We recall many a charming tale, done in the most Lamb-like of accents, regarding the rare and curious old volumes picked up at the farthing stalls. Le Gallienne has reminisced most delightfully and incredibly in this fashion, as have others; but I, for one, long ago decided that these degenerate days never witnessed such discoveries as those recorded in le temps jadis.
Many and many an hour have I spent delving along dusty shelves in grimy shops, or by the less alluring ways of the spick-and-span, rebound and furbished, dustless and listed Olde Book Shoppe whose displays are priced at their weight in carets. In both have I been disappointed. Many a catalog have I pored over, only to decide that all catalogs are supplied from publishers' remainders.
One concludes that the old book trade is a thing of the past, at least so far as we none too affluent consumers are concerned. The dealers know too much about their wares and are too eager after excess profits. They fatten upon the rich manufacturer who seeks scholarly polish, or the scholar who has inherited the price of gratification. If they find an Elzevir, however mean, they placard it at a rare price, and await the victim who thinks that all Elzevirs are treasures.
Once, indeed, I found a little shop in New Orleans, off the tourist lanes, where I encountered over a score of delightful volumes in French, filled with hand-tinted plates, at some very low figure. Alas! I had just been entrapped in Royal street and had but little money left. I bought a number of the sweet tooled-morocco volumes at some little sacrifice, and went my way. Later, in funds, I returned for the remainder of the set, only to find that a famous playwright had discovered the treasure—and all were vanished.
With this exception, luck was seldom mine. Old book shops were many, bargains few. From city to city it was the same old story; until, upon a cold and foggy night in San Francisco, I chanced to pass the forbidding and grimy portal of a shop kept by one Healy.
I merely sniffed and turned to catch a jitney; I had come from a survey of certain downtown shops and felt that I had no more time to waste. Then I saw the proprietor, sitting in an easy-chair in his window, which framed dull old spectacles within a luxuriant and mighty fringe of reddish-grey whiskers. Fascinated, I turned again. Once more to try my luck! Hopeless though I knew it to be, I would still essay the impossible—and I entered.
Truth to tell, my entry was compelled less by hope than by that curious spectacle in the window. In the doorway I came to a pause, aghast before a dim array of shelves which at some prior day had been assorted, but were now jumbled and heaped in a most erratic madness of confusion.
The fringed old gentleman in the easy chair was reading one of his own books; and this was an excellent sign. He barely vouchsafed a grunt to my greeting, directed me to switch on the lamps and help myself, then resumed his book and a huge pipe.
As directed, I turned on the lights and began my explorations. Already the mystic alchemy of this stage-setting held me gripped in a pleasant excitation, a glowing confidence that here awaited unguessed treasure-trove!
Mirabile dictu! At the very first turn I pulled down a glorious big volume, newly bound in half morocco, which proved to be no other than Dr. Shaw's Travels in Barbary.
Every map, every letter and engraving and page was perfect, even the paper was as chastely unblemished as when struck off the press of Oxford University in the days of the first George. The press-work, like that of the first folio of Beaumont & Fletcher, was a delight to the eye; abounding in Arabic, old-style Greek, Hebrew and less-remembered tongues, it was all as nobly executed as if it had been drawn by hand and lithographed.
A price was penciled on the flyleaf; it would scarcely have amounted to taxicab fare home. I sighed over the high insolence that prompts dealers to face their customers with the prices these wares fetched twenty or fifty years ago; then I turned to the fringed divinity with tremulous query.
"Everything marked plain," he made response, without raising his eyes from the book in his lap.
Ye gods and little bookworms—the dream had come true! Or was it a chance find—perhaps some lure to catch unwary feet?
No matter; within five minutes dinner was forgotten, all responsibilities put aside, and I was hooked fast. Those unordered shelves held everything from Russian novels to French scientific treatises, and Americana ran riot.
Imagine a copy of Vetelius, that rare edition of saga-chants, for fifty cents; and, no less expensive, a spanking fine copy of Mme. de Grandfort's execrated work on the Louisiana Creoles, serene in its dingy binding of ante-bellum days! Here was the sort of place hitherto found only in romancers' tales!
And a little old French handbook for gardeners, with quaintly tinted plates; or a first edition of Palgrave, or a historical work from the library of the Garde Royale Hussars!
Then the discovery of Ripperda's memoirs—Ripperda, that fine Hollander who became a Spaniard, wearing the collar of the Golden Fleece and ruling all the wide realms of Spain, then passed into Morocco and ruled that land as pasha—Ripperda, who took new religions or families at will, but ruled always until the gout fetched him to a devout Christian end—here was the crowning find!
I staggered home that night freighted with treasure. A few days later I returned, with the intent of further March and seizure; but this time I did not enter. I only turned mournfully from the doorway, above which flaunted the dire announcement:
THIS PLACE HAS CHANGED HANDS
With a Branch of Semper-virens
Unto the end that age to age shall know
The perfect love which Ronsard gave in fee,
How your warm beauty laid cold reason low
And held in fetters all his liberty;
Unto the end that age to age shall see
How your sweet face shrined in his life was lying,
How in his heart you dwelt eternally—
I bring to you this flowered branch, undying,
Which knows no frost to sere its radiant spring!
When you are dead I shall revive you, chaste
And lovely; such the tribute that I bring,
Who in your service find all bliss embraced!
Like Laura, loved of Petrarch, you will live—
At least, while books immortal life can give!