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Updated: May 29, 2025
'I would suggest that a fourth might be provided, to include such examples as are worth, let us say, two or three readings in a life-time. The Bibliotaph made a variety of comments on this, but I remember only the following; it is a reason for not including the Biglow Papers in Jowett's third and crowning class.
He quoted at them the remark of a pale, bald, blond young literary aspirant, who, seeing him, the Bibliotaph, passing by, exclaimed audibly and almost passionately, 'Oh, I perfectly adore hair! Of his clothes it might be said that he did not wear them, but rather dwelt at large in them.
Moreover one learned to look upon one's self in the light of a public benefactor. To submit to be knocked about by the Bibliotaph was in a modest way to contribute to the gayety of nations. If one was not absolutely happy one's self, there was a chastened comfort in beholding the happiness of the on-lookers.
The Bibliotaph set himself to this task, and collected energetically for two years. The undertaking was considerable, for many of the pirated editions were in pamphlet, and dating from twenty years back. It was almost impossible to get the earliest in a spotless condition. Quantities of trash had to be overhauled, and weeks might elapse before a perfect copy of a given edition would come to light.
Information acquired in this way may not be profound, but so far as it goes it is definite and useful. For the collector it is indispensable. In this way the Bibliotaph had amassed his seemingly phenomenal knowledge of books.
The Bibliotaph signified his appreciation of his new friend by giving him a copy of a sixteenth-century book 'containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth. The Player in turn compiled for his friend of clerical appearance a scrap-book, intended to show how evil associations corrupt good actors.
The Bibliotaph declares that this book is good for but one thing, to shake in the faces of Boswell collectors who haven't it. The Bibliotaph had many literary heroes. Conspicuous among them were Professor Richard Porson and Benjamin Jowett, the late master of Balliol.
The Bibliotaph gave such an air of contemporaneity to his stories of the great Greek professor that it seemed at times as if they were the relations of one who had actually known Porson.
Jowett, with his remarkable breadth of mind and temper, was quite capable of observing, with respect to a certain book, that it was American, 'yet in perfect taste. 'This, said the Bibliotaph, 'is as if one were to say, "The guests were Americans, but no one expectorated on the carpet." The Bibliotaph thought that there was not so much reason for this attitude.
The host, who was of like mind with his guests, said, 'The Bibliotaph doesn't care for the quality of his food, if it has filling power. To which he at once responded, 'You merely imply that I am like a robin: I eat cherries when I may, and worms when I must. His inscriptions in books given to his friends were often singularly happy.
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