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Updated: June 6, 2025
It is rare, so rare that Boswell's latest biographer speaks of it as the 'forlorn hope of the book-hunter, though he doubts not that copies of it are lurking in some private collection. One copy at least is lurking in the Bibliotaph's library. He bought it, not for a song to be sure, but very reasonably.
The Bibliotaph's major passion was for collecting books; but he had a minor passion, the bare mention of which caused people to lift their eyebrows suspiciously. He was a shameless, a persistent, and a successful hunter of autographs.
Even the evidence of a clearly-lettered title upon the back fails to satisfy him. He is restless until he has made a thorough search in the body of the volume. The Bibliotaph's own best strokes of fortune were made in out-of-the-way places. But some god was on his side. For at his approach the bibliographical desert blossomed like the rose.
The following small fragments of his talk are illustrative of such measure of truth as the theory may contain. Among the Bibliotaph's companions was one towards whose mind he affected the benevolent and encouraging attitude of a father to a budding child. He was asked by this friend to describe a certain quaint and highly successful entertainer.
The Bibliotaph's intellectual processes were so vigorous and his pleasure in mental activity for its own sake was so intense that he was quite capable of deciding after a topic of discussion had been introduced which side he would take. And this with a splendid disdain of the merits of the cause which he espoused.
As for the disputant who had stirred up the monster, his situation was as unenviable as it was comic to the bystanders. He had never before dropped a stone into the great geyser. He was therefore unprepared for the result. One likened him to an unprotected traveler in a heavy rain-storm. For the Bibliotaph's unpremeditated speech was a very cloud-burst of eloquence.
'The likelier interpretation was that the gift was symbolical of the giver. The act seemed brutal, and the comment thereon even more so. But to realize the atmosphere, the setting of the incident, one must imagine the Bibliotaph's round and comfortable figure, his humorous look, and the air of genial placidity with which he would do and say a thing like this.
He reversed the old Pagan formula, which was to the effect that 'So-and-So died and was made a god. According to the Bibliotaph's prophetic method, a man was made a god first and allowed to die at his leisure afterward. Not every one of that little company which his wisdom and love have marked for great reputation will be able to achieve it.
A small author wrote a small book, so small that it could be read in less time than it takes to cover an umbrella, that is, 'while you wait. The Bibliotaph had Brobdingnagian joy of this book. He sat and read it to himself in the author's presence, and particularly diminutive that book appeared as its light cloth cover was outlined against the Bibliotaph's ample black waistcoat.
Humor that does not meet this requirement is not likely, when its novelty has worn off, to be read even occasionally save by those who enjoy it as an intellectual performance or who are making a critical study of its author. The observation, if not profound, is at least sensible, and it illustrates very well the Bibliotaph's love of alliteration and antithesis.
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