Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.)

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HOURS IN A LIBRARY

VOL. I.

HOURS IN A LIBRARY

BY

LESLIE STEPHEN

_NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS_

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1892

[_All rights reserved_]

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME

PAGE
DE FOE'S NOVELS 1

RICHARDSON'S NOVELS 47

POPE AS A MORALIST 94

SIR WALTER SCOTT 137

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 169

BALZAC'S NOVELS 199

DE QUINCEY 237

SIR THOMAS BROWNE 269

JONATHAN EDWARDS 300

HORACE WALPOLE 345

_OPINIONS OF AUTHORS_

Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the
ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without
delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.--BACON,
_Advancement of Learning_.

We visit at the shrine, drink in some measure of the
inspiration, and cannot easily breathe in other air less
pure, accustomed to immortal fruits.--HAZLITT'S _Plain
Speaker_.

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though
all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their
labours to the Bodleian were reposing here as in some
dormitory or middle state. I seem to inhale learning,
walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old
moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of the
sciential apples which grew around the happy
orchard.--CHARLES LAMB, _Oxford in the Long Vacation_.

My neighbours think me often alone, and yet at such times I
am in company with more than five hundred mutes, each of
whom communicates his ideas to me by dumb signs quite as
intelligibly as any person living can do by uttering of
words; and with a motion of my hand I can bring them as near
to me as I please; I handle them as I like; they never
complain of ill-usage; and when dismissed from my presence,
though ever so abruptly, take no offence.--STERNE,
_Letters_.

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear
friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern
boxes,--EMERSON, _Books, Society, and Solitude_.

Nothing is pleasanter than exploring in a library.--LANDOR,
_Pericles and Aspasia_.

I never come into a library (saith Heinsius) but I bolt the
door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such
vices whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance and
melancholy herself; and in the very lap of eternity, among
so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit
and sweet content that I pity all our great ones and rich
men that know not their happiness.--BURTON, _Anatomy of
Melancholy_.

I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am
sure of, that I am never long even in the society of her I
love without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my
utterly confused and tumbled-over library.--BYRON, _Moore's
Life_.

Montesquieu used to say that he had never known a pain or a
distress which he could not soothe by half an hour of a good
book.--JOHN MORLEY, _On Popular Culture_.

There is no truer word than that of Solomon: 'There is no
end of making books'; the sight of a great library verifies
it; there is no end--indeed, it were pity there should
be.--BISHOP HALL.

You that are genuine Athenians, devour with a golden
Epicurism the arts and sciences, the spirits and extractions
of authors.--CULVERWELL, _Light of Nature_.

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book;
he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink;
his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only
sensible in the duller parts.--SHAKESPEARE, _Love's Labour's
Lost_.

I have wondered at the patience of the antediluvians; their
libraries were insufficiently furnished; how then could
seven or eight hundred years of life be
supportable?--COWPER, _Life and Letters by Southey_.

Unconfused Babel of all tongues! which e'er
The mighty linguist Fame or Time the mighty traveller,
That could speak or this could hear!
Majestic monument and pyramid!
Where still the shapes of parted souls abide
Embalmed in verse; exalted souls which now
Enjoy those arts they wooed so well below,
Which now all wonders plainly see
That have been, are, or are to be
In the mysterious Library,
The beatific Bodley of the Deity!

COWLEY, _Ode on the Bodleian_.

This to a structure led well known to fame,
And called, 'The Monument of Vanished Minds,'
Where when they thought they saw in well-sought books
The assembled souls of all that men thought wise,
It bred such awful reverence in their looks,
As if they saw the buried writers rise.
Such heaps of written thought; gold of the dead,
Which Time does still disperse but not devour,
Made them presume all was from deluge freed
Which long-lived authors writ ere Noah's shower.

DAVENANT, _Gondibert_.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a
progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose
progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the
purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that
bred them.--MILTON, _Areopagitica_.

Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems to savour
less of absolute instinct, and which may be so well
reconciled to worldly wisdom, as this of authors for their
books. These children may most truly be called the riches of
their father, and many of them have with true filial piety
fed their parent in his old age; so that not only the
affection but the interest of the author may be highly
injured by those slanderers whose poisonous breath brings
his book to an untimely end.--FIELDING, _Tom Jones_.

We whom the world is pleased to honour with the title of
modern authors should never have been able to compass our
great design of everlasting remembrance and never-dying fame
if our endeavours had not been so highly serviceable to the
general good of mankind.--SWIFT, _Tale of a Tub_.

A good library always makes me melancholy, where the best
author is as much squeezed and as obscure as a porter at a
coronation.--SWIFT.

In my youth I never entered a great library but my
predominant feeling was one of pain and disturbance of
mind--not much unlike that which drew tears from Xerxes on
viewing his immense army, and reflecting that in one hundred
years not one soul would remain alive. To me, with respect
to books, the same effect would be brought about by my own
death. Here, said I, are one hundred thousand books, the
worst of them capable of giving me some instruction and
pleasure; and before I can have had time to extract the
honey from one-twentieth of this hive in all likelihood I
shall be summoned away.--DE QUINCEY, _Letter to a young
man_.

A man may be judged by his library.--BENTHAM.

I ever look upon a library with the reverence of a
temple.--EVELYN, _to Wotton_.

'Father, I should like to learn to make gold.' 'And what
would'st thou do if thou could'st make it?' 'Why, I would
build a great house and fill it with books.'--SOUTHEY,
_Doctor_.

What would you have more? A wife? That is none of the
indispensable requisites of life. Books? That is one of
them, and I have more than I can use.--DAVID HUME, _Burton's
'Life_.'

Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the
lottery! What is that to opening a box of books? The joy
upon lifting up the cover must be something like that which
we shall feel when Peter the porter opens the door upstairs,
and says, 'Please to walk in, Sir.'--SOUTHEY, _Life_.

I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of
books than a king who did not love reading.--MACAULAY.

Our books ... do not our hearts hug them, and quiet
themselves in them even more than in God?--BAXTER'S _Saint's
Rest_.

It is our duty to live among books.--NEWMAN, _Tracts for the
Times, No. 2_.

What lovely things books are!--BUCKLE, _Life by Huth_.

(Query) Whether the collected wisdom of all ages and nations
be not found in books?--BERKELEY, _Querist_.

Read we must, be writers ever so indifferent.--SHAFTESBURY,
_Characteristics_.

It's mighty hard to write nowadays without getting something
or other worth listening to into your essay or your volume.
The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on a sea of
wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.--O. W.
HOLMES, _Poet at the Breakfast Table_.

I adopted the tolerating measure of the elder Pliny--'nullum
esse librum tam malum ut non in aliqua parte
prodesset.'--GIBBON, _Autobiography_.

A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.--BYRON,
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.

While you converse with lords and dukes,
I have their betters here, my books;
Fixed in an elbow chair at ease
I choose companions as I please.
I'd rather have one single shelf
Than all my friends, except yourself.
For, after all that can be said,
Our best companions are the dead.

SHERIDAN _to Swift_.

We often hear of people who will descend to any servility,
submit to any insult for the sake of getting themselves or
their children into what is euphemistically called good
society. Did it ever occur to them that there is a select
society of all the centuries to which they and theirs can be
admitted for the asking?--LOWELL, _Speech at Chelsea_.

On all sides are we not driven to the conclusion that of all
things which men can do or make here below, by far the most
momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call
books? For, indeed, is it not verily the highest act of
man's faculty that produces a book? It is the thought of
man. The true thaumaturgic virtue by which man marks all
things whatever. All that he does and brings to pass is the
vesture of a book.--CARLYLE, _Hero Worship_.

Yet it is just
That here in memory of all books which lay
Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
...
That I should here assert their rights, assert
Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce
Their benediction, speak of them as powers
For ever to be hallowed; only less
For what we are and what we may become
Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God,
Or His pure word by miracle revealed.

WORDSWORTH, _Prelude_.

