BOOKS AND LIFE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13586, 7 May 1906, Page 2

BOOKS AND LIFE.

(By Frank Jlortox.) Un beau livre, Crois lnoi, Aide a vivre Oiic-% soi. I(, has been pointed out, tinio and timo again, thousands of tiinos beyond count, that, one half of the world does riot know how the other half lives. I think that that, is especially true in tho spiritual sense. In intimate matters, Brown cannot understand Jonas, and both are complete strangers to Robinson. Not only do I not know what another man thinks; I am even unable to discover how ho thinks. But I know that each man's thoughts suffice, in some inexplicable fashion, for his conscious needs; and hero is, indeed, a very great mystery. Tho mystery is, however, quite unfathomable. The artist, of whatever degree, cannot understand tho man of normal temperament. Still less can the normal man understand tho artist. It is with a sincere sense of superiority that tho shop-boy yells to the virtuoso to get his hair cut ; and If the virtuoso regards tho shop-boy with greater sympathy and fuller comprehension, it is only bccauso the virtuoso is of finer stuff and a higher development-. The virtuoso knows perfectly well that it has nothing whatever to do with him ■Whether the shop-boys of creation get their hair cut or go for ever greasily unshorn. Truo courtesy is essentially a cultivated product. the artisf can pity even when lie cannot comprehend. Some few months ago I was standing 6n an Australian sidewalk talking to a famous

pianist. Down the street towards us enmo a trumpery little young man, with an impudent grin, the merest scrap of forehead. and the loosest: mouth I ever smv. This prodigy bade my pianist got his hair cut. The artist was not at, all' annoyed, because lie had been in Australia certain weeks. IJe looked round, and I glimpsed a I wild: of twain in his sensitive mouth. " Poor little beast!" he said. That is (lie correct, attitude. Self-sufficiency lounges by with a smirk. Impudence swaggers past, with a lew. Hypocrisy crawls along with a vicious snigger twisting his close' mean mouth. Poor little hea'ls!

This, however, is father' Beside the question. What I set oiit to say was that to Ihe st udious man in the wide sense, the lover and companion of books, the man who does.not road is a source of deep perplexity. In the.se days, when so much of our cheap and ea.sy education is mere trash and tinsel, the man who docs not read is becoming' a very common object of the wayside. What, then, aro his aims, his objects, his ambitions, his desires, his ideals, his hopes, his dreams? When soliludo comes upon him. how doe.s lie people it? When dark shades gather about him, how shall he go forward unafraid? Does lie never realise how' poor and barren his life is, how desolate and unfriended? I'm afraid he doesn't, and I wish ho could, even were it only once a year.

This friendship of hooks' is indeed a very dear and precious thing. This afternoon friends are coming to my house, peoolc I lil.-?; a fine heterogeneous assortment. There will be a man from Vienna and a woman from Pcson. a man from New York and another from Brussels, one or two New Zealande.rs who are aching to travel, and one who has already travelled a good deal. There will 1« pleasant talk, dissociation of ideas, with (as stimulus) the necessary spice, cf wit. But, as-I await the coming of these pleasant souls, I a-in neither lonely rnor impatient. There are other pleasant souls around nw. a right goodly and varied company. To form a library wisely, you must not. consciously set out to form a library. The books must grow about you as they come, or a,5 your needs prompt; tliev must become corporate with you, part of the life of your life. Your intercourse with them must be governed. by every refinement of gentleness. There liiust •bo neither brutalitv nor compromise. You must lend them—if lend thorn you must—only at the right lime, to tjio right, people. If, as a mark of special friendship to Eome loved brother, you ever find yourself jjiving one of your own books away, let it bo done tenderly and with a sensitive regret, as though you gave away your daughter in marriage. Let each of your books have its proper place on your shelves, as it'has its proper place in your heart; and so shall the atmosphere of your room—the room that somehow enshrines the heart ,of your being—bo always an ordered harmony: If you have money, let no extravagance dismay you. • Set a Tanagra figurine cosily here and there. Get. yon obarming pictures, taking special care to hang a. Degas over the mantelpiece. (Over mv own mantel, Degas being worlds beyond nie, I have, preserved in luminous oils, a little model who used to pose at the Julien when Scott Was in Paris. Slio smiles at mo when I'm a trifle hipped and fagged, and sometimes at night I think I can' hear her breathe.) Decide on a hobby i n the .province of first editions. I can recommend illustrated books of the eighteenth century. You will spend n. lot of money so; but you will get a lot of priceless satisfaction.

