Monday, November 07, 2011

 

Orphans in Need of a Good Home

[H.C. Beeching], Pages from a Private Diary (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1898), p. 119 (on a visit to a bookshop):
Folios, quartos, dumpy duodecimos, seemed to be putting out forlorn hands to me, and entreating that I should end their exile and let them co-exist with some co-appurtenant on my happy shelves. And here at home I am conscious, as never before, of great gaps; lacunae valde deflendae. But that way madness lies! I suppose every one has a grain of malice in his composition somewhere, and if he is a book-collector it is apt to show itself there; perhaps as harmless a vent as it can take.
Johannes Jelgerhuis (1770-1836),
De winkel van boekhandelaar Pieter Meijer Warnars
op de Vijgendam te Amsterdam



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