Biblwuninia. 



1)5 



bottom of book-collecting — usefulness either in art or letters. Xo- 

 body ought to collect books merely to show them or say he has got 

 them. Mrs. Potiphar had a library of standard authors in wood and 

 leather, and lost the keys of the book-cases. That is a resource suffi- 

 cient for a good many men, and even for some who have large and fine 

 libraries. The fundamental rule is to buy only such books as you 

 want to read and to read more than once. A man does not sit down 

 at table unless he wants to eat, and he should not purchase books un- 

 less he is hungry to read. Collecting books should spring from the 

 feeling that one cannot get along without them. There are some 

 books, however, that are useful as monuments of the arts of printing, 

 engraving, illumination and binding, and one is excusable for acquir- 

 ing them for study in these respects, as well as for perusal. The 

 books of the fifteenth century, the first century of printing, are mainly 

 desirable in this view, although, of course, many of them are valuable 

 to scholars, especially in the study of the classics. 



To a man who reads, the buying of one book entails the purchase of 

 others. To instance my own experience, my first purchase was Pres- 

 cott's Historical Works, at the age of eigh teen. After reading Prescott, 

 I felt that I must read Wilson's " Conquest of Mexico," in which 

 Prescott's authorities and statements are seriously impugned. Prescott 

 also necessitated the biography of Las Casas, and finally Squier's 

 " Peru." My early acquaintance with Prescott led me at length to 

 "illustrate" a copy of his life by Ticknor. This, it seems to me, is 

 the way in which libraries should originate and grow. One should 

 buy books as he wants to use them. To take another example : it is 

 impossible to read Ruskin's " Modern Painters" intelligently without 

 constant access to the illustrated editions of Rogers' " Italy " and 

 "Poems," Turner's "Liber Fluviorum," Campbell's "Poems," Fin- 

 den's " Illustrations of the Bible and of Byron's Life and Works," and 

 the like. Therefore when one gets Ruskin he must have these others. 

 So a library should be like Topsy, not born, but should grow. Noth- 

 ing more clearly stamps the hollowness of the pretensions that many 

 people make of a love for books than two fashionable modern customs ; 

 one, to speak of a library as a room in a house without any books in 

 it ; the other to put the books into the front and most public room in 

 the house, instead of a retired and quiet apartment where one can read 

 and write. Mrs. Potiphar doubtless had her library in her reception- 



If one can afford it he should buy none but the very best editions 

 at the start. Better, of course, have cheap editions, like the Tauch- 

 nitz, than none, but there is health, comfort and economy in the best. 



