CHAPTER X.
SERVANTS AND CHILDREN.
READER! are you married? Have
you offspring, boys especially I
mean, say between six and twelve
years of age? Have you also a literary
workshop, supplied with choice tools, some for
use, some for ornament, where you pass
pleasant hours? and is—ah! there's the
rub!—is there a special hand-maid, whose
special duty it is to keep your den daily
dusted and in order? Plead you guilty to
these indictments? then am I sure of a
sympathetic co-sufferer.
Dust! it is all a delusion. It is not the
dust that makes women anxious to invade the
inmost recesses of your Sanctum—it is an
ingrained curiosity. And this feminine weakness,
which dates from Eve, is a common
motive in the stories of our oldest literature
and Folk-lore. What made Fatima so anxious
to know the contents of the room forbidden
her by Bluebeard? It was positively nothing
to her, and its contents caused not the slightest
annoyance to anybody. That story has a
bad moral, and it would, in many ways, have
been more satisfactory had the heroine been
left to take her place in the blood-stained
chamber, side by side with her peccant
predecessors. Why need the women-folk
(God forgive me!) bother themselves about
the inside of a man's library, and whether
it wants dusting or not? My boys' playroom,
in which is a carpenter's bench, a lathe, and
no end of litter, is never tidied—perhaps it
can't be, or perhaps their youthful vigour won't
stand it—but my workroom must needs be
dusted daily, with the delusive promise that
each book and paper shall be replaced exactly
where it was. The damage done by such
continued treatment is incalculable. At
certain times these observances are kept more
religiously than others; but especially should
the book-lover, married or single, beware of
the Ides of March. So soon as February is
dead and gone, a feeling of unrest seizes the
housewife's mind. This increases day by day,
and becomes dominant towards the middle of
the month, about which period sundry hints
are thrown out as to whether you are likely to
be absent for a day or two. Beware! the
fever called "Spring Clean'' is on, and
unless you stand firm, you will rue it. Go
away, if the Fates so will, but take the key
of your own domain with you.
Do not misunderstand. Not for a moment
would I advocate dust and dirt; they are
enemies, and should be routed; but let
the necessary routing be done under your
own eye. Explain where caution must be
used, and in what cases tenderness is a
virtue; and if one Eve in the family can be
indoctrinated with book-reverence you are a
happy man; her price is above that of rubies;
she will prolong your life. Books
must now
and then be taken clean out of their shelves,
but they should be tended lovingly and with
judgment. If the dusting can be done just
outside the room so much the better. The
books removed, the shelf should be lifted
quite out of its bearings, cleansed and wiped,
and then each volume should be taken
separately, and gently rubbed on back and
sides with a soft cloth. In returning the
volumes to their places, notice should be
taken of the binding, and especially when the
books are in whole calf or morocco care
should be taken not to let them rub together.
The best bound books are soonest injured,
and quickly deteriorate in bad company.
Certain volumes, indeed, have evil tempers,
and will scratch the faces of all their neighbours
who are too familiar with them. Such are
books with metal clasps and rivets on their
edges; and such, again, are those abominable
old rascals, chiefly born in the fifteenth
century, who are proud of being dressed in
real boards with brass corners, and pass their
lives with fearful knobs and metal bosses,
mostly five in number, firmly fixed on one of
their sides. If the tendencies of such ruffians
are not curbed, they will do as much mischief
to their gentle neighbours as when a "collie''
worries the sheep. These evil results may
always be minimized by placing a piece of
millboard between the culprit and his victim.
I have seen lovely bindings sadly marked by
such uncanny neighbours.
When your books are being "dusted,'' don't
impute too much common sense to your
assistants; take their ignorance for granted,
and tell them at once never to lift any
book by one of its covers; that treatment is
sure to strain the back, and ten to one the
weight will be at the same time miscalculated,
and the volume will fall. Your female "help,''
too, dearly loves a good tall pile to work at
and, as a rule, her notions of the centre of
gravity are not accurate, leading often to a
general downfall, and the damage of many a
corner. Again, if not supervised and instructed,
she is very apt to rub the dust into,
instead of off, the edges. Each volume
should be held tightly, so as to prevent the
leaves from gaping, and then wiped from the
back to the fore-edge. A soft brush will be
found useful if there is much dust. The
whole exterior should also be rubbed with a
soft cloth, and then the covers should be
opened and the hinges of the binding
examined; for mildew
will assert itself both
inside and outside certain books, and that
most pertinaciously. It has unaccountable
likes and dislikes. Some bindings seem
positively to invite damp, and mildew will
attack these when no other books on the
same shelf show any signs of it. When
discovered, carefully wipe it away, and then
let the book remain a few days standing open,
in the driest and airiest spot you can select.
