Sunday, September 25, 2011
Book Catalogues
E.V. Lucas, Fireside and Sunshine (London: Methuen & Co., 1907), pp. 115-116:![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCxaeX8osA2QR_KVEeuKi27NNkei1EmNv7GcF9oObhJG-KAC5vNRberPRH3uOpHbg06W6Kj4Mgz9a4lyxEgv30_XGVUFhE-iOTIfdHYCtREFbAqqPsh3A-wzeTmItWtca2NT1Xiw/s400/yves-trevedy-elderly-man-by-a-window.jpg)
Yves Trevedy, Elderly Man at a Window
Hat tip: Eric Thomson.
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Of the delectation which accompanies the leisurely examination, pencil in hand, of a second-hand bookseller's list, something has just been said. In the recesses of an arm-chair one can become, in fancy, the owner of first folios without even the exertion of nodding. "Gerard's Herbal, £2?" "Yes, I may as well have that; " and the proprietary cross springs into being on the margin. "Dame Juliana Berners' Boke of St Albans?" "And I will have that too"—another cross. "John Florio's Montaigne, quarto?" "Ah! at last! " And so one goes on. What it is like actually to buy from Mr. Quaritch's list I have no notion. Such purchases as I have made of that great man (now, alas! no more) were carried through one-sidedly, in a not strictly commercial manner, for the library of a castle on the other side of the Pyrenees; hence I can speak only as a poor man. A poor man with a book catalogue is a feasting Barmecide, yet without his haste to despatch the meal. Or, rather, he is as one who through the panes of a sealed window watches without envy a procession of those dishes of which he may not partake. Without envy; for, if covetousness at all worthy the name takes part in his feelings, he can never know the enjoyment of catalogues to the full. A mild, well-ordered inclination (to add sauce to the perusal) may be his, but nothing more; he must be utterly without rancour that others are richer than he.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCxaeX8osA2QR_KVEeuKi27NNkei1EmNv7GcF9oObhJG-KAC5vNRberPRH3uOpHbg06W6Kj4Mgz9a4lyxEgv30_XGVUFhE-iOTIfdHYCtREFbAqqPsh3A-wzeTmItWtca2NT1Xiw/s400/yves-trevedy-elderly-man-by-a-window.jpg)
Hat tip: Eric Thomson.