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Page 13
She was a very pretty child, and she lost none of her comeliness
and none of her sweetness of character as she approached
maturity. I was impressed with this upon my return from college.
She, too, had pursued those studies deemed necessary to the
acquirement of a good education; she had taken a four years'
course at South Holyoke and had finished at Mrs. Willard's
seminary at Troy. ``You will now,'' said her father, and he
voiced the New England sentiment regarding young womanhood; ``you
will now return to the quiet of your home and under the direction
of your mother study the performance of those weightier duties
which qualify your sex for a realization of the solemn
responsibilities of human life.''
Three or four years ago a fine-looking young fellow walked in
upon me with a letter of introduction from his mother. He was
Captivity Waite's son! Captivity is a widow now, and she is
still living in her native State, within twenty miles of the
spot where she was born. Colonel Parker, her husband, left her a
good property when he died, and she is famous for her charities.
She has founded a village library, and she has written me on
several occasions for advice upon proposed purchases of books.
I don't mind telling you that I had a good deal of malicious
pleasure in sending her not long ago a reminder of old times in
these words: ``My valued friend,'' I wrote, ``I see by the
catalogue recently published that your village library contains,
among other volumes representing the modern school of fiction,
eleven copies of `Trilby' and six copies of `The Heavenly Twins.'
I also note an absence of certain works whose influence upon my
earlier life was such that I make bold to send copies of the same
to your care in the hope that you will kindly present them to the
library with my most cordial compliments. These are a copy each
of the `New England Primer' and Grimm's `Household Stories.' ''
At the age of twenty-three, having been graduated from college
and having read the poems of Villon, the confessions of Rousseau,
and Boswell's life of Johnson, I was convinced that I had
comprehended the sum of human wisdom and knew all there was worth
knowing. If at the present time--for I am seventy-two--I knew
as much as I thought I knew at twenty-three I should undoubtedly
be a prodigy of learning and wisdom.
I started out to be a philosopher. My grandmother's death during
my second year at college possessed me of a considerable sum of
money and severed every tie and sentimental obligation which had
previously held me to my grandmother's wish that I become a
minister of the gospel. When I became convinced that I knew
everything I conceived a desire to see something, for I had
traveled none and I had met but few people.
Upon the advice of my Uncle Cephas, I made a journey to Europe,
and devoted two years to seeing sights and to acquainting myself
with the people and the customs abroad. Nine months of this time
I spent in Paris, which was then an irregular and unkempt city,
but withal quite as evil as at present. I took apartments in the
Latin Quarter, and, being of a generous nature, I devoted a
large share of my income to the support of certain artists and
students whose talents and time were expended almost exclusively
in the pursuit of pleasure.
While thus serving as a visible means of support to this horde of
parasites, I fell in with the man who has since then been my
intimate friend. Judge Methuen was a visitor in Paris, and we
became boon companions. It was he who rescued me from the
parasites and revived the flames of honorable ambition, which had
well-nigh been extinguished by the wretched influence of Villon
and Rousseau. The Judge was a year my senior, and a wealthy
father provided him with the means for gratifying his wholesome
and refined tastes. We two went together to London, and it was
during our sojourn in that capital that I began my career as a
collector of books. It is simply justice to my benefactor to say
that to my dear friend Methuen I am indebted for the inspiration
which started me upon a course so full of sweet surprises and
precious rewards.
There are very many kinds of book collectors, but I think all may
be grouped in three classes, viz.: Those who collect from
vanity; those who collect for the benefits of learning; those who
collect through a veneration and love for books. It is not
unfrequent that men who begin to collect books merely to gratify
their personal vanity find themselves presently so much in love
with the pursuit that they become collectors in the better sense.
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