By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects

By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects
William Adams

William Davenport Adams

By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects

PAPER-KNIFE PLEASURES

One is for ever hearing enough and to spare about old books and those who love them. There is a whole literature of the subject. The men themselves, from Charles Lamb downwards, have over and over again described their ecstasies – with what joy they have pounced upon some rare edition, and with what reverence they have ever afterwards regarded it. It is some time since Mr. Buchanan drew his quasi-pathetic picture of the book-hunter, bargaining for his prize,

‘With the odd sixpence in his hand,
And greed in his gray eyes;’

having, moreover, in his mind’s eye as he walked

‘Vistas of dusty libraries
Prolonged eternally.’

Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has sung to us of the man who ‘book-hunts while the loungers fly,’ who ‘book-hunts though December freeze,’ for whom

‘Each tract that flutters in the breeze
Is charged with hopes and fears,’

while

‘In mouldy novels fancy sees
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.’

There are periodicals which cater solely for old-book adorers; and while on the one hand your enthusiast will publish his ‘Pleasures’ and ‘Diversions,’ on the other a contemporary will devote a volume to the subjects which attract and interest ‘the Book Fancier.’

Meanwhile, is there nothing to be said of, or by, the admirer of new books – the man or woman who rejoices in the pleasant act of turning over new leaves? At a time when volumes are issuing by the dozen from the publishers’ counters, shall not something be chronicled of the happiness which lies in the contemplation, the perusal, of the literary product which comes hot from the press? For, to begin with, the new books have at least this great advantage over the old – that they are clean. It is not everybody who can wax dithyrambic over the ‘dusty’ and the ‘mouldy.’ It is possible for a volume to be too ‘second-hand.’ Your devotee, to be sure, thinks fondly of the many hands, dead and gone, through which his ‘find’ has passed; he loves to imagine that it may have been held between the fingers of some person or persons of distinction; he is in the seventh heaven of exaltation if he can be quite certain it has had that honour. But suppose this factitious charm is really wanting? Suppose a volume is dirty, and ignobly so? Must one necessarily delight in dogs’ ears, bask in the shadow of beer-stains, and ‘chortle’ at the sign of cheese-marks? Surely it is one of the merits of new leaves that they come direct from the printer and the binder, though they, alas! may have left occasional impressions of an inky thumb.

It might possibly be argued that a new volume is, if anything, ‘too bright and good’ – too beautiful and too resplendent – for ‘base uses.’ There is undoubtedly an amari aliquid about them. They certainly do seem to say that we ‘may look but must not touch.’ Talk about the awe with which your book-hunter gazes upon an ancient or infrequent tome; what is it when compared with the respect which another class of book-lover feels for a volume which reaches them ‘clothed upon with’ virtual spotlessness? Who can have the heart to impair that innocent freshness? Do but handle the book, and the harm is done – unless, indeed, the handling be achieved with hands delicately gloved. The touch of the finger is, in too many cases, fatal. On the smooth cloth or the vellum or the parchment, some mark, alas! must needs be made. The lover of new books will hasten, oftentimes, to enshrine them in paper covers; but a book in such a guise is, for many, scarcely a book at all; it has lost a great deal of its charm. Better, almost, the inevitable tarnishing. All that’s bright must fade; the new book cannot long maintain its lustre. But it has had it, to begin with. And that is much. We feel at least the first fine careless rapture. Whatever happens, no one can deprive us of that – of the first fond glimpse of the immaculate.