Take me to some lofty room,
Lighted from the western sky,
Where no glare dispels the gloom,
Till the golden eve is nigh;
Where the works of searching thought,
Chosen books, may still impart
What the wise of old have taught,
What has tried the meek of heart;
Books in long dead tongues that stirred
Loving hearts in other climes;
Telling to my eyes, unheard,
Glorious deeds of olden times:
Books that purify the thought,
Spirits of the learned dead,
Teachers of the little taught,
Comforters when friends are fled.

BARNES, _Poems of Rural Life_.

A library is like a butcher's shop; it contains plenty of
meat, but it is all raw; no person living can find a meal in
it till some good cook comes along and says, 'Sir, I see by
your looks that you are hungry; I know your taste; be
patient for a moment and you shall be satisfied that you
have an excellent appetite!'--G. ELLIS, Lockhart's
'_Scott_.'

A library is itself a cheap university.--H. SIDGWICK,
_Political Economy_.

O such a life as he resolved to live
Once he had mastered all that books can give!

BROWNING.

I will bury myself in my books and the devil may pipe to his
own.--TENNYSON.

Words! words! words!--SHAKESPEARE.

HOURS IN A LIBRARY

_DE FOE'S NOVELS_

According to the high authority of Charles Lamb, it has sometimes
happened 'that from no inferior merit in the rest, but from some
superior good fortune in the choice of a subject, some single work' (of
a particular author) 'shall have been suffered to eclipse, and cast into
the shade, the deserts of its less fortunate brethren.' And after
quoting the case of Bunyan's 'Holy War' as compared with the 'Pilgrim's
Progress,' he adds that, 'in no instance has this excluding partiality
been exerted with more unfairness than against what may be termed the
secondary novels or romances of De Foe.' He proceeds to declare that
there are at least four other fictitious narratives by the same
writer--'Roxana,' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' and 'Colonel
Jack'--which possess an interest not inferior to 'Robinson
Crusoe'--'except what results from a less felicitous choice of
situation.' Granting most unreservedly that the same hand is perceptible
in the minor novels as in 'Robinson Crusoe,' and that they bear at every
page the most unequivocal symptoms of De Foe's workmanship, I venture to
doubt the 'partiality' and the 'unfairness' of preferring to them their
more popular rival. The instinctive judgment of the world is not really
biassed by anything except the intrinsic power exerted by a book over
its sympathies; and as in the long run it has honoured 'Robinson
Crusoe,' in spite of the critics, and has comparatively neglected
'Roxana' and the companion stories, there is probably some good cause
for the distinction. The apparent injustice to books resembles what we
often see in the case of men. A. B. becomes Lord Chancellor, whilst C.
D. remains for years a briefless barrister; and yet for the life of us
we cannot tell but that C. D. is the abler man of the two. Perhaps he
was wanting in some one of the less conspicuous elements that are
essential to a successful career; he said, 'Open, wheat!' instead of
'Open, sesame!' and the barriers remained unaffected by his magic. The
secret may really be simple enough. The complete success of such a book
as 'Robinson' implies, it may be, the precise adaptation of the key to
every ward of the lock. The felicitous choice of situation to which Lamb
refers gave just the required fitness; and it is of little use to plead
that 'Roxana,' 'Colonel Jack,' and others might have done the same trick
if only they had received a little filing, or some slight change in
shape: a shoemaker might as well argue that if you had only one toe less
his shoes wouldn't pinch you.

