The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

Such a theory as that advanced in "Alchemy and the Alchemists" opens a
new chapter in the visible and invisible of a library of Hermetic
Philosophy.

The most ancient specimens of calligraphy extant are probably the
Terence of the fourth century and the Virgil of the fifth century, in
the Vatican Library. Alas for those who have no open sesame to that
collection! We shall never forget our disappointment upon entering the
Vatican. We could not gaze even on the mouldy vellum or faded leather of
old bindings, and saw nothing but stupid modern painted cases, bodies
quite unworthy of the souls they hid. Gladly would we have laid aside
our theory concerning unseen treasures, and looked that great collection
face to face.

"The taste for the external decoration of manuscripts," says Labarte,
(whose interesting "Hand-Book on the Arts of the Middle Ages" has been
admirably translated by Mrs. Palliser,) "already existed among the
ancients. Marcus Varro called forth the praises of Cicero for having
traced in his book the portraits of more than seven hundred celebrated
persons; Seneca, in his treatise 'De Tranquillitate Animi,' speaks of
books ornamented with figures; and Martial addresses his thanks to
Stertinius, who had placed his portrait in his library."

These ancient works of Art have vanished, none have survived the stormy
passage of ages, yet this casual mention of them carries us into the
otherwise invisible past. We see the seven hundred portraits in Marcus
Varro's book, and walk into the library of Stertinius to give our
opinion of the portrait of Martial.

"The miniatures of manuscripts were long considered," says Labarte,
"only as ornaments. Montfaucon was the first to recognize their
usefulness as historical documents. To possess manuscripts of the Middle
Ages with miniatures is in fact to possess a gallery of contemporaneous
pictures."

The most beautiful specimen of ancient illuminated manuscript we have
seen in this country belongs to the Honorable Charles Sumner. It is a
missal of the fifteenth century, of finest quality. Several of the
miniatures might well be claimed as the work of Van Eyck. The
frontispiece consists of the portrait of the lady for whose devotions
the book was prepared. She kneels before the Madonna, while her patron
saint stands beside her. Beneath this celestial vision is the heraldic
shield of the lady's family, thus throwing in a glimpse of visible
worldly grandeur. The borders and arabesques of this manuscript are
equal in execution to the miniatures, and the missal is one of rare
beauty.

Can we forbear alluding to that other treasure of Senator Sumner's
collection,--the Album which belonged to Camillus Cordoyn, who, more
than two centuries ago, entertained guests at his house as they
journeyed into Italy? One of these, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Lord
Strafford, then a young man gayly travelling about the world, wrote his
name in the volume, little thinking of the block and the axe which were
to illustrate the closing chapter of his book of life. The immortal
Milton, on his return from Italy, was the guest of the same nobleman.
What would we not give for a look into that house at Geneva, and see
this little volume laid before the visitor! The glorious eyes of John
Milton looked over its pages, and perhaps he listened to the story of
some of the distinguished personages, now all forgotten, whose names and
heraldic shields are there. Then he turned to a blank leaf, and wrote
two lines from his own "Comus,"--

"If Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her."

He signed his name on that 20th of June, 1639, and the host took back
the book. And now, more than two hundred years after, that page is held
as priceless in this great republic beyond the sea.

We should speak gratefully of the externals of books, because for two
long years our oculist did not allow us to open them. We dared not go
farther than their titles, yet even these were talismans which revealed
wide regions, and carried us from Indus to the Pole. We went with Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley to the Holy Land, discovered Nineveh with Layard,
explored Art treasures with Mrs. Jameson, plunged among icebergs with
Parry. A volume of Belzoni bore us not only to pyramids and mummies in
Egypt, but away to a strange old hall "in Padua, beyond the sea."
Cabalistic paintings cover the walls, misty with age; lurking in one
corner of the vast apartment is a gigantic wooden horse, that figured at
some public festival four hundred years ago, and now pauses, ready to
prance out of the mouldy past into the affrighted present; opposite
stand two Egyptian statues, cat-headed human figures, resting their
hands on their stone knees. These were gifts from Belzoni to his native
city of Padua; and his handsome head in the Eastern turban, turned into
white marble, stands above the entrance-door.