But the matter is not, of course, one of exterior only. Some interest, at least, attaches to the contents, however dull the subject, however obscure the author. A new book is a new birth, not only to the æsthetic but to the literary sense. It contains within it boundless possibilities. There are printed volumes which are books only in form – which are mere collections of facts or figures, or what not, and which do not count. But if a volume be a genuine specimen of the belles lettres, the imagination loves to play upon it. What will it be like? What treasures lie concealed in it? What delights has it in store for us? In our curiosity we are like the boy in Mr. Pinero’s farcical comedy: ‘It is the ’orrible uncertainty wot we craves after.’ No one can tell what may nestle in the recesses of new leaves. Not even in reference to well-known writers can we be positively sure. They may belie their reputation. The illustrious Smith may make a failure; the obscurer Brown may score a hit. For once in a way Robinson may have produced something we can read; to everybody’s surprise, the great Jones has dropped into the direst twaddle. And if this uncertainty exists in respect to those we know, how much more auspicious is it in the case of those who are quite new to us? What gems of purest ray serene may repose within the pages of the unopened book before us!

And, talking of unopened books, how much of the pleasure we derive from newly-published volumes lies in the process by which we first make their acquaintance. There are those who would have all books issued with the edges of the pages cut. The reasons why are obvious. To begin with, some labour is thereby saved to the purchaser; a certain measure of time, too, is saved. The reviewer, who has no moments to spare, may anathematize the leaves he has to separate with the paper-knife; the traveller by rail may condemn to Hades the producers of the work which he cannot cut open – because he has not the wherewithal about him. Everywhere there are eager and hasty readers who chafe at the delay which an uncut book imposes upon their impatient spirit. On the other hand, your genuine book-adorer, your enthusiast, who loves to extract from a volume all which it is capable of yielding, cannot but approve a habit which enables him to linger delightedly over his new possession. What special sweets may not be hidden within just those very pages which are at present closed to him! Omne ignotum is, for him, pro magnifico– here may be the very cream of the cream. And so the adorer dallies with his prize. First he peeps within the leaves, and gleans a sentence here and there. And then he begins to use the cutter – slowly, slowly – dwelling with enraptured tardiness upon each page which he reveals.

Who shall say that new leaves have no drawbacks? Verily, they have them. It cannot be supposed, for instance, that they are always wholly acceptable to the aforesaid professional censor. The reviewer, sitting surrounded by them, tier on tier, may rail at the productiveness of the age, and wish that there might not be more than one new book each week. And the omnivorous reader, anxious to keep up with the literature of the day, might fairly re-echo the aspiration. Who, indeed, can hope to turn over a tithe of the new leaves which are issued daily? Nor can an unlimited consumption of them be recommended. Mr. Lowell is to a certain extent justified when he says that

‘Reading new books is like eating new bread;
One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he
Is brought to death’s door of a mental dyspepsy.’

Assuredly new books are so far like new bread, that we should not consume them in too rapid succession. At the same time, let us be thankful for them, inasmuch as they have the unquestionable gift of novelty. Lord Beaconsfield’s Lady Montfort said she preferred a new book, even if bad, to a classic. That was a strong saying, but there are points of view from which it is perfectly defensible.

RUSKIN AS POET

It was lately rumoured that Mr. Ruskin was about to issue a volume of poems, consisting mainly of pieces already published. The statement was probably the first intimation received by many that the author of ‘Modern Painters’ had ever written anything in the shape of verse. That he has always been, like Sidney, a ‘warbler of poetic prose,’ has lately been emphasized by a magazine-writer; but it is not at all universally known that between the years 1835 and 1845 Mr. Ruskin figured somewhat largely as a poet, in the popular sense of that much abused word. During that time he produced a good deal of verse, in addition to the prize poem which has always been readily accessible by his admirers.

Even if one had not known, it would not have been difficult to have assumed, from the rhythmic character of Mr. Ruskin’s prose, that he had at one time ‘dropped into poetry.’ Such a master of rhetoric could hardly have gone through life without wooing the Muse of Song, however temporarily or unsuccessfully. It would not have been natural for him to have done so. And, indeed, it is probable that no great prose rhetorician has failed to pay the same homage to the charm of verbal melody and cadence. In all the most sonorous prose turned out by English authors there will be found a lilt and a swing which would without difficulty translate themselves into verse. ‘Most wretched men,’ says Shelley, ‘are cradled into poetry by wrong.’ Most literary men have been cradled into it by their irresistible feeling and aptitude for rhythm, together with that general poetic sensibility which is rarely absent from the nature of the literary artist. Certain it is that practice in verse has always been recognised as the best of all preparation for work in prose, and no doubt much of Mr. Ruskin’s success as prose-producer has been owing to his early devotion to the Muse.