Great care should be taken not to let grit,
such as blows in at the open window from
many a dusty road, be upon your duster, or
you will probably find fine scratches, like an
outline map of Europe, all over your smooth
calf, by which your heart and eye, as well as
your book, will be wounded.
"Helps'' are very apt to fill the shelves
too tightly, so that to extract a book you have
to use force, often to the injury of the top-bands.
Beware of this mistake. It frequently
occurs through not noticing that one small
book is purposely placed at each end of the
shelf, beneath the movable shelf-supports,
thus not only saving space, but preventing
the injury which a book shelf-high would be
sure to receive from uneven pressure.
After all, the best guide in these, as in
many other matters, is "common sense,'' a
quality which in olden times must have been
much more "common'' than in these days,
else the phrase would never have become
rooted in our common tongue.
Children, with all their innocence, are
often guilty of book-murder. I must confess
to having once taken down "Humphrey's
History of Writing,'' which contains many
brightly-coloured plates, to amuse a sick
daughter. The object was certainly gained,
but the consequences of so bad a precedent
were disastrous. That copy (which, I am glad
to say, was easily re-placed), notwithstanding
great care on my part, became soiled and torn,
and at last was given up to Nursery martyrdom.
Can I regret it? surely not, for, although
bibliographically sinful, who can weigh the
amount of real pleasure received, and actual
pain ignored, by the patient in the contemplation
of those beautifully-blended colours?
A neighbour of mine some few years
ago suffered severely from a propensity,
apparently irresistible, in one of his daughters
to tear his library books. She was six
years old, and would go quietly to a shelf
and take down a book or two, and having
torn a dozen leaves or so down the middle,
would replace the volumes, fragments and
all, in their places, the damage being
undiscovered until the books were wanted
for use. Reprimand, expostulation and even
punishment were of no avail; but a single
"whipping'' effected a cure.
Boys, however, are by far more destructive
than girls, and have, naturally, no reverence
for age, whether in man or books. Who
does not fear a schoolboy with his first pocket-knife?
As Wordsworth did not say:—
"You may trace him oft
By scars which his activity has left
Upon our shelves and volumes. * * *
He who with pocket-knife will cut the edge
Of luckless panel or of prominent book,
Detaching with a stroke a label here, a back-band there.''
Excursion III, 83.
Pleased, too, are they, if, with mouths full
of candy, and sticky fingers, they can pull in
and out the books on your bottom shelves,
little knowing the damage and pain they will
cause. One would fain cry out, calling on
the Shade of Horace to pardon the false
quantity—
"Magna movet stomacho fastidia, si puer unctis
Tractavit volumen manibus.'' Sat. IV.
What boys can do may be gathered from
the following true story, sent me by a correspondent
who was the immediate sufferer:—
One summer day he met in town an
acquaintance who for many years had been
abroad; and finding his appetite for old
books as keen as ever, invited him home to
have a mental feed upon "fifteeners'' and
other bibliographical dainties, preliminary to
the coarser pleasures enjoyed at the dinner-table.
The "home'' was an old mansion
in the outskirts of London, whose very
architecture was suggestive of black-letter
and sheep-skin. The weather, alas! was
rainy, and, as they approached the house,
loud peals of laughter reached their ears.
The children were keeping a birthday with
a few young friends. The damp forbad all
outdoor play, and, having been left too
much to their own devices, they had invaded
the library. It was just after the Battle of
Balaclava, and the heroism of the combatants
on that hard-fought field was in everybody's
mouth. So the mischievous young
imps divided themselves into two opposing
camps—Britons and Russians. The Russian
division was just inside the door, behind
ramparts formed of old folios and quartos
taken from the bottom shelves and piled
to the height of about four feet. It was
a wall of old fathers, fifteenth century
chronicles, county histories, Chaucer, Lydgate,
and such like. Some few yards off were the
Britishers, provided with heaps of small books
as missiles, with which they kept up a skirmishing
cannonade against the foe. Imagine
the tableau! Two elderly gentlemen enter
hurriedly, paterfamilias receiving, quite
unintentionally, the first edition of "Paradise
Lost'' in the pit of his stomach, his friend
narrowly escaping a closer personal acquaintance
with a quarto Hamlet than he had ever
had before. Finale: great outburst of wrath,
and rapid retreat of the combatants, many
wounded (volumes) being left on the field.