Coming back from the Paduan hall, so weird and ghostly, we glance along
the shelves at a long row of volumes which bear De Quincey's name, and
we need not open a page to feel the mysterious spell of the opium-eater.
Like one of those strange dreams of his seems a remembrance which comes
back to us with his name. A quaint, tall house in the old part of
Edinburgh has admitted us into a quiet apartment, where, as the twilight
is creeping in through the windows, a small gray man receives us, with
graceful and tender courtesy. He converses with a felicity of language
like that of his printed pages, but in a voice so sweet, so low, so
exquisitely modulated, that the magical tone vibrates on the ear like
music. It was De Quincey, who held us entranced until darkness gathered
around us, then bade us farewell, his kind words lingering on the air,
as, with a flickering candle in his hand, he flitted up the winding
stair, and vanished away.

Another volume bears the name of William Wordsworth, and beneath his
autograph he writes that it was purchased at Bath from a
circulating-library. It is that strange journal of the Margravine of
Bareith, sister of Frederic the Great, a sad story of those who dwell in
kings' houses; but we think only of Wordsworth, and of the viewless
history of the book carried by the poet from circulating in Bath to
quiet rural Rydal Mount, and now having wandered over to New England.

A dainty volume near by bears the autograph of Rogers, and though the
association is not so purely imaginative, perhaps, as a poet should call
up, yet it always brings to our mind the breakfasts at his house, of
which many of our friends have partaken, and related divers stories
concerning those morning refections. They are invisible feasts to us,
for we never even picked up the crumbs from them, except at second hand;
yet this elegant little book knew all about them, and heard what was
said before, and also behind--the table-cloth.

Singular experiences connected with books are sometimes known to their
owners, quite invisible to others. In yonder corner are two volumes.
Book-collectors know that they are rare, and the uninitiated think they
contain queer old wood-cuts. To us that corner is haunted; an invisible
lady hovers about those volumes. Once upon a time an order was given for
those books, but the answer came back from over the sea, that they were
not to be had, or to be had only at rare intervals on the breaking up of
a library. To our no small surprise, very soon after this quietus had
been given to bibliomaniacal hopes, the books in question appeared
before us in excellent condition. We could hardly suppose that any one
had been benevolent enough to break up a library on purpose to oblige
us, and we waited to hear a very odd story.

Soon after the letter had been sent, announcing the ill success of our
commission, the writer of it was in a bookshop in London, when a lady
entered and desired an interview with the master. After some private
conversation, the lady returned to her carriage and drove away. The
bookseller remarked to his friend, that the lady had brought with her
some books, which she desired to part with. Our informant asked to see
them, and, lo! the very volumes for which in our behalf he had searched
in vain: he immediately secured the prize, which was forwarded by the
next steamer.

Can any one ask why the figure of the lady who brought those books to us
three thousand miles over the sea "haunts us like a shadow"? We see her
ascend her invisible carriage, we go with her to her invisible home, we
meet her viewless husband;--here we shudder, but we recover ourselves;
we are convinced that he could not have been a book-collector, or she
had not dared such a deed. Then we puzzle ourselves about her unseen
motives for selling the books. Had she gambled? Had she bet on the
losing horse at the Derby? Had she bought an expensive bonnet? Or was it
the impulse of some strong benevolent purpose? Why _did_ she sell those
books? Since she did thus part with them, we thank her, and are content
that by very strange combinations of circumstances, blending the visible
and invisible together, those books, viewless in her library, are now
apparent in our own.

Here is another volume which has also something mystical about it in its
visible and invisible effect. It is a copy of Dibdin's "Bibliomania,"
which belonged to Dawson Turner. A note in his handwriting states that
the tools required for the binding were used exclusively for Lord
Spencer, and that a view of Strawberry Hill will be found on its edges.
Gilt edges, however, are all that meet the eye; but turned by a skilful
hand to the right light, the gilding vanishes, and a picture of
Strawberry Hill appears, painted with velvety softness. Such a nice
bibliomaniacal fancy must have delighted Dibdin; and as he was at one
time librarian at Althorpe, he doubtless was the medium of bestowing
this charm upon the binding of his own work for his friend.

