Evening star., 1899-03-04
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by some strange working of the human
will even ordinarily righteous folk have no
conscience in the matter of book borrowing.
Theft in any form Is never so much as
named among them, and yet our precious
volumes. like the Arabs, silently steal
away. Even in the good old Connecticut
days, when moral perception was supposed
TO be at fever heat, colonial book lovers
suffered thus Many of the marginal notes
of which Hawthorne wrote consisted In
appeals to the careless borrower.
The personal devil of Jonathan Edwards
was described as seeking to devour such
folk, while the pangs of eternal fire were
vfvfdly portrayed as simply yearning to lap
up the purloiners of volumes. Oid-time
newspapers are full of advertisements for
missing books couched in Saxon so vigor-
Gus and free that the blood of the reading
book lover kindles with the joy of the
chase. In Customs and Fashions in Old
New England this quotation appears, taken
from the Boston News Letter of July Z,
1Il2: "A certain Person having lent two
books, viz, Rushworths Collections and
Fulier's Holy War, and forgotten unto
whom, these are desiring the Borrower to
be so kind as to return said Books unto
Owner" The self-abasement of this plea
would lead one to fear that then now
the ministerial bookshelves suffered from
the mental browsing of the flock. Surely
no Puritan divine penned this belligerent
request in the Connecticut Courant: 1.-THE
gentleman who took the second volume of
Bacon's Abridgement from Mr.. David Balls
bed room on the 18th of November would
do well to return 1t to the owner, whose
name he will find on the 18th Page. If he
choose rather to keep 1t, the owner wishes
him to call and take the rest of the set.
Truly the gentleman would do we'll to re-
turn it, and though perhaps in seasons of
spiritual awakening Mr.. David Balls re-
pented him of his ungodiy wrath, yet, as
the book lover views the gaps in his own
broken sets, he grants his fellow sufferer of
we olden time the fullest absolution. Too
crushed perhaps by repeated trials to do
more than acquiesce in DEGREES the where
fore of which no colonial soul might know,
one meek brother asks a fellow citizen to
return the 3rd vol. of Don Quixote and
take the 4th instead if he chuse."
Delicate Sarcasm.
Some patience or forbearance, rejecting
the virtues of these names, mildly ask for
an opportunity to read their own books if
perfectly agreeable to the persons who
have borrowed them. Surely it was not the
gallant Judge Sewall with his matrimonial
eye upon those seven single persons sit
ting in the fore seat of the old meeting
house who advertised for "the she-person
who borrowed Mr. Thos. Browns Works
from a gentleman she is well acquainted
with" Ah there lies the sting of it! The
person we are well acquainted with, our
familiar friend, has us most utterly in his
power. He alone has free access to our Ii
brary, and may even help himself to prec-
ious volumes with which the stranger inter-
meddleth not. The one blot, perhaps, on
his otherwise fair escutcheon may be that
blur that dims his vision of a book plate or
the owners name. We cannot wonder that
an old-time student had this inscription
over his shelves:
These boo ks mine
by Law Divine.
Friendship must end
II one lend.
An enthusiastic book lover once upon
time, we are told. Cancelled his engagement
to most estmable lady because she had
marked a borrowed book. He took the high
moral ground that "a person capable of
such an act of piracy could not be loyal to
any constitutional estate He might per-
haps have gone further and argued that
such ali offensive intrusion of her opinions
boded no good for the future peace of the
domestic circle. A friend may not borrow
our garments and alter them to suit his
physical pecuiarities and then return them
to US unrebuked-and yet our books come
back to our homes so charged with the per-
sonaiity of the borrower that we have
uncomfortable sense of invading privacy
when We turn the pages. 1t is not our
book any ionger-that alien volume that
emphasizes what we prefer to slight, and
calls attention in black lines to the very
points We would ignore. and at best chat
ters mental condolences in which we have no
interest. The law declares that our proper
ty shall not be waRtonly defaced and the
offender go free. but there is no redress for
the interlarded volume with it's adjectives
and exclamation points, or crowning Of
Tense. its queries and its Interrogation
points.
Richard de Bury's Ideas.
To remedy evils of this kind Richard de
Bury founded a library at Durham College
in the university of Oxford during the four
teenth century. He organized a most elab-
crate system of lending books, and while
acting as librarian, was assisted by corps
of bookbinders. for he held that the proper
care of covers was an important item for
the reader to learn. From time to time he
burst into awful RACES at the careless folk
who then as now had no conscience in the
matter OF boOkhanding. In more vigorous
Saxon than now obtains he sketched the
following portrait, which, allowing for the
changes IN men and manners which five
centuries nave brought applies with equal
force TO certain class of borrowers TODAY
He writes: You will perhaps see a stiff
heeked youth iounging sluggishiy in his
study while the frost pinches him in win
Ter time- For such one | would substi-
tute cobbier's apron in the place of his
book He has nail like a giants per-
lumed with a sinking odor, with which he
points out the place of any pleasant SUBJ
Ject: He distributes innumerable straws in
various places. with ends in sight that he
may recall by the mark what his memory
cannot retain. These straws which the
stomach of the book cannot digest-veriIv
NOiu1neS nad Ire for De Buryi-and which
nobody takes out, at first distend the book
from Its accustomed closure and. being
carelessly left to oblivion, at last become
putrid. He is not ashamed to eat fruit
and cheese over an open book, and to
transfer his empty cup from side to side
upon 1t, and because he has not his aims
boy at hand. he leaves the rest of the frae-
ments in his book" Fruit stains and even
crumbs some books, alas, today bear traces
of.
The University of Paris has left on record
noteworthy example The librarian wouId
not lend book even to Louis TX unless he
left some valuable in pledge for its return
ana gave bond to one of his chief min
lsters that its return should duly take place
when he had finished it," Would there
were some such rules protecting private
collections today! Surely we might all
profit by this admonition frequently seen i'm
books of the colonial days: Read Slowly
Pause Frequently-Think Standardization
Lightly-keep Cleanly-Return DuIy-with
the Corners of the Leaves Not Turned
Down"
A Remarkable Family.
From the Bowling Green Times
John Chandler. who resides in Allen
county is the father of twenty-nine chill
dren, twenty-one of whom are living and