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Page 33
Although Mr. Rice survived the sale of his remarkable library a
period of twenty-six years, he did not get together again a
collection of books that he was willing to call a library. His
first collection was so remarkable that he preferred to have his
fame rest wholly upon it. Perhaps he was wise; yet how few
collectors there are who would have done as he did.
As for myself, I verily believe that, if by fire or by water my
library should be destroyed this night, I should start in again
to-morrow upon the collection of another library. Or if I did
not do this, I should lay myself down to die, for how could I
live without the companionships to which I have ever been
accustomed, and which have grown as dear to me as life itself?
Whenever Judge Methuen is in a jocular mood and wishes to tease
me, he asks me whether I have forgotten the time when I was
possessed of a spirit of reform and registered a solemn vow in
high heaven to buy no more books. Teasing, says Victor Hugo, is
the malice of good men; Judge Methuen means no evil when he
recalls that weakness--the one weakness in all my career.
No, I have not forgotten that time; I look back upon it with a
shudder of horror, for wretched indeed would have been my
existence had I carried into effect the project I devised at that
remote period!
Dr. O'Rell has an interesting theory which you will find recorded
in the published proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(vol. xxxiv., p. 216). Or, if you cannot procure copies of that
work, it may serve your purpose to know that the doctor's theory
is to this effect--viz., that bibliomania does not deserve the
name of bibliomania until it is exhibited in the second stage.
For secondary bibliomania there is no known cure; the few cases
reported as having been cured were doubtless not bibliomania at
all, or, at least, were what we of the faculty call false or
chicken bibliomania.
``In false bibliomania, which,'' says Dr. O'Rell, ``is the
primary stage of the grand passion--the vestibule to the main
edifice--the usual symptoms are flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes,
a bounding pulse, and quick respiration. This period of
exaltation is not unfrequently followed by a condition of
collapse in which we find the victim pale, pulseless, and
dejected. He is pursued and tormented of imaginary horrors, he
reproaches himself for imaginary crimes, and he implores
piteously for relief from fancied dangers. The sufferer now
stands in a slippery place; unless his case is treated
intelligently he will issue from that period of gloom cured of
the sweetest of madnesses, and doomed to a life of singular
uselessness.
``But properly treated,'' continues Dr. O'Rell, ``and
particularly if his spiritual needs be ministered to, he can be
brought safely through this period of collapse into a condition
of reenforced exaltation, which is the true, or secondary stage
of, bibliomania, and for which there is no cure known to
humanity.''
I should trust Dr. O'Rell's judgment in this matter, even if I
did not know from experience that it was true. For Dr. O'Rell is
the most famous authority we have in bibliomania and kindred
maladies. It is he (I make the information known at the risk of
offending the ethics of the profession)--it is he who discovered
the bacillus librorum, and, what is still more important and
still more to his glory, it is he who invented that subtle lymph
which is now everywhere employed by the profession as a
diagnostic where the presence of the germs of bibliomania (in
other words, bacilli librorum) is suspected.
I once got this learned scientist to inject a milligram of the
lymph into the femoral artery of Miss Susan's cat. Within an
hour the precocious beast surreptitiously entered my library for
the first time in her life, and ate the covers of my pet edition
of Rabelais. This demonstrated to Dr. O'Rell's satisfaction the
efficacy of his diagnostic, and it proved to Judge Methuen's
satisfaction what the Judge has always maintained--viz., that
Rabelais was an old rat.
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