The invisible in libraries has ever seemed to us linked with those who
have written or read the books. If souls are allowed to return to their
earthly haunts, a library would surely be the place to meet them. For
this reason we have cherished a firm belief in the apparition which the
distinguished librarian of the Astor Library beheld, and never desire to
hear any commonplace explanations concerning it; and on visiting the
Astor collection, we were more desirous to see the spot where the
reading phantom appeared than all the rest of the building. Who shall
say that authors and students do not come back to the books which
contain their invisible souls, or spirits like themselves? Without
venturing to invoke the sceptred sovereigns of literature, or to call up
the shades of the prophets and sibyls of elder time, yet at midnight
what a circle might come forth and visit the library! Scott and Burns
and Byron, Burke and Fox and Sheridan, all in one evening; clever,
pretty Mrs. Thrale comes bringing Fanny Burney to meet Jane Austen and
Maria Edgeworth; Horace Walpole, patronizing Gray, Rogers, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Keats, and Charles Lamb,--what a social club that would be!
Ah, the librarian of the Astor is more fortunate than we; these spirits
are all invisible, and we catch not even at midnight the rustle of the
leaf they turn or the passing murmur of their voices. Yet within the
library, ever ready to meet us, their souls still linger; and when we
open the visible book which enshrines it, we find the hidden spirit.

A number of gentlemen once went together to a friend's house. While they
awaited his entrance, one of the party, being a lover of books,
naturally turned to the shelves of the library. Without any particular
attraction to the title, he chanced to take down one of the volumes. As
he opened it, a sealed letter fell from between the leaves on the floor.
He took it up, and, to his no small astonishment, perceived that it was
addressed to himself.

He called the attention of his companions to this strange circumstance.
As it could be no breach of decorum to break the seal of a letter
addressed to one's self, he did so. The surprise was increased by
finding a bank-note within. The letter came from a well-known gentleman,
and bore the date of a year past. When the owner of the house entered,
he found his guests in quite a tumult of surprise and puzzle. At first
he was quite as much at a loss as themselves to account for this
discovery. It was, however, remembered by the gentleman to whom the
letter was addressed, that about a year before he had applied to the
writer for aid in some charity, but, having many demands of the same
kind to supply, he declined. Afterwards, as it appeared, he regretted
having done so, and had accordingly inclosed the money. Probably, soon
after, he met the gentleman in whose book it was found, (with whom he
was on intimate terms,) and asked him to give the letter as addressed.
The receiver brought it home, laid it on his table, and forgot it. The
book lying open, it may be that the letter slipped between the leaves
and the volume was returned to the shelf. And there it had waited for
more than a year, holding the invisible letter quite safe, until the
person to whom it was addressed took down, for the first time in his
life, a volume from those shelves, and received into his own hand the
communication intended for him. No one can wonder that the invisible in
libraries has a strong hold on the faith of our friend.

Although few may be so fortunate as to find bank-notes in letters
addressed to themselves between the leaves of books in libraries, yet
we all have felt the sensation of discoverers of hidden treasures. After
carelessly looking at a volume which has stood on the shelves for years,
we open it and find within thoughts which appeal to our deepest
experiences, high incentives to our nobler energies, deep sympathy in
our sorrows, sustaining words to help us on with our life-work. How
differently do we ever after regard the visible of that book! The
invisible has been revealed to us, and we almost wonder whether, if we
had looked into it two or three years before, we should have found there
what now we prize so much. Perhaps not; for after different experiences
in life come different revelations from books. The pages which a few
years ago we might have glanced over with indifference now speak to us
as if uttering the emotions of our own souls.

Sometimes it is a work of fiction which, we open for the first time, the
title of which has been familiar to our eyes. Out of it invisible
spirits walk. We are introduced to charming people who never existed,
and yet who become our daily companions. We go with them through many
trials, we rejoice with them, we know all their secrets, and share with
them many of our own. Is it possible, that, shut up between those
covers, long unknown, all these existed which have since made life
brighter and better to us?

In Sterling's "Onyx Ring," Walsingham, the poet, takes down a volume
from Sir Charles Harcourt's library, and reads a charming romance,
apparently from its pages. A lady of the company afterwards turned to
the same book, which proved to be a work of Jeremy Bentham's, and
searched in vain for the graceful narrative. Walsingham smiled at her
perplexity, and said, "Those only find who know where to look."

