Chapter 10 Bookworm (2)

There are many kinds of bibliophiles, but I think they can generally be grouped into three categories, namely: those who collect for vanity, those who collect for knowledge, and those who collect out of pure respect and love for books.It is not uncommon for someone to collect books, at first to gratify their personal vanity, but soon fall in love with the work and become a bibliophile in a more pure sense. It is like a man who takes pleasure in conquering a woman's heart, but always finds himself the captive of pure passion, which he intended only to gratify his vanity.I am inclined to think that at every stage of book collecting there is some element of vanity mixed in.I even think that vanity is one of the elements of a sound character--I don't mean a huge vanity, but a restrained one.Without vanity, there would be no competition in the world; without competition, there would be no progress.

In later days, I often heard people laughing at this or that person, because he only knew how to search for books, but did not ask what the contents of the book were.But for my part, I will say: there is nothing wrong with what this man has done; he has started in the right direction, in the right way.The likely outcome: All other things being equal, he will end up as a lover and buyer of books.Really, I don't care what the starting point is, as long as it's a starting point.Different routes lead to the same goal, this is what we call it.For example, when climbing a mountain, some people are good at taking shortcuts, while others are forced to take dangerous paths.

This wild passion, so subtle and so contagious, a man hardly knows it exists until he has it in full.I just knew a man who befriended Judge Methuen and me one night and woke up the next morning a hopeless bookworm.But this passion is not always marked by display and violence; sometimes, like the measles, it "grows" slowly and stubbornly, and in such cases it is necessary to save the disease from being fatal by means of poultice. Otherwise, more serious consequences will occur. This is true, and this has happened several times to my learned friend, Dr. Aurel.He told me that suppressing the book-hunting frenzy would have fatal consequences.That excellent publication, the Journal of the American Medical Association, reports many such cases.By the way, the magazine was edited by ex-Surgeon General Hamilton, a noted collector of costume literature.

To make a long story short, suppressing the book-hunting frenzy, under any circumstances, leads directly to disease, and there is nothing medical can do about it.A doctor in Ohio named Woodbury wrote extensively in defense of the theory that bookworms can be cured.But most of his colleagues believed that a real bookworm must go through a regular process, and they insisted that the cases cited as cured by Woodbury were all false, either fakes or fakes. It's just that the condition is wrong, but it's chickenpox and wind disease, not measles. My first bout of bibliomania was over a few ancient books.It doesn't matter what the book is, as long as it bears an ancient date on its title page or copyright page, I'm determined to get it.Within a month, I found a lot of old books, many of which were numbered, and almost all of them were eaten by moths, looking pitiful.

One day I went into a little shop owned by a man named Stibbs, and asked him if I could get some sixteenth-century prints. "Yes," said Mr. Stibs, "I have a cellar full of this stuff, and I usually sell it by the ton or by the bundle." That was the day when I disbanded my collection of antiques, leaving only Principe " was arrested and imprisoned, and had his ears cut off. ]'s "The Actor's Tragedy" and "The Complete Works of Horace" (eight volumes, 1501).Then I became interested in English ballads - a noble subject for which I have always maintained respect and love.Those well-preserved and well-annotated volumes are housed in bookcases numbered 3, 6, and 9 in my front room, always ready to be displayed to you any time you visit my quiet, comfortable home.