The Book-Hunter at Home Part 4

The bookman a.s.sented, though inwardly he could not but agree with Mrs.

Brown. Turchetil Le Brun was one thing, and Turchetil Brown quite another. Perhaps, however, a compromise might be reached.

'Is there no other ancient name in your family that would do?' he suggested.

'Yes,' said the genealogist, 'there are two others, but not so good as Turchetil. They are Baldric and BiG.o.d ...'

Truly the study of genealogy has its disadvantages. There must have been great bitterness in the Brown household before its mistress obtained her own way, and even more in the heart of our poor friend as he stood at the font and heard his firstborn son irrevocably named--George.

Another friend and brother collector with whom our book-hunter sometimes pa.s.ses an evening is a medical man of no small talent. But attached as he is to his profession, archaeology is for ever striving with medicine for the first place in his affections, and his knowledge of herbals and the literature of alchemy is immense. His collection of works dealing with these subjects is well known to the booksellers, and the book-hunter sometimes receives a line from him asking him to pay a visit for the purpose of examining some recently acquired treasure.

Of late his hobby has taken a curious turn. A chance conversation induced him to inquire into the death of Queen Anne. He professed to discover, in the accounts of her demise, certain symptoms which indicated a different disease from that usually a.s.signed to her. So now he must needs hold an inquest upon the death of each one of our sovereigns, from the time of King William the Conqueror. He is exceedingly enthusiastic about it, and is preparing a paper to read before the local antiquarian society. In this he hopes to prove conclusively the impossibility of lampreys having had any share in the death of Henry the First, which was clearly due to appendicitis.

Sometimes when the book-hunter visited his medical friend he would find another collector there already, deep in bookish or scientific talk. Like the doctor, the biologist was a specialist in books no less than in science, and his hobby comprised a field till recent times untilled. Keen though he was in his pursuit, it was the sea that claimed his every day of leisure. An active mind, eager in the elucidation of the more abstruse problems of physiology, yet his alert bearing, his quickness of movement and springy step, spoke more of the quarterdeck than the laboratory.

Denied the sea as a profession, his heart was for ever in ships; and when at length preferment took him inland to one of the ancient seats of learning, the ordered training of his mind turned his hobby towards the history and evolution of all craft that sail upon the waters.

He is a great authority upon all matters pertaining to the rigging of mediaeval ships. The history of their hulls he leaves to the attention of the important societies of nautical research. But on the evolution of the sky-topsail or fore-top-gallant-backstays his word carries much weight.

He will travel a hundred miles in a week-end to see an illumination or carving of a ship, and his vacations he spends touring France and Flanders in search of stained gla.s.s windows that may throw some light upon his hobby. His collection of seals incised with ancient ships is a fine one, and the proceedings of more than one society are the richer for his researches.

Not long ago I came across another example of the manifold uses to which a private library can be put. A friend had given me a letter of introduction to a collector with whom he desired me to become acquainted. I was given to understand that the fellow-spirit was an exceedingly well-read man, and something of a wanderer.

'He's a great traveller,' said my friend with a laugh, 'there's hardly a country in the world that he has not visited.'

'What an interesting man he must be,' I replied, 'but why do you laugh?'

'Oh, you'll see all right presently,' said he; 'but go and spend an evening with him; you will certainly be entertained--provided you are sympathetic and content to let him do all the talking.'

So a few days later I called at the house of the traveller. He welcomed me in his study, a fine large room yet possessed of that cosiness imparted by the presence of many books. The walls were entirely covered with bookcases to a height of about eight feet; and these contained, he told me, about three thousand volumes. At the end of this long room was a wide bay window, and here was placed a comfortable easy chair with twin oak tables, very strong and low, at either arm. Close at hand were a revolving bookcase and a stand containing five or six j.a.panned cylinders about three feet long, and some six inches across, such as are used to contain nautical charts.

'You are fond of travel, are you not?' I remarked, as soon as I was settled. 'Jones told me that there are few countries with which you are unacquainted.'

'That is so,' he replied; 'travel has always been my pa.s.sion from my youth up, and of all the volumes which you see around you, there are scarcely a hundred that do not treat of some foreign country or voyage.'

'How interesting,' I replied; 'it is a wise old dictum that there is nothing like travel to broaden one's mind. Unless we acquaint ourselves with the opinions held by men of other nations, men whose everyday life differs so widely from our own, who see things consequently from a different standpoint, how can we expect to regard any subject from all its various aspects, which is essential if we are to p.r.o.nounce an opinion which----'

'Quite so,' he interrupted, eyeing me suspiciously, and obviously fearing from my verbiage that he was about to be beset by a bore. (To tell the truth, I was rather glad of his interruption, for the sentence was beginning to get out of hand.) 'As you say, there's nothing like travel to broaden the mind. Why,' he went on hurriedly, 'before I was eighteen I had been up Aconcagua with Conway.'

'Really?' I said, trying to a.s.sociate the two with a country and a date.

(Of course I knew where Aconcagua was--it was one of the most familiar names in my geography, only for the moment memory was a little refractory. Obviously it was a mountain, because he spoke of having been 'up' it. The name had a Spanish ending--of course! now I knew.) 'A wonderful country, Mexico,' I went on.

