18 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
T HESE lines are writ¬ 
ten as an answer 
(for 1 haven’t the cour¬ 
age to make it face to 
face) to an Hibernian 
handmaid w h o recently 
spring-cleaned the library. Not that she will ever see them, or 
understand, should she see them ; satisfaction must be gained 
in the expression. The brute (she really was) wiped all the 
dust off the books, put half of them back on the shelves up¬ 
side down and then had the effrontery to say that she didn't 
see why we kept the old truck anyhow. 
Returning the books upside down one can forgive and rec¬ 
tify ; mixing un-Comstocked Boccaccios and unctuous Matthew 
Arnolds and renegade Arabian Nights is only a venial sin; 
wiping off the dust of many years’ silent, patient accumulation 
is regrettable—nothing more; but to call books truck, to infer 
that one ought to throw them out because one rarely touches 
them, to state that one grows out of them in the same way 
he grows out of knickerbockers and shirt bands and boots— 
this is past comprehension. For the library is the only instance 
where one can pour new wine into old bottles without the 
accustomed results. Besides, whether one does or does not 
grow up in books depends on one’s attitude. 
T HERE are two attitudes one can hold toward books; two 
and a shadowy third. One can look upon them as having 
decorative value, like a length of beautiful fabric, or a candle¬ 
stick or a chair, which is the aforesaid shadowy third; one 
can consider them from the viewpoint of Bridget on a ram¬ 
page of spring cleaning—that they are an abominable nuisance; 
or one can cherish them as part of one’s self—flesh of the flesh 
and bone of the bone. What we think of books doubtless 
means very little to the books; a cat may look at a king. But 
what we think of books does mean a great deal to the rest of 
the world, because it is a fairly reliable index of the way we 
look upon life, upon other men and women. 
The man who considers books a decorative asset—things 
to be bought by the yard to fill an allotted space—may seem 
crude and unlettered, but he is not to be dismissed with scorn. 
He may not appreciate but he tolerates, and toleration is the 
threshold to the abiding place of understanding. True, this 
is a poor attitude, but better than none at all. 
Or one can be concerned with books as the product of 
human endeavor, the consummation of an author's striving and 
sacrifice, the crystallizing in verse or narrative or exposition 
of some splendid pain, some riot of laughter or some night of 
prayer. We may rarely turn a page and still creep in under 
the low gate of those who love books. We may maintain a 
purely passive attitude toward them. Then some day we may 
drain that same chalice of life and catch a glimpse of that 
same glory, and thenceforth the book and we are one. 
Bridget, on the other hand, considers books as things. I 
would consider books as friends—brothers in binding. Bridget, 
the iconoclast, believes that books can get worn out, that one 
can grow up in them. 
OME books are like 
measles — they are 
perfectly permissible in 
childhood. The man who 
indulges in measles at 
fifty, however, is consid¬ 
ered positively immoral. This is wrong. We should cling 
to our measles books—our fairy stories and Mother Goose and 
Br er Rabbit and Slovenly Peter. They have a great meaning 
for us. Take one down and glance* through it. Here are the 
ends attained in the stories—the weak conquer the strong, the 
dull of wit overcome the learned, the innocent are delivered 
out of the hands of their enemies, light is given to them that 
sit in darkness, the mighty are put down from their seats and 
the humble and meek exalted, the hungry filled with good 
things and the rich sent empty away. 
School books we keep from sentimental association, from a 
sense of economy, thinking that they may do for our children 
or because we make a vague promise to ourselves that some 
day we will re-study these subjects. Of course, we never do. 
But there they stay, awaiting the moment when we will want 
to turn aside from work to brush up on the English kings or 
do sums in cube root. 
A third kind which we seem to grow up in are the ones we 
bought in our esthetic, decadent, swashbuckling days. Some 
of us read Swinburne to barmaids and some Oscar Wilde; 
some smoked scented cigarettes, and some wore cravats and 
socks to match. Whatever the form it took it was a glori¬ 
ous consciousness of self—fine ribald laughter, nonchalant 
rioting through the House of Life, heedless, happy, hectic, hot- 
blooded. 
And these three types represent necessary ascending stages 
in the evolution of the youth; his glimpse of truth in the ideal, 
his study of truth in the application, his testing of truth in an 
unfolding life of “instincts immature” and “purposes unsure.” 
T O journey at fifty with Alice in Wonderland, to re-learn 
Euclid, to fling our mental roses riotously with the 
throng, for just such purposes do we keep “this truck” that 
Bridget would cast away. For Bridget is wrong. We do not 
grow up in books, we grow up to them. To throw even one 
of them away would make us as immoral, as inconceivably 
immoral as a drunken archdeacon. 
And there we are, back at the reason why, when the Hiber¬ 
nian handmaid person wanted to throw out some of my books 
in the spring cleaning, simply because I never read them, I 
rebelled. And there they will stay, although she will never 
understand why—because they are my literary G. A. R. who 
fought valiantly with me through the campaigns of childhood 
and youth. They were my battle units—the intrepid scouts 
that led me safe into strange lands, the tireless sappers that 
dug a way through the lines of my enemy, the nurses and 
doctors that soothed and healed my wounds when I dragged 
back from conflicts with relentless men and commerce awearied 
and sorely hurt. 
THE BATTLE OF BRIDGET AND 
THE BOOKS 
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IN A GARDEN OF GRANADA 
The city rumor rises all the day 
Across the potted plants along the wall; 
The sun and winds upon the slopes hold sway, 
Tossing the dust and shadows in a squall; 
The sun is old and weary—weary here 
Upon the aging roofs and miradors, 
The broken terraces and basins drear 
Where each old bell its ancient echoes pours ,— 
Untroubled—save when in the moonlight steals 
Some voice in song across the lower wall, 
And sudden magic each old rafter feels 
The while the echoes round it rise and fall 
For , as the wail of love or sorrow rings 
Along the night, soft steps are on the stair 
And pathway; in the broken window things 
Are stirring; and white arms are lolling there; 
Ringing—what memories to ring—to those And that old rose tree lifts its head anew; 
fii 
That linger here—the lizard and the cat And there is perfume o er the hills afar 
That haunt these solitudes in state morose From where Alhambra’s crescent cleaves the blue 
Through the long day, their habitat ,— To where agleam Genii and Darro are. 
XS~ 
0 , Voice!—what is thy necromantic word 
That all Granada waits adown the years? 
Is it the sound some love-swept night has heard ?— 
The cry of love amid the cry of tears? 
Thomas Walsh. 
, m 
