The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field


Main
- books.jibble.org



My Books
- IRC Hacks

Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare

External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd

books.jibble.org

Previous Page | Next Page

Page 3

*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*






Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software
donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. Contact Mike Lough
<Mikel@caere.com>




THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF A BIBLIOMANIAC



BY EUGENE FIELD



Introduction


The determination to found a story or a series of sketches on the
delights, adventures, and misadventures connected with
bibliomania did not come impulsively to my brother. For many
years, in short during the greater part of nearly a quarter of a
century of journalistic work, he had celebrated in prose and
verse, and always in his happiest and most delightful vein, the
pleasures of book-hunting. Himself an indefatigable collector of
books, the possessor of a library as valuable as it was
interesting, a library containing volumes obtained only at the
cost of great personal sacrifice, he was in the most active
sympathy with the disease called bibliomania, and knew, as few
comparatively poor men have known, the half-pathetic,
half-humorous side of that incurable mental infirmity.

The newspaper column, to which he contributed almost daily for
twelve years, comprehended many sly digs and gentle scoffings at
those of his unhappy fellow citizens who became notorious,
through his instrumentality, in their devotion to old
book-shelves and auction sales. And all the time none was more
assiduous than this same good-natured cynic in running down a
musty prize, no matter what its cost or what the attending
difficulties. ``I save others, myself I cannot save,'' was his
humorous cry.

In his published writings are many evidences of my brother's
appreciation of what he has somewhere characterized the
``soothing affliction of bibliomania.'' Nothing of book-hunting
love has been more happily expressed than ``The Bibliomaniac's
Prayer,'' in which the troubled petitioner fervently asserts:

``But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation's way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold and keep,
Whereon, when other men shall look,
They'll wail to know I got it cheap.''

And again, in ``The Bibliomaniac's Bride,'' nothing breathes
better the spirit of the incurable patient than this:

``Prose for me when I wished for prose,
Verse when to verse inclined,--
Forever bringing sweet repose
To body, heart and mind.
Oh, I should bind this priceless prize
In bindings full and fine,
And keep her where no human eyes
Should see her charms, but mine!''

In ``Dear Old London'' the poet wailed that ``a splendid Horace
cheap for cash'' laughed at his poverty, and in ``Dibdin's
Ghost'' he revelled in the delights that await the bibliomaniac
in the future state, where there is no admission to the women
folk who, ``wanting victuals, make a fuss if we buy books
instead''; while in ``Flail, Trask and Bisland'' is the very
essence of bibliomania, the unquenchable thirst for possession.
And yet, despite these self-accusations, bibliophily rather than
bibliomania would be the word to characterize his conscientious
purpose. If he purchased quaint and rare books it was to own
them to the full extent, inwardly as well as outwardly. The
mania for books kept him continually buying; the love of books
supervened to make them a part of himself and his life.

Previous Page | Next Page


Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 28th Mar 2024, 22:39