The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1885-10-16
Marking Books.

The true book lover is not always
best adapted to getting from books the
best service His very fondness for
his library often makes him treat it
with a certain Difference and consider.
alton which interferes with its useful
ness; while =, m, rough book-tyrant,
who rides iough.shod over his volumes,
will wiring from them an amount of
help and support of which the bibliog-
rapher has neither experience or con-
ccption. The man, for instance, who
really respects his books, treating them
as friends if not as superiors, would re-
gard as nothing less than sacrilega the
means by which certain tough-skinned
readers help themselves to the ends
they desire. 1t would be as impossible
for him to dog ear the leaves, pencil
the margins, break the backs, or make
a scrap book of the blank pages, as to
"peep and botanize upon his mothers
grave" lie could no more deflour
with foul marks the fair white pages
of the volume whose guest he became,
as it were, by being allowed to peruse
it, than he could bring dishonor upon
the house Of his human entainer, whose
salt he had eaten and whose wine he
had drunk. The reader who scores the
passages which attract his attention is
| to him Hoth, Vandal, or whatever
| outer barbarian may be even worse
than these redoubtable destroyers.
He sees with shudier such one take
up volume, and has for every book
in the destroyer's library the same pro
found pity which the captive man and
brother excited in the sensitive soul of
the ardent abolitionist
Without examining the matter from
80 extreme a standpoint, we still seem
to find good and sufficient reasons why
the practice of marking books is a
needless and senseless one. Allowing
that book is made for use, and that
the student must consider himself be-
fore he does his books, it may still be
granted that other things being equal,
a method of use which defaces the
book is not SO desirable as one which
does not; and for dozen obvious rea-
sons, it one wishes to make usable
references to the books he reads, moth.
ing Is so practical, so tidy and so sim.
pie rs a system of slips arranged like
a card index. The student is very lit
tie better off for having pencil marks
against passages which have pleased
him at first reading; he has simply in
dulged childish desire to express his
qualification, and might as well clap
his hands or stamp his foot as TO dab a
black scratch down the clean margin
of the page before him. OF the hun
dred people who marks books, it is safe
to say that ninety five per cent. have
no purpose in the custom beyond such
an outbreak of pleasure or dislike.
We are not speaking of the sentimen'
tai young ladies, whose underscorings
are so much in the nature Of personal
revelation that the novels they read are
better fitted to be burned as private
diaries than for after circulation. but
of really thoughtful and studions men;
and of the five per cent. we have ex'
cluded, at least kalf never achieve any
practical results by their annotations.
They have vague intention of some
time referring to choice passage, but
that is the end of it, especially as it is
difficult to see how pencil mark in
some shut book standing among a
shelf-full of others would help him to
find it if he remembers it when the oc-
J casion of use presents itself
There is another point. The use of
l crutch produces lameness. The man
: who treats his books rightly will be re.
: warded by the growth of sixth sense
5 in handling them. They will come
E, half way to meet his inquirlng intelli
a gence. 'Genulne bookmen," to quote
a John Hill Burton, ''like printers, have {
2 sort of instinct, sharpened by training
n and prantice, the power and acuteness
r of which astonishes the unlearned;
t they read with their fingers, getting
more from simply turning over thu
h pages of a tome than the ordinar,
1t reader could gain by the most laboriou
e study. The wise student will not al
low himself to depend upon his pencil
but will cultivate this scholarly instict
what is worth finding in volume h
will discover by its means, without eX
v traneous aid.