The Book Collector

I should like to warn you, from the outset, that this essay will be as lively as a speech by Mathurin Cordier or a chapter of Despautere! God, Nature, and the Academy have enclosed my imagination within these narrow boundaries, which it is no longer able to overstep. At least you can always refrain from reading me, and in that are more fortunate than I—who, following the dictates of a too exigent publisher, have no choice but to write. The drawings were made, the plates were ready; and the only thing needed to complete the issue was a long and unprofitable text. Well, then—here it is! But you will be disappointed if you expect to find in it one of those clever portraits to which your favorite authors have accustomed you. If what you are seeking is an original and telling sketch of the bouquiniste, the second-hand-book addict, then you need go no further. Pause here, and, following the modest advice of certain almanacs: “See illustration on opposite page.”

The collector of books is a type which we would do well to define, since everything points to his disappearance in the very near future. The printed book has existed at the most for some four hundred years, yet books are already accumulating in some countries in a manner that threatens the very equilibrium of the globe. Civilization has reached the most unexpected of its ages, the age of paper. Now that everyone writes books, no one shows any particular eagerness to buy them. Besides, our young authors are well on the way to building up whole libraries for themselves out of their own works. They need only be left to their own devices.

If we were to subdivide the species book collector into its various classes, the top-most rank in the whole subtle and capricious family should without doubt be given to the bibliophile.