'Mexico?' said he; 'yes, I know Mexico too. Been right through it, from Chihuahua to Tehuentepec and Campeachy.' (This was unfortunate, but apparently he didn't notice the mistake, for he went on at once.) 'But as I was saying, I'd been up Aconcagua before I left school.'

'Good gracious,' I replied, amazed at his intrepidity, 'that must have been an experience!'

'Rather,' said he: 'Haven't you read Conway's book? Published in '02, I think.' He strode across the room and brought back a volume. 'Yes, 1902: capital book; well worth reading. But Mexico,' he continued, without giving me time to display the knowledge that I suddenly recollected as I turned the pages of the book, 'Ah! there's a country for you! How I enjoyed my first visit! Ever been there?'

'Alas! no,' I replied; 'but one of my fondest dreams has been to visit the ancient cities of the new world.' (I thought that was rather nicely put.)

'Charnay,' he said; 'you know Charnay, then? It was he who took me there first. Early 'eighties, I think.' He pulled out another volume and turned to the t.i.tle-page. 'Here we are, "The Ancient Cities of the New World,"

'87. My copy is only the translation, published two years after the original appeared.'

This puzzled me rather. If he had been eighteen in 1902, he must have been a mere babe in 1885.

'Rather young, were you not, when you were there?' I ventured.

'Young? Why?' he replied.

'Oh, only because you said that you were eighteen when you ascended Aconcagua in 1902, so I thought that you must have been rather young when you were in Mexico in 1885.'

He stood still and stared at me, a puzzled look on his face.

'Good gracious,' he said, 'didn't Jones tell you? Didn't he explain to you about me and my travels?'

'Oh yes,' I hastened to rea.s.sure him, fearful that I had given offence; 'he told me that you were a widely-travelled man; and, if you will permit me to say so, I think he understated----'

'Yes, yes,' he went on, 'but didn't he tell you _how_ I travelled? Didn't he tell you that I had never been out of Europe? This is my world,' he continued, waving his arm round the bookcases; 'here are my Americas, my Africa, my Asia, my Europe, and my Australia. There (pointing to a case by the window) is my West Indies, here (indicating another one) is my Polynesia, there my Arctic and Antarctic. Here (patting the back of the big easy chair) is my steamboat, my mule, and my camel. No weather can delay me, no storm prevent my setting out. Though it snow a blizzard, still can I cross the very summits of the Andes: be there a year-old drought, still may I journey from Sydney to Port Darwin overland.'

I could only marvel at the man. No world-wide traveller could have been prouder or have found greater satisfaction in the contemplation of his travels. And a further conversation a.s.sured me that, a.s.sisted by a good memory, he knew more, far more, of the countries about which he had read so many books than did ninety-nine out of a hundred of the tourists who had actually visited those lands.

'Don't think,' he said, 'that I merely pa.s.s my time reading promiscuously all manner of books of travel. I do nothing of the sort. At the beginning of each year I map out the countries I intend to visit during that year.

So much time is allotted to each, according to the size of the country and that of its travel literature. Then I compile a list of the books that I intend to read, and the order in which they should be read. I have a fine collection of maps, and those tin cylinders over there contain charts, by means of which I am enabled to follow more accurately and minutely the different journeys and voyages that I make.

'Let me give you an example.' Here he took a thin octavo book from one of the cases. 'This is Commodore John Byron's narrative of the loss of H.M.S. _Wager_, one of Anson's squadron, on the coast of Chili, in 1740.

It was published in 1768, and is, in my opinion, one of the most thrilling tales of shipwreck and suffering that has ever been written. I dare say you remember Campbell's beautiful lines in "The Pleasures of Hope"; they are pencilled on the fly-leaf of my copy:--

'"And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore The hardy Byron to his native sh.o.r.e-- In horrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 'Twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock, Scourg'd by the winds, and cradled on the rock, To wake each joyless morn and search again The famish'd haunts of solitary men."

'There is no map in the volume, much less a chart, to show where the ship struck, though we are told that the land was "on the larboard beam, bearing N.W.," and that they landed "in the lat.i.tude of between 47 and 48 South." But without charts and maps how can one possibly follow the journey of the four poor sufferers along the coast on that terrible march from Mount Misery (as they named the inhospitable promontory where they landed) to civilisation on the island of Chiloe? With my maps I can follow their every footstep, with my chart I may visit each inlet that their frail canoe entered. Nor need I refer to these aids whenever I may turn to the volume again, for here (he unfolded a beautifully drawn map bound at the end of the volume) I have copied a chart which shows with a red line the whole of their terrible journey. I have done this with several of the older works on travel which I possess, books that were published without maps.'

To me at least it was a new aspect of book-collecting, and an interesting one. But I confess to having been impressed more by its originality and the patient perseverance of its devotee than by the knowledge which it had enabled him to acc.u.mulate. His was a vast knowledge, yet limited; for it was confined almost entirely to the topography and early exploration of the countries which he studied, together with such sociology as he would glean midst travellers' accounts of adventures and sport.

