The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1913-10-17
THE OBSERVATORY.

Last week referred to Eugene
Fields book, published by the Serb
ner's, Love Affairs of Bibiioma-
Mac" its good things are an abiding
delight; they float in the mind and
constantly recur with pleasure, many
things in daily life bringing his whim-
sevs to mind. 1t will be recalled that
I said he told US his first book love
was the New England Primer. lie
saws his second was Robinson CRU
soc: and again, what recollections that
stirred, for one of my very first git
books was the same, with blue covers
and wonderful wood cuts, and oh! the
happy hours l spent with that won
der;ul book; and then it was loaned to
all my boy friends, was sacredly cher.
ished, rebound when its covers and
leaves became loose, and is still fond
" preserved; it has been very popular;
De Foe was diffuse writer and al
most interminable in his descriptions,
but this book of mine is an excellent
abridgment.
Then Field says his third love was
Grim's Household Stories, and dilates
on the hold fairy tales always had on
him, and defends giving them to chill
dren with this touch:
"My nephew Timothy has three
children, two boys and a girl. The
elder boy and the girl have small
black eyes; they are as devoid of fam
cy as napkin is of red corpuscles;
they put their pennies into tin bank,
and they have won all the marbles
and jackstones in the neighborhood.
| They do not believe in Santa Claus
or in FAIRIES or in witches; they know
that two nickles make dime, and
their golden rule is to do others as
others would do them. The other boy
| has been christened after me, has a
pair of large, round, deep-blue eyes
expressive of all those emotions which
keen active fancy begets. He can
never have his fill of fairy tales, and
how the dear little fellow loves Santa
Claus. He sees things at night; he
will not go to bed in the dark; he
hears and understands what the birds
and crickets say, and what the night
wind sings, and what the rustling
leaves tell. How l love that boy"
The chapter on "The Luxury Of
Reading in Bed" is rich in flavor, ant
telling how he always carried book
around with him, he tells the old story
of Professor Person, the noted Greek
scholar, who was travelling with Z
young coxcomb who kept pretending
to quote the classic authors, and wher
forson pulled out of his pocket {
copy of one of them and asked hin
tc find the passage. the chap tried
wriggle out by saying it was no
Sophocles but Euripides he meant
and then Person pulled out copy o
that Greek, when the young fellow full
of confusion put his head out OF thu
window of the stage and cried to thu
driver: "In heavens name put mi
down at once; for there is an old gen
tleman here that hath the Bodleiar
Library in his pockets!" A quotation
from a prominent mon of 200 year,
ago shows how he esteemed Learned
lady, who ION the side" had studiet
at Oxford; she was now tutor in ;
ouke's family when this big man Wis
tied her, and says he found her "sur
rounded with books and dirtiness, tn
usual appendagcs of folk of learning !!
Field SHES skt at those who col
lect old cracked crockery and sucl
trumpery, but thinks collector o
old books almost maniac. Yet IN
confesses that when he began collect
ing he tried to secure any and every
thing that was old, without regard t.
contents, and calling on dealer ask
cd him if he had any such, and wa
told "Yes, we have cellarful of them
and we sell them by the ton or by tn
cord" The whole book is as full o
such delicacies as a Christmas pud
ding of plums. And the poem witt
which the volume closes is the yer,
last thing Field wrote, which touche
off the commercial and mercenar
autograph hunters; he was asked t
write his faworite poem for femal
admirer and feeling much fattered di