BOOKS OF TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 9 (Supplement)

BOOKS OF TO-DAY.

LORD DARLING'S HUMOUR

Li-ird Darling, at the annual dinner of the International Antiquarian Booksellers Association, recently said: —" When I find how few people read my own books, I am convinced what good books they are. But I suppose I have made as much by my books as Goldsmith made out of 'lho Deserted Village,' or the author of ' Rassolas ' made out of what ho disposed of to pay for his mother's funeral. I have rriado enough to havo buried several modern authors, and if I could have afforded it, I would have spent my money in that worthy cause. " Old books have their qualities—the smell of them, their leather bindings, their silver clasps, their vellum, their paper —which Ruskin called ' honest old rags.' The trouble " to-day is that the rags are not honest. I like them because they differ so much from modern books, which havo a lot of qualities which I detest. These books have to go to the British Museum. There, a long timo hence, the papyrus of the Pharaohs will be as it was. The book of to-day will be dust, because it is printed on wood, not on pancr. That, at any rate, must bo a consolation to tho antiquarian bookseller."