Development, resources, industry, had little place in it. He was thoroughly conversant with the early history of Australia, could recite the names of all the early pioneers, and could plot Burke's expedition or Phillip's voyage to Botany Bay. But of Melbourne or Sydney to-day, their size, commerce, exports, the princ.i.p.al industries or railways, of these he knew nothing. On the other hand, with those countries which have come less quickly under the hand of civilisation, such as New Guinea or West Africa, he was well acquainted. He had followed the history of this last down to fairly modern times, knew the story of every settlement from Bathurst to the Bight and to Benguela, with their princ.i.p.al exports; and could talk interestedly with any dweller on 'the Coast.'

He is still comparatively a young man. If ever he sets out to see the world for himself, his pleasures will far exceed those of the ordinary tourist. Wherever he may go, he will need no guide-book to instruct him, in history at least. And he will visit out-of-the-way spots unnoticed by these authorities, but dear to him by reason of their mention in the pages of his fireside Mentors, their a.s.sociation with some thrilling though unimportant event of which he has read. Harbours, villages, buildings, will be familiar to him through some old print or coloured engraving; and he will eagerly compare the actual appearance with the mental picture he has borne for so long. Disappointment sometimes there will be, but a delightful antic.i.p.ation always.

I hope, however, that I shall never be his travelling companion!

And here I cannot forbear to mention one other book-collecting acquaintance. A bosom friend of the genealogist, he was at one time a fellow-worker, and they would sit closeted for hours debating the parentage of Henry ap John. But he lacked that determination which prevented his friend from being constantly side-tracked, and the minutiae of history had a fatal attraction for him. As to whether Hugo de Beauchamp of _Com. Wigorn._ (which was their pleasant way of saying that he lived in Worcestershire) held his manor by serjeanty of the _condimentum_ was of small moment to him compared with the price which King Edward paid him for a couple of goshawks or a greyhound; and he wondered of what sort was the tun of wine which he had from that sovereign as a Christmas present. And so his book-buying became more and more confined, for it was restricted now to those curious and uncommon works which treat of the byways of history; such as the Accounts of the Wardrobe and Hanaper, the reports of the lords marchers of the realm, books on feudal customs and offices, and the like.

During the great war our friend busied himself with His Majesty's ordnance. Hitherto he had always a.s.sociated the term with cast-iron cannon, and had vague recollections of the number of 'ordnance' carried by the Great Harry or fired from the Tower of London during Sir Thomas Wyatt's insurrection. But even when these dreams were dispelled, his thoughts still harped on mediaeval equipment and harness while checking cases of boots or mess-tins; and he wondered how such things were managed before the days of railways. Released at length from this employ, his interest increased with leisure to pursue his investigations.

His pa.s.sion now is the method in which the ancient campaigns of this country were conducted. He is quite an authority upon mediaeval transport, by sea as well as by land, and he can tell you at once the quant.i.ties of bowstrings and quarrels 'indented for' during the Crecy and Poictiers campaigns. Not long ago, poring over an ancient roll of parchment in the Record Office, he came across a list of the ships requisitioned for the Agincourt expedition, with their names, ports, and tonnage, inscribed on the back of one of the membranes. Great was his delight, and it will be some time before his friends will be allowed to forget this important discovery.

How valuable are these researches of our book-collecting friends! Do they not add a zest to those delightful evenings when, with curtains drawn and blazing fire, our favourite pipe aglow, a tall gla.s.s at our elbow, we hunt our treasures o'er again in comfort, roaming the bookstalls of our fancy? It is well, however, that our humours in book-lore are not all alike, else how tedious would some of these conferences become. Elation and jealousy would be hard to banish at times when we held some coveted volume in our hands. But with divergence of tastes such feelings cannot exist, and we eagerly share our friends' enthusiasm in their treasures and their delight in some newly-found gem.

It is a very serious business, this book-collecting. Whether we are contented now to let our library be slow of growth, or whether we are still imbued with the ardour of our early youth, we are none the less under the spell of books. Our paths may lie outside the pale of book-land for years, but the chance handling of a valuable or scarce volume will instantly awaken all our bibliophilic desires. Book-collecting is not like other pursuits. In after years we may realise that many of our hobbies are but vanities, but the love of good books is something far beyond all these ephemeral pursuits.

Doubtless few of us realised at the outset of our careers as book collectors how completely we should be mastered by this love of books.

Who did not think that it comprised but occasional visits to the book-shops and bookstalls, perhaps even to an auction-room, and the reading of nondescript catalogues? But it is like all other hobbies: ridden at first with too little restraint, it soon gets the upper hand, and off it goes, bit between teeth, carrying its rider ever farther and farther afield. And no man of spirit would think of seeking to curb his hobby's gallop. We have mounted of our own free will, determined to pursue the chase, and never shall it be said that we were too timid to face the difficulties of the country ahead. The greater the difficulties the greater the sport, and in our enthusiasm we are determined to overcome all obstacles. So that, though our hobby may at length become our master, so enthralled are we in the pursuit that there is little danger of it a.s.suming the semblance of a nightmare.