He himself tells us, in the course of his tribute to his ‘first editor’ (W. H. Harrison), that

‘A certain capacity for rhythmic cadence (visible enough in all my later writings), and the cheerfulness of a much-protected but not foolishly-indulged childhood, made me early a rhymester.’

And he adds – the tribute was paid in 1878 —

‘A shelf of the little cabinet by which I am now writing is loaded with poetical effusions which were the delight of my father and mother, and which I have not got the heart to burn.’

A much fuller account of the poetic stages through which he passed in childhood is given by Mr. Ruskin in his ‘Præterita,’ where he tells us of the six ‘poems’ he brought forth in his seventh year (1826), one of them being on the subject of the steam-engine, and rejoicing in such couplets as:

‘When furious up from mines the water pours,
And clears from rusty moisture all the ores.’

Another, on the rainbow, was in blank verse and impressively didactic in its tone. Then, when he was nine years old, he broke out with yet another effusion, called ‘Eudosia;’ and when only eleven he began the composition of an elaborate ‘poetical’ description of his various journeyings, under the title of ‘Iteriad.’

It is easy to understand how this fondness for the rhythmical was fostered by the aforesaid parental admiration, and how it was still further increased by the boy’s admiration, successively, for Scott and Byron. Certain early friendships held out to the young versifier the prospect of publication, and thus it is that we find him, in his sixteenth year, figuring as a contributor to ‘Friendship’s Offering and Winter’s Wreath: a Christmas and New Year’s Present’ for 1835. This was the era of the old-fashioned ‘annuals,’ and ‘Friendship’s Offering’ was one of the most notable of its kind. In the issue for the year named we note Barry Cornwall, John Clare, William Howitt, and H. F. Chorley among the writers of whom the youthful Ruskin was one. Here, by the side of really excellent steel-engravings, portraying languishing ladies in corkscrew curls, and illustrating literary matter not always unworthy of the embellishment given to it, we discover Mr. Ruskin’s first published verses – ‘Salzburg’ and some ‘Fragments’ of a poetical journal, kept on tour. In the former we seem to detect the influence of Rogers, rather than that of Scott or Byron. It opens thus:

‘On Salza’s quiet tide the westering sun
Gleams mildly; and the lengthening shadows dun,
Chequered with ruddy streaks from spire and roof,
Begin to weave fair twilight’s mystic woof;
Till the dim tissue, like a gorgeous veil,
Wraps the proud city, in her beauty pale.’

A little further on we read:

‘Sweet is the twilight hour by Salza’s strand,
Though no Arcadian visions grace the land;
Wakes not a sound that floats not sweetly by,
While day’s last beams upon the landscape die;
Low chants the fisher where the waters pour,
And murmuring voices melt along the shore;
The plash of waves comes softly from the side
Of passing barge slow gliding o’er the tide;
And there are sounds from city, field, and hill,
Shore, forest, flood; yet mellow all, and still.’

Herein, it will be seen, is something of the power of description which the writer was afterwards to exhibit so much more effectively in prose.

Four years later Mr. Ruskin’s initials were to be seen appended to a couple of pieces in verse contributed to ‘The Amaranth,’ an annual of much more imposing presence than the ‘Offering’ – edited by T. K. Hervey, admirably illustrated, and happy in the practical support of such literary lights as Horace Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Sheridan Knowles, Thomas Hood, Praed, and Mrs. Browning. One of the two pieces in question is ‘The Wreck,’ in which Mr. Ruskin’s poetic capability, such as it is, is visible in one of its most attractive moods. The last verse runs:

‘The voices of the night are mute
Beneath the moon’s eclipse;
The silence of the fitful flute
Is in the dying lips!
The silence of my lonely heart
Is kept for ever more