END OF THE PRIVATE LIBRARY.

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14584, 5 February 1921, Page 9 (Supplement)

END OF THE PRIVATE LIBRARY.

TRAGEDY OF DEAR BOOKS. "The people most interested in books cannot now buy them, or only to a very limited extent," says the Spectator. "This does not mean that they read new books; it means only that they read them quickly and read them once. The serious-reading public has had to re-arrange its expenditure, and has done so upon a system which does not admit of an expanding private library. "This new habit of economy cannot be without effect both upon literature and upon the public mind. The lending libraries, to do them justice, now supply themselves well not only with novels and biographies, but with historical, critical, and scientific works of almost every description. Serious books are widely read by a vast number of people who perseveringly demand them, patiently stand in queues to get them, and conscientiously read them as fast as possible. They do not get exactly the same pleasure out of these hired books as though they were their own, because there is a subtle joy in possession which enhances even paper and print. There is an immense pleasure in 'making' a library.

We often hear It said, "There is no furniture like books." The sentence when analysed is very silly, but it does express a truth. To sit in a room surrounded as it were by the recognised symbols of thought, by possible companions, by all the delightful, confused, and subtle suggestions, which the names of books evoke, is an acute delight to many persons. Even the old-fashioned decorators who covered the doors with sham book-bacl<s failed to make the notion ridiculous. These joys are now for the rich —and some of the old. Children will be less

brought up among books than lhe> were, and wo leel it will be bad for their imaginations. What is so lull ol possibilities as an unread book with wnosu outward appearance we are itiiniiiar'.' lluwever, it is the books which will be alfecied more than the readers by tlie lact thai ihey must now tic written not to bo possessed by anyone, but to be hired by all. '"lne reading public is far larger than ever it was. Hie humblest lending library must now supply something besides 'trash.' Un the oLher hand, all books must aim at popularity. Less than ever can a publisher afford to accept anything which will only appeal to tlie few. Consciously or unconsciously every writer strains every nerve to make his appeal general. Just as we all want a print which will not 'try' our eyes, so we all want matter which will not 'try' our attention. We want books on any subject, however, which we can read 'at any time,' not which we must sit down and study. We must be able to begin and finish it within a reasonable time. Very likely more than one other person in the household is waiting to look at it, and we cannot ever forget the fact that it must "go back." There is no longer any question of getting it to "keep." There is no thought of making a friend of it, quoting it, using it how and then as a book of reference. We do not expect—and consequently writers do no give us—the qualities which go to make it all these things. We know we shall almost at once forget the book in detail and remember only tin impression tliLi it made upon us. Tlie reviewers may convict ihc vivid historian of certain errors of date, or even ignorances of fact; hut that part of the review does not as a rule interest the reader who thinks the criticism "professional" and rather "petty." A sincere picture is by no means always an accurate one. Men draw things as they sec them from where they stand. The> know that a landscape painted at sunset will be changed at dawn.. No one attempts to say the last word about anything; few people suppose even their own conclusion to be final. Tho old idea of the verbal inspiration of all printed books died very bard, but it is dead at last. We read as we talk; neither reader nor writer is in any sense upon oath. The first purpose of the modern book is lo make a man think, not to tell him what to think, and we read books as we read life —-to gain experience. "Hut it may be said, Are you not confusing literature and journalism? We would reply, Are they not confusing themselves? Circumstances are forcing the reading world to read books as they read papers, and forcing writers to write so as to be so read. Will great men ever he content to write like this? Possibly not; hut. where are the great men? E\;en when they "reappear I bey must by all precedent be in a sense the outcome of their time. There was a tendency—in cheaper days—for the greatest writers lo make their appeal to those who had leisure and to be wilfully and perversely involved and difficult. Surely, if this tendency had been carried much further, it would in itself have been destructive. The necessity to be popular is not the only constraint which proves fatal (o letters. Another generation of genius may arise in which inspired men will write deliberately for the man in the street. The artistic tyrants may have to learn that the only way to rule all is to be the servant of all."