LETTER XXX.
Dear Charles,—I shall not answer your letter from the
A to the Izzard. I choose to begin at the latter, having a
fancy to attend to the last question first.
It would be hugeously heterodox to speak against Alexandrine
Libraries; especially if a librariless fellow should
venture that way, he would hear “sour grapes,” from the
big book people. But—hem!—to speak in general terms,
the loss of mine is not felt so much as was anticipated. For,
primo, I somehow or other read not much more when I had
books; and when the books went for my nourishment in the
bodily sense, and were eaten in the ancient Greek's style, I
only thought what a dreadful thing to be without my library,
in case it is ever needed!
I have a notion, Charles, that most books in a man's library
are never opened. Books are usually, I apprehend,
little more than a cabinet of curiosities, whose use and excellence
are in the outside. One may be a man of books,
and yet not a book-man. In the former case, but for the
name of the thing, books may as well be veritable boards, all
through, as to be bound merely in boards; and the extra gilt
and beauteous coloring might be put on the wooden representatives,
and not on the russia-leather or calf-skin of genuine
tomes. Which way economy would be consulted, I am
at a loss to decide.
But secundo, Charles, when a man of active mind, like
your humble servant, for instance, has no observations cut
and dried on his library shelves, why, of course he begins in
self-defence to make observations for himself; and having no
authorities, he becomes authority for himself—in other words,
he sets up a domestic manufactory. It may, indeed, be somewhat
perilous to set up for an original; but pray, sir, if we
have no books to think for us, are we to be debarred the privilege
of thinking for ourselves?
Have the authors any monopoly of air and sunshine? Is
man for their sole study? And allowing thinkers the ordinary
capacities, may we not find in the present age materials, as
were found in the by-gone days? Too many books may be
a serious hinderance to thinking, and of course may destroy
the development—yes, that is the approved term—the development
of one's originality. Most books, in fact, are in
no striet sense original, whether of the past or the present
epoch; and you only meet with the same ideas in different
dresses. As to modern books, if they differ, it is mainly in
abridging and condensing the books of former days; or, perhaps,
in dividing some ponderous tome into some fifty fashionable
volumes, being in most instances only cases of silver
for the apples of gold stolen by a pigmy Hercules from some
Hesperidal garden of ancient literature.
The present art and taste is to make frames for other
men's pictures; and so successful are the workmen as to
draw our attention almost exclusively to the frames: in other
words, gilding and engravings are prized more than thought
and style. The printer, the engraver and the bookbinder
make our books now; which, perhaps, answer well enough
for ladies and gentlemen constructed by the milliner and the
tailor. Perhaps your reverence may say that this militates
against our doctrine of originality; but please remember that
the artists who make our books and our ladies and gentlemen,
may be very original in their way: certainly they
sometimes make very odd-looking affairs!
One danger, however, to a thinker who has few or no
books, is that of supposing himself to have discovered what has
been found by no others: he may easily discover what is vulgarly
called “a mare's nest,” or imagine his China to be the
centre of the world. But a deep thinker, of well-exercised
powers, sees things so naturally as to believe such must have
occurred to any other studious person. Hence he often hides
his discoveries, from a persuasion that they must have been
already seen and told. A man of originality, with a very
limited acquaintance with books, may also think meanly of
his own views, and be therefore slower to speak than the
man of books. In this case, a library would be useful in
several ways. It would teach him that other thinkers have
thought as he has, and that will prevent his supposing himself
any thing specially uncommon. It will also, on the other
hand, increase his confidence, by teaching him that thoughts
like his have been deemed worthy of record, and that he
need not fear to write or speak.
However, Charles, some books I have ever deemed a serious
loss—my tool-books. I am now very often like a respectable
carpenter or mason, that can contrive a building, and according
to the laws of architecture, but he has no instruments
with which to work and give just form to his conceptions.
For this reason my drama “Esau and Jacob” is abandoned.
The outlines of the plan have for years been with me; but
my Commentators, my Antiquities, my Chronologies, my sacred
Geographies, et id omne genus, are gone!
There is in my recollection a mass of needful facts, yet
all jumbled, indistinct, misty. What I do remember is of no
use, and only makes me lament my loss. Indeed, the very
conception of my piece must be incomplete without a distinct
knowledge of some matters; and unless I could have
been buried a while in the ancient and oriental, my conception
would of necessity be too modern and occidental.
Upon the whole, I value comparatively little result-books.
Such, persons of cultivated talents and careful observation
can make for themselves; or, in other words, they can
think
them. But tool-books (among which class are books of a
causative or impulsive character) are, in “my very humble
opinion,” the only ones thinkers need in a library.
Charles, I am not aware of having brought “a railing
accusation” against any body. A generous indignation is
often unavoidable, and one cannot refrain sometimes from
saying, “Oh! full of malice and all subtlety! thou child of
the devil!” Surely, the absolutely literal interpretation may
not be put, in all cases, upon the scriptural precepts about
forbearance and patience under injuries and insults. If so,
then half a dozen wicked assassins might in open day assault
and murder all the pious citizens of a single village.
It is often important that things get their proper names.
And when patriarchs, or popes, or bishops, or presbyters, do
forbid liberty of conscience, and finding no cause of crime
in dissenters, except in the matter of their God and religion,
and do begin to persecute under the pretence of maintaining
the law of the land, and do contrive to have the law of the
land spread as a strong net around good men, then may good
men stand up and say, “Thou hypocrite! thou sittest to judge
me according to God's revealed law, and dost thou command
me to be beaten, and robbed and murdered, contrary to that
law?”
Circumstances may require individuals to submit, and
“take joyfully the spoiling of their goods;” but if good men
are a nation, they may defend themselves against the assaults
of persecutors as against ravening wild beasts, or any
other assassins. For, while offensive war for the propagation
of religious opinions is of hell, yet is defensive war, in
protection of our rights, civil and religious, proper.
And that thesis we can maintain. But I shall add no more.
