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Page 46
``Did you effect a cure in the case of N. M.?'' I asked.
``With the greatest of ease,'' answered the doctor. ``By means
of hypnotism I purged his intellectuals of their hallucination,
relieving them of their perception of objects which have no
reality and ridding them of sensations which have no
corresponding external cause. The patient made a rapid recovery,
and, although three months have elapsed since his discharge, he
has had no return of the disease.''
As a class booksellers do not encourage the reading of other
booksellers' catalogues; this is, presumably, because they do not
care to encourage buyers to buy of other sellers. My bookseller,
who in all virtues of head and heart excels all other booksellers
I ever met with, makes a scrupulous practice of destroying the
catalogues that come to his shop, lest some stray copy may fall
into the hands of a mousing book-lover and divert his attention
to other hunting-grounds. It is indeed remarkable to what excess
the catalogue habit will carry its victim; the author of ``Will
Shakespeare, a Comedy,'' has frequently confessed to me that it
mattered not to him whether a catalogue was twenty years old--so
long as it was a catalogue of books he found the keenest delight
in its perusal; I have often heard Mr. Hamlin, the theatre
manager, say that he preferred old catalogues to new, for the
reason that the bargains to be met with in old catalogues expired
long ago under the statute of limitations.
Judge Methuen, who is a married man and has therefore had an
excellent opportunity to study the sex, tells me that the wives
of bibliomaniacs regard catalogues as the most mischievous
temptations that can be thrown in the way of their husbands. I
once committed the imprudence of mentioning the subject in Mrs.
Methuen's presence: that estimable lady gave it as her opinion
that there were plenty of ways of spending money foolishly
without having recourse to a book-catalogue for suggestion. I
wonder whether Captivity would have had this opinion, had
Providence ordained that we should walk together the quiet
pathway of New England life; would Yseult always have retained
the exuberance and sweetness of her youth, had she and I realized
what might have been? Would Fanchonette always have sympathized
with the whims and vagaries of the restless yet loyal soul that
hung enraptured on her singing in the Quartier Latin so long ago
that the memory of that song is like the memory of a ghostly echo
now?
Away with such reflections! Bring in the candles, good servitor,
and range them at my bed's head; sweet avocation awaits me, for
here I have a goodly parcel of catalogues with which to commune.
They are messages from Methuen, Sotheran, Libbie, Irvine, Hutt,
Davey, Baer, Crawford, Bangs, McClurg, Matthews, Francis, Bouton,
Scribner, Benjamin, and a score of other friends in every part of
Christendom; they deserve and they shall have my respectful--nay,
my enthusiastic attention. Once more I shall seem to be in the
old familiar shops where treasures abound and where patient
delving bringeth rich rewards. Egad, what a spendthrift I shall
be this night; pence, shillings, thalers, marks, francs, dollars,
sovereigns--they are the same to me!
Then, after I have comprehended all the treasures within reach,
how sweet shall be my dreams of shelves overflowing with the
wealth of which my fancy has possessed me!
Then shall my library be devote
To the magic of Niddy-Noddy,
Including the volumes which Nobody wrote
And the works of Everybody.
XVII
THE NAPOLEONIC RENAISSANCE
If I had begun collecting Napoleonana in my youth I should now
have on hand a priceless collection. This reminds me that when I
first came to Chicago suburban property along the North Shore
could be bought for five hundred dollars an acre which now sells
for two hundred dollars a front foot; if I had purchased real
estate in that locality when I had the opportunity forty years
ago I should be a millionnaire at the present time.
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