The invisible world of thought, and the invisible representation of it
in books, have known many changes since Cicero looked at the volume
which Marcus Varro had illustrated; and from an earlier civilization
than Cicero's comes the exclamation of the soul-wearied Job, "Oh that
mine adversary had written a book!" Solomon also exclaims, "Of making
many books there is no end." He dreamed not of the extent to which the
manufacture would be carried in these days. On the other hand, how
little we know of the literary world existing in the days of Job or
Solomon! and may we not be led by these exclamations to suspect not only
a large supply of books, but even the existence of an Arabian Review or
a Dead-Sea Magazine?

The increase of wealth, and the restless activity of intellect in the
new world which surrounds us, lead naturally to the accumulation of
libraries, both public and private. In our daily walks we often pass
dwellings which we know hold literary treasures. Sometimes the beauties
of Nature can be combined with those of Art, even in a city, around the
library. We recall one from the windows of which we look forth, not on
crowded streets, but on the wide river as it bends to the sea. Behind
the distant hills the heavens are resplendent with the autumnal hues of
sunset, the water is aglow with reflected glories, while swooping and
sailing over the waves come the white sea-gulls. It is a leaf from the
illuminated prayer-missal for all eyes and hearts. The literary
treasures of that friend's library have been elsewhere described, some
of them gifts from wise men, earnest women, world-worshipped poets,
bearing on their leaves the signatures of their authors' friendship.
Other treasures are there, visible and invisible, among which we would
fain linger, but we must pass on. We enter another library, once filled
with rare and costly works, which taught of the wonderful structure of
plants, from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar of Lebanon. Gone now
are these volumes, and vanished, too, is their collector, whose wide and
generous culture was veiled by the curtain of modesty and quietness. His
collections he bestowed upon a public institution, where the wonders of
God's universe will be a subject of study for all coming time. These he
gave, and then went peacefully away from our sight to learn yet wider
and grander lessons at the feet of that Teacher who, when he was on
earth, bade his followers "consider the lilies of the field." Is not
that library as real to us as when the books filled its shelves, and we
were welcomed by the gentle voice of its master?

The crowds which form the living stream that surges through Washington
Street and eddies around the Old South Church seldom, perhaps, pause to
think of that edifice as one of the links uniting the memorable past of
our country's history with the momentous present. Still less do they who
raise their eyes to the tower to learn the hour of the day imagine that
there is an invisible library connected with the familiar form of the
belfry. Yet a romance of literary and historic interest encircles it. At
the time of the Revolution, Dr. Prince was pastor of the Old South
Church, and in the tower he kept his historical treasures along with the
New England Library. Among these volumes were Governor Bradford's
letter-book and the manuscript of his "History of the Plantation of
Plymouth." During the siege of Boston, the British turned the Old South
into a riding-school, and the troopers had free scope to do what
mischief they pleased. After the evacuation of the town the library was
found in a disordered condition, and the valued manuscripts of Bradford
were missing. Some time after, a person observed that the article he had
bought from a grocer in Halifax was wrapped in paper written over in a
peculiar hand. He deciphered enough to make him earnest to obtain what
remained of the manuscript in the grocer's possession. It proved to be
fragments of the missing letter-book of Governor Bradford. Years passed
on until 1856, when the attention of an historical writer was attracted
by a quotation, in a note to an English work, from "a manuscript history
of the Plantation of Plymouth, in the Fulham Library." As the extract
contained passages not found in any part of that history known in
America, it immediately occurred to those interested that this might be
the missing volume from the Prince Library. A correspondence was
thereupon opened with the Bishop of London. The handwriting of Bradford
being authenticated, as well as that of Dr. Prince, which was found in a
memorandum, dated "June 28th, showing how he obtained it from Major John
Bradford," there could no longer remain a doubt that this was indeed the
lost historical treasure. Part of the manuscripts of Bradford had been
carried by the British soldiers to Halifax, and sold at last as
waste-paper to a grocer; and the rest, after some history unknown,
reached England and found protection under the care of the Bishop of
London. A copy of this manuscript is now in the possession of the Boston
Historical Society.

In the rooms of that society is preserved the Dowse Library. A rare
collection of books, formed by a man daily engaged in the mechanic craft
of a leather-dresser, is a singular illustration of the visible and
invisible of libraries. We recall past days in Cambridge, when, beneath
the sign of a white wooden sheep, we entered the unpretending house
which contained not only the leather-dresser's shop, but a small gallery
of pictures and this valuable library. We remember, also, with grateful
interest, the modest, but manly, welcome of the master of both the
mechanic craft and the treasures of art and literature, and how quietly
he would give us a few words about his books. The Dowse Library we visit
is always _there_, and although much is visible in the beautiful room
where the bequest of the owner has been fittingly enshrined, yet its
distinctive charm is invisible.

