Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-16
The Mercantile Library
HNHERE is a legend of an old booklover

THERE is a legend of an old booklover who
was pasturing among his folios one eve
ming by candlelight. Perhaps he sat (as
Charles Lamb used to) with tumbler of
mild grOg at his elbow. Perhaps he was in
that curious hypnotic trance induced by utter
silence, long reading and insufficient air. In
the musty fragrance of his library the tapers
cast their mellow gush of gold about him,
burning up the oxygen from under his very
nose At any rate. in a shadowy alcove
something stirred. A bookworm peeped out
from tall vcllum binding. 1t tapped its
wings and crew with clear lively note
Startled, the aged bibliophile looked up and
just glmpsed the vanishing t1utter of its
wings. 1t was only n glimpse, but it was
enough. He ran to his shelves, his ancient
heart pounding like an anvil chorus. The
old promise had come true. For If any man
shall live to see bookworm, all the volumes
on his shelves Immediately turn to first edi-
tions. signed by the author. But the joyous
spasm was too much for the poor scholar.
The next morning he was found lying palsied
at the foot of his bookcase. The fact that
at least two fingers of grog remained in his
glass, undrunk, led his fellow boOklovers to
suspect that something strange had hap
pened. AS he lay dying he told the story OF
his vision. He was the only man who ever
saw a bookworm.
DCT If a bookworm should ever flap its
ID wings and crow in Philadelphia, Ger
tainly the place where 1t would do so would
be the Mercantile Library. I imagine that
when Mr. Hedley, the delightful librarian,
shuts up at night turns off the green shaded
lamps and rings the bell to thrust out the
last lingering reader from the long dark
tables, he treads hopefully through those en-
chanted alcoves. The thick sweet savor OF
old calf and the dainty bouquet of honest rag
paper the subtle exhalatiOn of rows and
rows of books (swceter to the nostril OF the
bibliosoph than any mountain air that ever
rustled in green treetops) is just the medium
in which the tabled bookworm would crow
like chanticleer. 1t is fifty years this month
since the Mercantile Library moved into the
old market building on Tenth street, and
while fifty years is a mere wink of the eye
| lash to any bOOkwOrm still 1t is long enough
for few eggs to hatch. For that matter,
some of the librarys books have been In its
possession nigh hundred years, for it Will
| celebrate its centennial in 1922.
| TIME Mercantile is everything that library
| l. ought to be. 1t has the still and reverent
| solemnity that a true home of learning ought
to have. combined with an undercurrent OF
! genial fellowship. 1t is not only library
| but a CLUB. lhrough tRe glass paheis at inc
| hack one may see the chess players at their
meditative rites, and the last inner fame where
smoking is permitted and the votaries puff
we'll -blackened briars and brood round the
boards of combat in immortal silence. The
quaint old stained windows at the western end
| of the long hall look down on the magazine
tables where one may be reading the Cosmo-
politas and the next the Hilbert Journal
From these colored panes Franklin, Milton
Beethoven and CloyiO gaze approvingly'
They are surmounted by four symbolic hg
ures, representing II suppose) their respect
i've arts of Science, Poetry. Music and Art
OF Cloyio the miniaturist one does not otter
hear, and may well be honest and admit
had to look him up in the encyclopedia.
ITO THE heart of the booklover the Mer-
camille speaks with msgicri appeal
One wishes there might be little cloistel