Meantime, as I was paving, there are pleasant souls about me.' During.(lie week, I have the naughty :.habit of taking up books hastily for re-ferencp,' and. putting them doivn'again as hastily; so that, before each week-end. my table is a jumble of curious literature. At tho week-end, I put every book away again, and am ready for a fresh start?. These easy articles of mine are very much of the nature of,personal confessions; so that there is really ho reason why j shouldj not name, tho friends that lie nearest now. The oensorious may take comfort in tlfe fact that I am a very insignificant and unworthy person. There is, then, Montaigne; whom you know. There is Monsieur Hoguin do. Gilerlo's supple and excellent French translation of the Satyricon. There is a dainty little novel I would especially commend to you—"ln the Quarter." by' Robert W. Chambers. There is ,an odd volume of Heine, and the Bohn version of the Hoptamoron. There is Morrison Davidson's "New. Book, of Kings." Higgledy-piggledy lie "Tlfe Picture of Dorian Grey," " Diana of the Crcssways," and John Honrv Newman's "Miscellanies," Thero is Sir George Cox's " Introduction to Mythology and Folk-lore," ajid. just under it, Mr Louis Dyor's " Tho Gods in Greece " —admirable and helpful books, both. Then we have the " Voyage en Orient" of Gerard do Nerval; one of several volumes of the inimitable letters of that rogue, Bussy llabntin;' "Il Congresso di Citera" of the Count Algarotti; tho "Arcadia" of Mwser Giacopo Sannazaro: " Virginibus Puerisque," by R. L._S,: "The New Paul and Virginia," by AV. H. Mallock; and, with all and among all. scattered cards from my commonplace files. If you are a bookish man, you can now very easily trace the current of my week, on the literary side; and, it will ho apparent to you that in these few books of my few hundreds is material enough to keep a m.i" from loneliness many days.

That, after all, is the chief end of books. Not merely to instruct or to exhort, to broaden or to mako wise; but, with all that, to lie to a man company and solace through this lifo on to tho infinite uncertainties of the vague beyond. Human friends ma.y bo foolish, and, even, in terrible rare cases, false; but these friends in the comely apparel, tho books that stand at one's elbow unflinching through all tho stress of the years, aro permanently staunch and true.

Of borrowers of book's I could say a great deal, but tho spirit is too hot within me. Thero aro the borrowers who, turn down tho pages, and the borrowers who bend back tho. boards. There arc. the dreadful, dreadful people who niako ppncil marks and comments on the margins. There are tho dirty borrowers, who return books soiled and pawed find—well, jijst nasty. There aro tho prudish borrowed—a pestilence! Tho worst and commonest, borrower of all is tho borrower, who does not return the books ho borrows. Compared with all ordinary forms of dishonesty and erimo this is a flagrant outrage, a most, ghastly abuse of .hospitality. In Dunedin I have already lost somo books in this way. notably a "Mariustho Epicurean," of which I was especially fond. But thero you are I

Tho matter of bindings naturally merits gravo attention.- As a rule, the readymade English bindings are in poor taste, and they are never known to wear well. In Franco and Germany, books are published in paper covers, just, blown together, and every man has his books bound to suit his personal taste and idea. Tho French are accordingly tho finest binders in tho world. They will, bind you a book daintily and strongly for a couple of francs or less, and they will givo von a binding representing the perfected charm and craftsmanship of great artists, nt any price up to a thousand pounds. For us, 'the, army of little booklovers, fine bindings must always be an impossibility; but pleasant bindings are always within reach. Thanks to. our good friends the second-hand booksellers, we can even get possession of a choice example now and I hen. I have a. dainty calf binding bv Dnromo, enshrining ■ tho equally dainty verso of Gentd-Bernard: and I have excellent examples of half-binding: by Cuzin and other good craftsmen. Bindings should, above all things else, bo suitable, with tooling and ,decor,alion. in keeping with tho character and quality of the book. Occasional verse should not bo entombed in law calf, nor gravo scientific treatises bo made frivolous in bluoitnoroceo. Snakeskin, crocodile, velvet, and all such showy fabrics are better k-'nt. clear of. Bookbinding. I wotild note, is a charming hobby for ladies. The work is interesting and clean, and gives abundant scope to individual taste and fancy. To tradesmen one can only givo tho advico that, booklovers have been giving to tradesmen for centuries—ware shears! The bookbinder in an ordinary establishment, is never happy unless ho is, cutting something. A friend got a book bound for mo the other day. Ho pave it to tho binder with rigid instructions that the edges wore not to.be cut. But the binder's ruling passion triumphed, and my book reached ino wounded and ruined, the edges cut away and impudently speckled. Tliis did not happen to bo a particularly valuable book, but the binder's wilfulness reduced its valuo from £1 to ss. The fact should be borne in mind. The most valuable first, edition becomes practically valueless, once its edges are cut. If it is desired, the top edge may bn deliontelv ffinimed and gilded; but that is all. '

These,. however, are. merely tpehnical details. at"! I find myself just, where T stared, still wondering what the »fat« of mind of (Tie man who is not a bookish man ran be. I don't sunpo3B you are able to tell me, so we'll let it go at that.