Roger had spent a quiet evening in the bookshop. Sitting
at his desk under a fog of tobacco, he had honestly
intended to do some writing on the twelfth chapter of his
great work on bookselling. This chapter was to be an
(alas, entirely conjectural) "Address Delivered by a
Bookseller on Being Conferred the Honorary Degree of
Doctor of Letters by a Leading University," and it
presented so many alluring possibilities that Roger's
mind always wandered from the paper into entranced
visions of his imagined scene. He loved to build up in
fancy the flattering details of that fine ceremony when
bookselling would at last be properly recognized as one
of the learned professions. He could see the great
auditorium, filled with cultivated people: men with
Emersonian profiles, ladies whispering behind their
fluttering programmes. He could see the academic beadle,
proctor, dean (or whatever he is, Roger was a little
doubtful) pronouncing the august words of
presentation—
A man who, in season and out of season, forgetting
private gain for public weal, has laboured with
Promethean and sacrificial ardour to instil the love of
reasonable letters into countless thousands; to whom, and
to whose colleagues, amid the perishable caducity of
human affairs, is largely due the pullulation of literary
taste; in honouring whom we seek to honour the noble and
self-effacing profession of which he is so representative
a member—
Then he could see the modest bookseller, somewhat clammy
in his extremities and lost within his academic robe and
hood, nervously fidgeting his mortar-board, haled forward
by ushers, and tottering rubescent before the chancellor,
provost, president (or whoever it might be) who hands out
the diploma. Then (in Roger's vision) he could see the
garlanded bibliopole turning to the expectant audience,
giving his trailing gown a deft rearward kick as the
ladies do on the stage, and uttering, without hesitation
or embarrassment, with due interpolation of graceful
pleasantry, that learned and unlaboured discourse on the
delights of bookishness that he had often dreamed of.
Then he could see the ensuing reception: the
distinguished savants crowding round; the plates of
macaroons, the cups of untasted tea; the ladies
twittering, "Now there's something I want to ask you—why
are there so many statues to generals, admirals, parsons,
doctors, statesmen, scientists,
artists, and authors, but no statues to booksellers?"
Contemplation of this glittering scene always lured
Roger into fantastic dreams. Ever since he had travelled
country roads, some years before, selling books from a
van drawn by a fat white horse, he had nourished a secret
hope of some day founding a Parnassus on Wheels
Corporation which would own a fleet of these vans and
send them out into the rural byways where bookstores are
unknown. He loved to imagine a great map of New York
State, with the daily location of each travelling
Parnassus marked by a coloured pin. He dreamed of
himself, sitting in some vast central warehouse of
second-hand books, poring over his map like a military
chief of staff and forwarding cases of literary
ammunition to various bases where his vans would
re-stock. His idea was that his travelling salesmen
could be recruited largely from college professors,
parsons, and newspaper men, who were weary of their
thankless tasks, and would welcome an opportunity to get
out on the road. One of his hopes was that he might
interest Mr. Chapman in this superb scheme, and he had a
vision of the day when the shares of the Parnassus on
Wheels Corporation would pay a handsome dividend and be
much sought after by serious investors.
These thoughts turned his mind toward his
brother-in-law Andrew McGill, the author of several
engaging books on the joys of country living, who dwells
at the Sabine Farm in the green elbow of a Connecticut
valley. The original Parnassus, a quaint old blue wagon
in which Roger had lived and journeyed and sold books
over several thousand miles of country roads in the days
before his marriage, was now housed in Andrew's barn.
Peg, his fat white horse, had lodging there also. It
occurred to Roger that he owed Andrew a letter, and
putting aside his notes for the bookseller's collegiate
oration, he began to write:
