The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1910-05-13
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ers were hOpelessly crippled and
doomed to limp forever. They dropped
them on the floor because the bind
ings were so curiouslye slippery-so
unlike the bindings of Mary j. Then
they picked them up by those same
covers as one lifts rabbit by it's
ears and then they looked inside. The
interior bore striking resemblance
to poetry, but there seemed to be a
paucity of rhyme, and if it was con-
versation it was terribly broken up
by abbreviated names. Back into the
box they were hustled to await the
coming Of another shopper with
peaked face, glittering eye and hur-
rled step, and hour by hour the value
OF that set of Shakespeare as leather
and paper sank low and lower still,
until one-third of it's worth was all
That was left to it. In another week
l might have had it for the asking,
perhaps. But you shoppers, you did
not hurt the thought in the book mol
were the Typography and the mar.
gins joggled awry by your contemp-
tuous hands. l can sink back across
the arms of my easiest chair and find
as much of Shakespeare's divine es-
sence as Cleon shall find in his hun.
dred-dollar edition.
Therefore l thank you, careless
shoppers. When the glad season
comes that reckless shoppers turn
their thoughts to books, come out, ye
bargainers, and depreciate COM
plete set of 1.-THE Taller" for me.
Only spare the integrity of the
leaves. If you but let the LEAKAGE
rival that of Vallambrosa I care not
how you smut the covers, for there
are detergents that shall kill all
germs.
When l had secured my Shake
speare l thought that there might
peradventure' be set of Scott for
song. l saw an "Ivanhoe" here and
"Redgauntlet" there and Lady
of the Lake" hard by, and l asked
the maiden, late of the lace depart
ment, whether they had SCOTS works
complete. She walked up and down
and cast a searching eye over the
mass Of books
NO." said she, finally, there's
nothing left but his poems and the
Waverly novels.
A crippled Shakespeare, with rea-
soning powers still intact, might seem
to be enough of bargain for one
day, but at another table l found
scores of essayists on dress parade
and waiting to be transferred when
it should suit the will of some ran
dom purchaser. They were massed
in solid phalanx, for they had been
so unattractive to the rushing shop
pers that they had scarce given them
toss. There was nothing limp
about them. There they stood undis-
mayed, ready for friend or foe, pipe
clayed anad soldierly, with shining
morning faces" And 10 cents would
buy their discharge!
What do you think, you thoughtless
persons who spend hundred dollars
for week at the Rangeley lakes
what do you think of "A Week on
the Concord" for 10 cents? And
while you can do no more than catch
some fish that will fade in few days
l can catch and keep forever thoughts
as quaint and as homely as Thoreau
was himself
o Cleon, you with your plethorio
purse have never learned the delights
of working for your moneys worth,
You spent 5000 without the fun Of
| picking and choosing, while l, for less
than $40, have picked up a library of
good fellows, and enjoyed the search
withal.
The bookhunting shoppers did not
toss and gore Balzac, for the very
name seemed to them something "sci-
entitic," and they passed him by as
if they had been so many Levites,
Their unjust discrimination against
him was my loss, for l still lack a
Balzac. Next year it would pay you
to dip into the Freedman a little, We
scrim-hunting ladies. TIE is seasily
handled and although in the depart
ment-store edition his covers are not
limp, you can bring down his price
appreciably if you follow bargain-sale
tactics. And when you have be-
paved him and rejected him as worse
than rubbish, will you kindly drop me
a postal that l may 60 to see whether
he has been let down to my stature?
But for one afternoons browsing,
credit me with Macaulay's Literary
Essays" Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus,"
Lofts iceland Fisherman" Emer-
sons English Traits" Curtis's "Prue
and l." Thoreau's walden" and his
Week on the Concord" and Shake
speare on crutches, and there is still
some virtue in the $40. Cleon,
wouldn't change places with you un-
less, together with your generous bal.
ance at the bankers, l could keep
my ability to tire out a dollar.
Copyright, by James Pott & Co..
A whole lot Of times old Mr.. Or
portunity can't make his knock heard
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