To leave the unsatisfactory ground of metaphor, we may find out, on
examination, that De Foe had discovered in 'Robinson Crusoe' precisely
the field in which his talents could be most effectually applied; and
that a very slight alteration in the subject-matter might change the
merit of his work to a disproportionate extent. The more special the
idiosyncrasy upon which a man's literary success is founded, the
greater, of course, the probability that a small change will disconcert
him. A man who can only perform upon the drum will have to wait for
certain combinations of other instruments before his special talent can
be turned to account. Now, the talent in which De Foe surpasses all
other writers is just one of those peculiar gifts which must wait for a
favourable chance. When a gentleman, in a fairy story, has a power of
seeing a hundred miles, or covering seven leagues at a stride, we know
that an opportunity will speedily occur for putting his faculties to
use. But the gentleman with the seven-leagued boots is useless when the
occasion offers itself for telescopic vision, and the eyes are good for
nothing without the power of locomotion. To De Foe, if we may imitate
the language of the 'Arabian Nights,' was given a tongue to which no one
could listen without believing every word that he uttered--a
qualification, by the way, which would serve its owner far more
effectually in this commonplace world than swords of sharpness or cloaks
of darkness, or other fairy paraphernalia. In other words, he had the
most marvellous power ever known of giving verisimilitude to his
fictions; or, in other words again, he had the most amazing talent on
record for telling lies. We have all read how the 'History of the
Plague,' the 'Memoirs of a Cavalier,' and even, it is said, 'Robinson
Crusoe,' have succeeded in passing themselves off for veritable
narratives. The 'Memoirs of Captain Carleton' long passed for De Foe's,
but the Captain has now gained admission to the biographical dictionary
and is credited with his own memoirs. In either case, it is as
characteristic that a genuine narrative should be attributed to De Foe,
as that De Foe's narrative should be taken as genuine. An odd testimony
to De Foe's powers as a liar (a word for which there is, unfortunately,
no equivalent that does not imply some blame) has been mentioned. Mr.
M'Queen, quoted in Captain Burton's 'Nile Basin,' names 'Captain
Singleton' as a genuine account of travels in Central Africa, and
seriously mentions De Foe's imaginary pirate as 'a claimant for the
honour of the discovery of the sources of the White Nile.' Probably,
however, this only proves that Mr. M'Queen had never read the book.

Most of the literary artifices to which De Foe owed his power of
producing this illusion are sufficiently plain. Of all the fictions
which he succeeded in palming off for truths none is more instructive
than that admirable ghost, Mrs. Veal. Like the sonnets of some great
poets, it contains in a few lines all the essential peculiarities of his
art, and an admirable commentary has been appended to it by Sir Walter
Scott. The first device which strikes us is his ingenious plan for
manufacturing corroborative evidence. The ghost appears to Mrs.
Bargrave. The story of the apparition is told by a 'very sober and
understanding gentlewoman, who lives within a few doors of Mrs.
Bargrave;' and the character of this sober gentlewoman is supported by
the testimony of a justice of the peace at Maidstone, 'a very
intelligent person.' This elaborate chain of evidence is intended to
divert our attention from the obvious circumstance that the whole story
rests upon the authority of the anonymous person who tells us of the
sober gentlewoman, who supports Mrs. Bargrave, and is confirmed by the
intelligent justice. Simple as the artifice appears, it is one which is
constantly used in supernatural stories of the present day. One of those
improving legends tells how a ghost appeared to two officers in Canada,
and how, subsequently, one of the officers met the ghost's twin brother
in London, and straightway exclaimed, 'You are the person who appeared
to me in Canada!' Many people are diverted from the weak part of the
story by this ingenious confirmation, and, in their surprise at the
coherence of the narrative, forget that the narrative itself rests upon
entirely anonymous evidence. A chain is no stronger than its weakest
link; but if you show how admirably the last few are united together,
half the world will forget to test the security of the equally essential
links which are kept out of sight. De Foe generally repeats a similar
trick in the prefaces of his fictions. ''Tis certain,' he says, in the
'Memoirs of a Cavalier,' 'no man could have given a description of his
retreat from Marston Moor to Rochdale, and thence over the moors to the
North, in so apt and proper terms, unless he had really travelled over
the ground he describes,' which, indeed, is quite true, but by no means
proves that the journey was made by a fugitive from that particular
battle. He separates himself more ostentatiously from the supposititious
author by praising his admirable manner of relating the memoirs, and the
'wonderful variety of incidents with which they are beautified;' and,
with admirable impudence, assures us that they are written in so
soldierly a style, that it 'seems impossible any but the very person who
was present in every action here related was the relater of them.' In
the preface to 'Roxana,' he acts, with equal spirit, the character of an
impartial person, giving us the evidence on which he is himself
convinced of the truth of the story, as though he would, of all things,
refrain from pushing us unfairly for our belief. The writer, he says,
took the story from the lady's own mouth: he was, of course, obliged to
disguise names and places; but was himself 'particularly acquainted with
this lady's first husband, the brewer, and with his father, and also
with his bad circumstances, and knows that first part of the story.'
The rest we must, of course, take upon the lady's own evidence, but less
unwillingly, as the first is thus corroborated. We cannot venture to
suggest to so calm a witness that he has invented both the lady and the
writer of her history; and, in short, that when he says that A. says
that B. says something, it is, after all, merely the anonymous 'he' who
is speaking. In giving us his authority for 'Moll Flanders,' he ventures
upon the more refined art of throwing a little discredit upon the
narrator's veracity. She professes to have abandoned her evil ways, but,
as he tells us with a kind of aside, and as it were cautioning us
against over-incredulity, 'it seems' (a phrase itself suggesting the
impartial looker-on) that in her old age 'she was not so extraordinary a
penitent as she was at first; it seems only' (for, after all, you
mustn't make _too_ much of my insinuations) 'that indeed she always
spoke with abhorrence of her former life.' So we are left in a qualified
state of confidence, as if we had been talking about one of his patients
with the wary director of a reformatory.

