THE SHADOW LAND OF BOOKS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1681, 22 February 1913, Page 9

THE SHADOW LAND OF BOOKS.

.'"''Attend -.regularly?", '.said; ..the cloakroom, attendant at the Reading Room of the British 'Museum. •'"Somo of- them live here." . - . • •Over.-thok of iis whose lives 1 are.spent' in atmosphere beneath the great dome, always a little misty as , the day passes' into,. afternponi!;the, sneers,, pf superior, people, .have, ! little ' .poweri . Carlylo had a stPry that madmen were sent hero --to turn "over books and save their keepers trouble, but how many, of the great ones.of the Republic of Letters have .been- arraigned .for- this same madness?. Grant Allen'complained bitterly of the dirt arid dinginess'which hang round our National Museum, but what havo light and colour, what 'have blue skies and olear' air to do with books?-

In truth wo live in a world'of our own—our rulers the Olympiniig who sit in tho 'inner: circle Snd struggle bravely with students whose erudition has outrun their savoir faire; our servants the carriers of books -who, -with compassionate air, return our jslip (craving the one "essential book) mth tho inexorable "In iiso" j our companions the old ladies whose : daily- sustenance is .made up of d vol- , ume of Domesday , for solid fare and a, novel of Miss ifarie' Corelli for ontremet, the'dusky students wrestling with Giba 5 always Gibbon ),, a representative of a .ladies' paper deep in tho mysteries of Burkb .or'Debrett, a nun studying somo old rcoord-of-lier faith, a clergy31laS- delving .into- the pages of diocesan visitations. ■ Some -'of us have 'taken on the outer likeness of, the" old bo<?ks we read-a -little musty,, a little ragged, a, little. aloof from life as-it is understood in the great roaring world without. So ; that r our .-neighbour does not encroach on ;our space with his mighty pile of. tomes, we heed, him not. v Are we not busy with that book whicji is tako'.the world bv Btorm?—adding, hour by hour, to that mass of knowledge wliieh- is to'be compressed -som# day-for'all the students of nil the ages. . . »• _ Yet there is a bookman's, tweedy in the atmosphere of the Reading Room. Oh I the bravo hour when first the coveted 1 }f * i°t us; the carefnl drawin*-' of time-tables, tho ever length-! ening, of authorities"; the passing from I the roar of Holborn; the dingy street; the (lark.precincts; the very pigeons murmuring, peace. The, heart, beats a little faster, as, with a gait a little self-con-BCious a little priggish, we make out way past Cerberus nt the door and enter,tlio , Republic of Jooks. How eagerly wo get to work on the catalogues and settle down with all these • stately volumes at command. The giants are our servants now. Onn brilliant paragraph shall dispose of long researches of this old that h^Tff, er , "A"' 1 th " »mi tbose sages-of a tliousthJ i D * r ? •Y mnR5 v, '° strong; will {. no e,If!C m '° open; wo too il'. an honoured place. p' 1 "" 0 nuickly 'in the Reading Room. Hours grow to days, davs fade Into years, and youth's sweet scented manuscript" is still virgin. Long m "hi .task that seemed so clear and definite lost its outlinejvaml brcame. part of this shadow land of books. The mere assumption that air books are at our command is a snare. In ono of our authorities is a reference, wmmnortant enou»li to Some other book. Wo stray froni the path, promising ourselves a quick return to read that other book which suggests others and yet others in an endless ciiain To-morrow wo will return to our lack' but to-morrow find us "with yesterday's eev'n thousand years" far out of our track. Yet we are not unhappy. Now and then perhaps wo feel a twim;e as when the man who sat , next to us "for a week (or was it a year?) published tho book which we hud meant to write. Hut this is transitory. /We tell ourselves that X's work is'superficial; there is »till room for. the Magnum Opus which wo shall finish next year or the year after—or some day. Meanwhile we will ■fpend the morning turning over Horace Walpole's Letters; we feel that our style wants lightness. But the" day is only half the life of the Rending Room. It must be a strange placo in the long'night hours. Does Aristophanes jostle the great tragedian on the shelve and whisper his coarse pleasantries? Do lh» stalwarts of tho "Edinburgh" wrangle a3 pf old with their

neighbours of tho "Quarterly? Does Robert Montgomery cry out in death as in life to bo rid of -Maenulay? Beneath tho clock Lamb stutters over these estimates of man's place in posterity, interpolating some quip and sending billows of ghostly laughtr upward to tho dome, Do they quarrel still as of yore? Is Hazlitt's rancor forgotten? Has Do Quincey done penanco to Wordsworth? Burke is perhaps reconciled with Fox; but Miss Strickland trembles beforo (tho haughty Queen and Junius stalks alone. . Lnmb sniffs a little daintily at certain Bibila Abiblia upon the shelves. Bacon is debating a question of philosophy with" Aristotle nad Kaut, till Shakespeare calls him away to laugh over some new-found ingenuity of tho Baconians. Sophocles is discussing Tragedy with Addison; Rabelais is telling stories to Butler; Sidney and Spenser are in high debate with Swinburne and Catullus; FitzGerald is e.vplaining his version of the "Rubaiyat" to a puzzled Persian poet; old Halduyt is, pouring over a "Dreadnought" diagram. How eagerly Stow is reading in the pages of Besant's "London," and Pepys (his eve aslai\t in hope that hu dear Lady Castfcmaino may have found a corner here) turns) over tho volumes of- the Royal Society with Evelyn at: his side. And we who aspire to find a place hero should bewnio how we deal with these old warriors. If wo are false or uncharitable, our time will come. Far away in the future will .be a night when, the shadow's gather in tha dome, when'from somewhere in the dimness a clear voice rings 'forth, "All out"; then the books thai, wo have written shall be taken from tho shelves. Finch, of the silver voice, shall read what we * havo set down in malice, and we, _ with to cover, our nakedness, will stand shivering while from tho inner circle Brougham arraigns J'f'i I* l our defending cou.nsol wo have little hope.. It is Francis, his tongue steeped in gall, who,Kseeming to defend us, - yet magnifies our offence. .The speeches are over; the jury considers its verdict. There are some for mercy. Lanjb is pitiful; Addison, though he will not speak, ranges himself with Lamb; Warburton and Hurd, bully, and sn?alc, are on the other side.' The issue is in doubt till there bo'onis forth a voice overmastering the others': "Sir, this will not do ; the v fellow is a rascal, sir," and our fate is,sealed. Campbell pronounces sentence, and in the custody of Jeffreys himself we pass to our doom. V —E. H. Tristan, in the "Saturday . Review."