Chapter 19 Booksellers and Printers (1)

Judge Methuen told me that he feared that what I had said about the bookseller might give the impression that I was not very kind to the business of selling books.In the last fifty years of my uninterrupted dealings with booksellers, no one knows better than they themselves that they have a special admiration for their class.Anyone who has visited the house will have noticed that the walls of our house are covered with noble portraits: Caxton, Winkin de Ward, Richard Pinson, John Wey Keith, Rene Woolf, John Day, Jacob Townsend, Richard Johns, John Dunton [mentioned here are some of the first European publishers and printers .Among them, Caxton (1422-1491) was the first printer in England and published the first book in English, "History of Troy" (1475). ], and other notable printers and booksellers of the older generation.

I also have a very large collection of portraits of modern booksellers, including a pen sketch by Quaritch, a line engraved copper engraving by Lemmel, and one by my dear friend the recently deceased Henry Stevens Very fine etchings.One of these portraits is absolutely unique because it is my own doodle and I have never allowed any copies to be made; it is my own bookseller dressed as a fisherman with one hand With his rod and reel, in the other hand he held a copy of The Good Fisherman. Mr. Kirwin always speaks of booksellers as "extraordinarily thrifty, competent, industrious, tenacious--in a few cases, unusually adventurous, free-spirited, warm-hearted." Tell me that, as a class, the booksellers are usually exceedingly intelligent, and that both they and the printers may be classed as learned men.

Booksellers, however, are clearly superior to printers in this respect—they are not exposed to the temptations of all sorts, the intemperance and extravagance that haunt believers in art embalming.Horace Smith [Horace Smith (1779-1849), British poet. ] once said: "If there is no reader, there must be no author. Therefore, the existence of the author obviously depends on the existence of the reader: this is certain, because the cause must precede the effect, so the reader must exist before the author .But, on the other hand, if there is no author, there will be no reader; so, again, the author appears to be prior to the reader."

What puzzles me is that, with such a precise, clear, and tight premise, Heras did not develop this proposition further.For example, without booksellers there would be no market for books—authors cannot sell and readers cannot buy. If we go on to make further inquiries, it will convince us that the earliest of the three must have been a bookseller who established a friendly relationship between the other two, saying: "I can Serve both of you by stimulating demand and supply, respectively.” Thus, the author does the author's work, and the reader does the reader's work.This is the nobler arrangement I propose, far superior to that proposed by Darwin and his school of investigators.

As far as the natural nature of his profession is concerned, booksellers have always been forgiving.Their intercourse with every class of human beings, and their enduring friendship with books, gave them a magnanimous mind, which enabled them to contemplate with peculiar clarity and coolness every form and spirit of life. Once caring.They are not always realistic, because the spiritual and intellectual development of a person does not simultaneously promote a more dexterous use of the basic elements of the body.I know a few philosophers who can't even saddle up or boo a chicken. Ralph Waldo Emerson [Emerson (1803-1882), American writer, philosopher and central figure of American Transcendentalism.His poems, speeches, and especially his essays are considered landmarks in American thought and literature. 】I have spent hours deciding whether to push or pull when moving a wheelbarrow.Amos Bronson Alcott [Alcott (1799-1888), American educator and transcendental philosopher, insisted that learning should be based on fun and imagination, not on principles. ] once tried to build a small chicken coop, and ended up nailing himself to the inside of the small building with wooden boards, only then realized that he didn't even leave a door or window for the chicken coop.We've all heard stories of Isaac Newton, too—how he dug two holes in the door of his study, a larger one for the big cats and a smaller one for the kittens.

Such ignorance ("incompetence," if you will) is characteristic of intellectual development.Judge Methuen's second son, named Glorier, didn't even know where to hide when it rained.This fact convinced both Methuen and my lord that in due time the boy Glorier would be a great philosopher. The mention of this venerable name reminds me of what my bookseller told me one day: just before I entered his shop, a wealthy patron of poetry and art asked for a book , but he would like to rebind it. "I can send it to Paris or London," said my bookseller, "and if you choose no other binder, I will commission Zainsdorf to bind it for you with the best decoration."

"As a matter of fact I have chosen a binder," cried the rich man, "and I noticed at the Art Institute last week that there was a large number of books by M. Glorier [Glorier (1479-1565), sixteenth century A famous French bibliophile and book binder. It has the same name as Methuen’s son mentioned above.] Binding, I hope my books can be bound in the same way. Help me send the book to Glorier , tell him to bring out his best workmanship, and I can pay the fee, as much as I want." Old Walton once put forward such a theory in a wonderful speech: a good angler is born, not man-made.I have always maintained that the same is true of booksellers.There are many (almost too many) fake connoisseurs in this business.A pure bookseller enters the business of selling books and manages the business of books not only as a business, not just for the purpose of amassing wealth, but because he loves books and because he is spreading the word. In the process of the noble influence of books, one can feel pleasure and joy.