Part of a Man's Life: Books Unread
Page 2
There are many books which, although left unread, are to be valued for single sentences only, to be found here and there. Others are prized for the picturesque manner in which their quarto or folio pages are filled with capital or italic letters, or even for the superb and daring eccentricity of their title-pages alone. I have volumes of Jacob Behmen where each detached line of the title-page has something quaint and picturesque in it, and a dozen different fonts of type are drawn upon to conduct the reader through their mazes, as for instance in this:--
"Aurora.
That is, the
Day-Spring.
Or
Dawning of the Day in the Orient
Or
Morning-Rednesse
in the Rising of the
Sun.
That is
The Root or Mother of
Philosophie, Astrologie & Theologie
from the true Ground.
Or
A Description of Nature.
All this set down diligently from a true
Ground in the Knowledge of the
Spirit, and in the impulse of God,
By
Jacob Behme
Teutonick Philosopher.
Being his First Book.
Written in Gerlitz in Germany Anno
Christi M. DC. XII. on Tuesday after
the Day of Pentecost or Whitsunday
Ætatis suæ 37.
London, Printed by John Streater, for
Giles[sic] Calvert, and are be sold at
his Shop at the Black-spread-Eagle at
the West-End of Pauls, 1656."
Could I represent this title-page by photography as it is, you would see "Day-Spring" in lower-case letters; but in the largest type of all, as if leading a flight, the "Morning-Rednesse" in broad smiling German text, the "Dawning of the Day in the Orient" in a long italic line which suggests the very expansion of the light; and the "Sun" in the very centre of the page, as if all else were concentrated there; the word itself being made still terser, if possible, by the old-fashioned spelling, since it reads briefly "SVN."
Or consider such a magnificent hurling together of stately and solemn words as this; the whole Judgment Day of the Universe, as it were, brought together into a title-page:--
"Signatura Rerum:
or the
Signature of all Things:
shewing
The Sign, and Signification of the severall
Forms and Shapes in the
Creation:
And what the
Beginning, Ruin, and Cure of every
Thing is; it proceeds out of Eternity
into Time,
and again out of Time into Eternity,
and comprizeth
All Mysteries.
Written in High Dutch, MDCXXII.
By Jacob Behmen,
aliàs
Teutonicus Phylosophus.
London,
Printed by John Macock, for Gyles Calvert,
at the black spread
Eagle, at the West end of Pauls Church,
1651."
Here again the words "Beginning, Ruin, and Cure" are given in large italic letters, and I never open the book without a renewed sensation of awe, very much as if I were standing beside that gulf which yawned at Lisbon in 1755, and had seen those 30,000 human beings swallowed up before my eyes.
We do not sufficiently appreciate, in modern books, the condensed and at least readable title-pages which stand sentinel, as it were, at their beginning. We forget how much more easily the books of two centuries ago were left unread, inasmuch as the title-page was apt to be in itself as long as a book. Take, for instance, this quaint work, not to be found in Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, but owing its authorship to "J. Bland, Professor of Physic," who published in 1773, at London, "An Essay in Praise of Women; or a Looking Glass for Ladies to see their Perfections in with Observations how the Godhead seemed concerned in their Creation; what Respect is due to them on that Account; how they have behaved in all Ages and especially in our Saviour's Time." Thus begins the title-page, which is as long as an ordinary chapter, and closes thus: "Also Observations and Reflections in Defense against base and satirical Authors, proving them not only erroneous and diabolical but repugnant to Holy Scripture. The Whole being a Composition of Wit and Humor, Morality and Divinity fit to be perused by all the curious and ingenious, especially the Ladies." After this title-page, it is asking too much of any one to read the book, unless it be to study the manner in which the tea-table, now held so innocent, had, in 1733, such associations of luxury and extravagance that Professor J. Bland is compelled to implore husbands not to find fault with it. "More harmless liquor could never be invented than the ladies in this age have made choice of. What is so pleasant and grateful to the taste as a dish of tea, sweetened with fine loaf sugar? What more innocent banquet could have ever been in use than this? and what more becoming conversation than the inoffensive, sweet and melodious expressions of the fair ones over an entertainment so much like themselves?"
Or let us turn to one of the early American books, "The Columbian Muse, a Selection of American Poetry from various Authors of Established Reputation. Published in New York in 1794." The most patriotic American could not now read it with patience, yet the most unpatriotic cannot deny its quaint and fervent flavor. It is full of verses on the President's birthday and the genius of America; and of separate odes on American sages, American poets, and American painters. The monotonous couplets, the resounding adjectives, the personifications, the exclamation points, all belong to their period, the time when "Inoculation, heavenly maid" was deemed an appropriate opening for an ode. The very love poetry was patriotic and bore the title "On Love and the American Fair," by Colonel Humphreys, who also contributes a discourse on "The Future State," which turns out to refer to "Western Territory." Aside from the semi-political allusions there is no local coloring whatever, except that Richard Alsop in an elegy written in February, 1791, gives the very first instance, so far as I know, of an allusion in verse to any flower distinctively American:--
"There the Wild-Rose in earliest pride shall bloom, There the Magnolia's gorgeous flowers unfold, The purple Violet shed its sweet perfume: And beauteous Meadia wave her plumes of gold." This last plant, though not here accurately described, must evidently have been the Dodecatheon Meadia, or "Shooting Star." This is really the highest point of Americanism attained in the dingy little volume; the low-water mark being clearly found when we read in the same volume the work of a poet then known as "W. M. Smith, Esq.," who could thus appeal to American farmers to celebrate a birthday:--
"Shepherds, then, the chorus join, Haste the festive wreath to twine: Come with bosoms all sincere, Come with breasts devoid of care; Bring the pipe and merry lay, 'Tis Eliza's natal day." Wordsworth says in his Personal Talk,
"Dreams, books are each a world;"
and the books unread mingle with the dreams and unite the charm of both. This applies especially, I think, to books of travel; we buy them, finding their attractions strong, but somehow we do not read them over and over, unless they prove to be such books as those of Urquhart,--the Pillars of Hercules especially, where the wealth of learning and originality is so great that we seem in a different region of the globe on every page. One of the most poetic things about Whittier's temperament lay in this fact, that he felt most eager to visit each foreign country before he had read any book about it. After reading, the dream was half fulfilled, and he turned to something else, so that he died without visiting any foreign country. But the very possession of such books, and their presence on the shelves, carries one to the Arctic regions or to the Indian Ocean. No single book of travels in Oceanica, it may be, will last so long as that one stanza of Whittier's,--
"I know not where Thine islands lift Their fronded palms in air; But this I know, I cannot drift Beyond Thy love and care." How often have I known that poem to be recited by those who did not even know the meanin
g of the word "fronded"! It is the poet, not the explorer or the geographer, who makes the whole round world his own.
"After all," as the brilliant and melancholy Rufus Choate said, "a book is the only immortality;" and sometimes when a book is attacked and even denounced, its destiny of fame is only confirmed. Thus the vivacious and cheery Pope, Pio Nono, when asked by a too daring author to help on his latest publication, suggested that he could only aid it by putting it in the Index Expurgatorius. Yet if a book is to be left unread at last, the fault must ultimately rest on the author, even as the brilliant Lady Eastlake complained, when she wrote of modern English novelists, "Things are written now to be read once, and no more; that is, they are read as often as they deserve. A book in old times took five years to write and was read five hundred times by five hundred people. Now it is written in three months, and read once by five hundred thousand people. That's the proper proportion."
Thomas Wentworth Higginson.