Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-12

Another interesting seaside bookstore
was hidden away along a side street
some blocks back from the busy ocean
front and boardwalk.
It was, as we recall it, hidden in a
figurative sense only. AS matter OF
fact, its tiny show window breasted
the sidewalk.
The size of the place, however, made
it inconspicuous, and the smallness OF
the show window attracted little, If any
attention, except from dyed-in-the-
world booklovers who CHANGED to GO
that way.
These were drawn to the store by a
certain air of modesty which every
proper bookshop should possess. It does
not do for a bookstore to be bOaStful.
Other kinds of stores may put on bold
fronts, flaunt their wares from gaudy
colors, clamor for attention with buzz
zers and tissue-paper ribbons waved by
electric fans or enforce the eyes of the
purchasers by cardboard pretty girls al
most as big as life.
A bookstore, one would insist, has
neither need nor right to use such de-
vices. knowledge is modest; it is never
pulled up with itself; it keeps its own
place. And all books, no matter how
frivolous, display some sort of knowl-
edge. There is not a book extant that
one cannot learn something from, If no
more than how silly or how indecent
or how moody mankind can be.
The "go-getter'' attitude is not seemly
in a bookshop. The booklover likes
rather the demure store, the bashful
bookshop, the quiet, gentle place where
garden of books grows beneath a
warm culture of friendly appreciation
from seller and purchaser.
Thus the right kind of bookstore is al
ways something more than a CONNER
clal institution, just as its commodities
must remain something more than
things sold merely for the sake of the
return. The hopes and dreams of hui
mainly are in books, which are symbols
of advancing civilization. In saying this
no disparagement is meant, either ex-
plicit or implied, of any other business.
Every business has its good point; this
is the good one of the book business.
y X X
The seaside city in which our pleas
ephemeral town, growing suddenly every
Summer, to go back to a mere handful
Of citizens during the Winter.
No, this place was (and still Isl a
fine town, a real town, or small city,
if one prefers, with its own problems
as a permanent place of residence. 1t
extended for blocks behind the board
walk, and over the entire city the great
sea breeze blew cool and fresh.
It never blew as strong on the back
streets as up on the beach. Ocean
breezes lose much of their vigor from
blowing through congested districts.
Yet there was enough of it left by the
time it got back to the railroad station
and the post office to freshen life.
Back there the people were tanned,
too, as much as any of the visitors,
who scarcely ever left the beach front.
There were flower girls, newsgirls, bear
ing bright blossoms in baskets, and
men and women going about the nor
NAL tasks of everyday life.
It was from these people, not from
the vacationists, that the small book
shop derived its revenues. Yet no doubt
many a visitor found the place, be-
cause there seems to be a magnetic
quality in such things.
Sometimes it seems that the genuine
book "fan" loves his dearly beloved
volumes the most when others might
expect him to forget them. Thus word
comes that Comdr. Byrd and his men