The City Library of Boston has one feature entirely new in the visible
of a great public collection. A large portion of the books, under
certain regulations, are circulated among the inhabitants of the city,
and thousands avail themselves of this privilege. Here, then, is opened
a great fountain of knowledge in the midst of a wide population: all may
come, without money and without price. The visible pages of learning,
wisdom, science, truth, imagination, ingenious theory, or deep
conviction lie open not only to the eyes, but to the hearts and homes of
a great people. It is like the overflowing Nile, carrying sweet waters
to irrigate many waste places, and clothing the dry dust of common life
with the flowers, the fruit, and the sustaining grain, springing from
invisible seeds cast by unseen hands into the wide field of the world.

"If," says Lord Bacon, "the invention of ships was thought so noble,
which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, how much more
are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas
of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom,
illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other!"

NOTE.--Since these pages were written, one who knew how to
prize the visible and invisible of books has passed away. The
silent library of George Livermore speaks eloquently of him.
That collection, gathered with a love which increased as years
advanced, includes ancient copies of the Bible of rarest
values. His life was a book, written over with good deeds and
pure thoughts, illuminated by holy aspirations. That volume is
closed, but the spirit which rendered it precious is not
withdrawn; living in many hearts, it will continue to be a
cherished presence in the world, the home, and the library.

LETTER TO A YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER.

You know, dear M., it is said that in times of bankruptcy men go home to
get acquainted with their wives; perhaps it should be added that wives
then go to get introduced to their kitchens. But your sensible letter is
an omen, little friend, that to you and H. this does not apply. You will
not wait for poverty to teach you economy, but will learn economy to
ward off poverty. So herewith I send a few of the culinary notes of the
last two years; but neither of us is to be taken for a bankrupt's wife,
for all that. It is simply recognizing that you are alone in new duties,
and that cookery is an art which may not be gained even from that
fountain of knowledge, named by the Apostle Paul as one's husband. The
successes of the art no one knows better than he; but of the processes
he will be found sublimely ignorant. There are but two points in which
you can defer to him,--punch and lobster-salad. These, like swearing and
smoking, are strictly masculine accomplishments.

If you had the thrifty maiden aunt kept in reserve by most families for
an emergency, you would kindly offer her a home at your house for a
while. But since you have not, I will be as disagreeable to you as she.
So turn your glowing Spanish eyes toward me, instead of looking demurely
about, as people do when they are having old letters read to them.

Byron said he hated to see a woman eat; and there is a class of
housekeepers who certainly return the compliment upon men. These
ethereal beings are forever sighing for life with appetite left out.
Like Lord Dundreary's lady-love, they are "_so_ delicate," unless caught
in the pantry hastily devouring onions and beefsteak. To be hungry is so
vulgar! One should live by nothing grosser than inhalation, and should
never have an appetite greater than that of a healthy bumble-bee. But,
thanks to the robust, latter-day theory, that the best saints have the
best bodies, this puerile class is diminishing. For who can doubt that
the senses are entitled to their full blossom? Gustation was meant to be
delightful; and cooking is certainly half as good as tasting. At times
one may have longed for the old Roman custom of two meals a day, and
going to bed at chicken-time, bringing the hour of roast near the hour
of roost; but this was probably in families where there were three
repasts, with lunch all the way between, and an incessant buying of
cookies from the baker, lest the children should go hungry. After this
surfeit one pardons a recoil. Or, in an enervating day of July, one may
have longed to dine upon humming-bird, with rose-leaves for dessert. But
these are exceptional times; the abiding hope is, that we shall continue
to eat, drink, and be merry. For the practical is in the imperative. It
is cumulative, and reinforces itself,--a real John Brown power that is
always marching on, and we must march beside it with patient, cheery
hearts. Is it strange that even the moss-covered Carlisle town, of which
the Last Minstrel sang, and where the Scottish Mary tarried in her
flight from the cousin queen, is now chiefly remarkable for its
cotton-factory and biscuit-bakery?

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19