This last touch, which is one of De Foe's favourite expedients, is most
fully exemplified in the story of Mrs. Veal. The author affects to take
us into his confidence, to make us privy to the pros and cons in regard
to the veracity of his own characters, till we are quite disarmed. The
sober gentlewoman vouches for Mrs. Bargrave; but Mrs. Bargrave is by no
means allowed to have it all her own way. One of the ghost's
communications related to the disposal of a certain sum of 10_l._ a
year, of which Mrs. Bargrave, according to her own account, could have
known nothing, except by this supernatural intervention. Mrs. Veal's
friends, however, tried to throw doubt upon the story of her appearance,
considering that it was disreputable for a decent woman to go abroad
after her death. One of them, therefore, declared that Mrs. Bargrave was
a liar, and that she had, in fact, known of the 10_l._ beforehand. On
the other hand, the person who thus attacked Mrs. Bargrave had himself
the 'reputation of a notorious liar.' Mr. Veal, the ghost's brother, was
too much of a gentleman to make such gross imputations. He confined
himself to the more moderate assertion that Mrs. Bargrave had been
crazed by a bad husband. He maintained that the story must be a mistake,
because, just before her death, his sister had declared that she had
nothing to dispose of. This statement, however, may be reconciled with
the ghost's remarks about the 10_l._, because she obviously mentioned
such a trifle merely by way of a token of the reality of her appearance.
Mr. Veal, indeed, makes rather a better point by stating that a certain
purse of gold mentioned by the ghost was found, not in the cabinet where
she told Mrs. Bargrave that she had placed it, but in a comb-box. Yet,
again, Mr. Veal's statement is here rather suspicious, for it is known
that Mrs. Veal was very particular about her cabinet, and would not have
let her gold out of it. We are left in some doubts by this conflict of
evidence, although the obvious desire of Mr. Veal to throw discredit on
the story of his sister's appearance rather inclines us to believe in
Mrs. Bargrave's story, who could have had no conceivable motive for
inventing such a fiction. The argument is finally clenched by a decisive
coincidence. The ghost wears a silk dress. In the course of a long
conversation she incidentally mentioned to Mrs. Bargrave that this was a
scoured silk, newly made up. When Mrs. Bargrave reported this remarkable
circumstance to a certain Mrs. Wilson, 'You have certainly seen her,'
exclaimed that lady, 'for none knew but Mrs. Veal and myself that the
gown had been scoured.' To this crushing piece of evidence it seems that
neither Mr. Veal nor the notorious liar could invent any sufficient
reply.

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