroad for health reasons during almost all the years when the books were disappearing, and was his presence not entirely unknown within tne learned precincts of this great library? He must therefore be immediately exonerated, and an interesting study of the Jekyll and Hyde order be abandoned. The reverend gentleman remains reverend, and the guilt is transferred to his younger son, who was an habitue of the library, had a passion for rare volumes, and was known to have added considerably to his father’s collection during the year that intervened between that gentleman’s death and his own. It is a sad and ironical reflection that the library for which he stole did not live long after him, for within a year of this light-fingered son’s death his elder brother sold all the books by public auction. That there must exist some subtle distinction between the stealing of books and that of anything else, at least in the mind of the thief, is perhaps proved by the interesting fact that in the Middle Ages the worst book thieves were to be found in the ranks of the clergy, Mr Lyte is happily proved not guilty, but the same cannot be said of Pope Innocent X., who was in the habit of taking rare volumes from the libraries of nis friends and hiding them beneath his robes. A similar reprehensible use of his vestments was made by Bishop More of Ely, who indeed was so well known for the freedom of his “ borrowing ” that his clergy were accustomed hurriedly to conceal their most precious books when the Right Reverend gentleman was about to visit them. In extenuation it may perhaps be remarked that at that period of history only churchmen were able to appreciate, or, indeed, to read, bocks, save in exceptional cases of erudition; even so, it seems an unsuitable use to which to put their robes of office. I found the subject of such illicit “borrowings” interesting enough to consult our librarian upon the subject. Did she, in the course of an average year, lose many hooks? .She showed me her records, which proved that a certain leakage seemed inevitable, although an excellent system had re-

duced it to a minimum. I went homo to ponder the type of person who could appreciate ‘ln tho Steps of the Master ’ eo deeply as to steal it—for it was a noteworthy fact that the list of hooks stolen was almost entirely of the serious order. And, having stolen a book, what is the next stop? How remove nil traces of the crime? The library stamp jecurs with tiresome frequency in every book, its binding is pasted with lists of rules. How turn such a changeling into a desirable inmate of any bookshelf? The question puzzles mo; will some book thief please elucidate?.