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The Library and the Librarian 
 
 A selection of Articles from the Boston 
 
 ^ ■;- r ^j , 
 
 Evening Transcript and other .^ r'C)^^'^ ' . < 
 
 9 
 
 ources '0^^^' ^m 
 
 By ^.^.0X^ ^'' 
 
 Edmund Lester Pearson 
 
 The Librarian's Series 
 
 ! Edited by 
 
 John Cotton Dana and Henry W. Kent 
 Number two 
 
 ^S.C. Mid 
 
 Published by 
 The Elm Tree Press Woodstock Vermont 
 1910 
 
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 \ I t 
 
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 Copyright 
 
 1910 
 
 By Edmund L. Pearson 
 
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NOTE 
 
 All but two of these articles have appeared in " The Librarian " 
 department of the " Boston Evening Transcript ". My thanks are 
 due that newspaper for permission to reprint them. They are 
 given here with no important changes, except that articles relating 
 to the same subject have sometimes been combined, instead of 
 being presented in the order in which they first appeued. 
 
 Of the other two articles, " The Children's Libreurian versus 
 Huckleberry Firm ", was first printed in " The Library Journal " 
 and that periodical has very courteously given consent to its 
 republication. "An Amateur's Notions of Boys' Books " was read 
 at the convention of the American Library Association, at Lake 
 Minnetonka, Minn., June, 1 908. I am indebted to the Publishing 
 Board of the Association for permission to use it here. 
 
 E. L. Pearson. 
 Newbuiyport, Massachusetts 
 December, 1909 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 The Librarian in Fiction ...... I 
 
 Librarians and Readers ...... 7 
 
 098 14 
 
 The President of the Board .23 
 
 The Children's Librarian oersus Huckleberry Finn 26 
 
 The Catalogue Beautiful .33 
 
 Mrs. Pomfret Smith 38 
 
 Myth .40 
 
 Poem, by Miss Patterson . .43 
 
 "That Girl at the Library" 45 
 
 TTie Man Behind the Encyclopedia .55 
 
 An Amateur's Notions of Boys' Books .64 
 
 The Square Peg . . .74 
 
 "Meeting the Public" 79 
 
THE LIBRARIAN IN FICTION 
 
 The librarian has never played a thunderous part in history. 
 More inglorious, even, than the schoolmaster, he has usually been 
 between decks with the women and children whenever there 
 Was trouble — so far as any record of him is obtainable. On him 
 have fallen the jeers and jests reserved for the bookworm and 
 the recluse. 
 
 Even today he is often regarded as one who must somehow 
 be lacking, that he should by this choice of profession deliber- 
 ately set a limit on his money-making possibilities. Too often 
 there seems a need for a reargument of the thesis, so passion- 
 ately asserted by many of the calling, " That the Librarian may 
 also be a Human Being." One writer has objected to the wide- 
 awake kind, and pleaded for a return to the half-asleep and 
 covered-with-moss sort of librarian ; but he is a literary person, 
 himself, and of course peculiar. It is with the writers of fiction 
 that librarians have their quarrel. Only here and there do they 
 figure in novels and tales, but never in a pleasing light. 
 
 There is Doctor Gotthold in " Prince Otto." He is treated 
 ungraciously all the way through, and finally left alone on the 
 scene as a secret tippler — the worst kind, without the excuse 
 of conviviality, or the generosity to provide another bottle of wine 
 for a companion. 
 
 It is a far cry from the Principality of Gruenewald to Exeter, 
 
2 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 N. H., but the librarian profits not at all from the journey. He 
 is still fair game for annoyance. Mr. Shute, in the " Real Diary 
 of a Real Boy ', thinks it amusing to enter : "Dec. 23. Satur- 
 day and no skating ; went down to the library to get a book for 
 Sunday, me and Beany were sticking pins into the fellers and 
 making them holler and Jo Parsons the librarian jumped rite over 
 the counter and chased us way down to Mr. Ham's coffin shop, 
 he dident catch us either." Then the graceless wretch goes on 
 to tell that he went to the house of some other imp and borrowed 
 a dime novel — neglecting the opportunities of the public library 
 and the improving conversation of Rollo and Jonas, for the 
 adventures of " Deadwood Dick". 
 
 In " Golden Fleece ", David Graham Phillips sends one of his 
 characters to a public library. He does have the courtesy to say 
 that the attendants were polite and obliging, but he spoils this 
 by characterizing the only one mentioned at length as a busy- 
 body and gossip-monger, and he finally refers to his " fat pasty 
 face vnth its drapery of soft, scant gray whiskers". 
 
 Dr. Weir Mitchell, in his story of "The Mind-Reader", 
 turns his hero from the medical profession into the position of 
 assistant librarian in a curioiis kind of library. He intimates that 
 the position is what is sometimes (regrettably ) termed a " cinch ". 
 The hero seems to have nothing to do except engage in pursuit 
 of criminals — one of whom comes in the library, by the way, to 
 learn how to dispose of stolen wills. As this assistant librarian 
 hires private detectives and distributes five-dollar tips, the infer- 
 ence is plain that he has some illegitimate doings with the cash 
 drawer. As for the chief librarian, both author and illustrator 
 have employed their powers of satire to the fullest on him. 
 There he is, with moth-eaten whiskers, and horn spectacles, 
 baggy as to the knees of his trousers, and fussy as to his manners. 
 He tries to conceal his first name, always signing himself " D. 
 Quarton." But it presently comes out that his given name is 
 
THE LIBRARIAN IN FICTION 
 
 ' Duodecimo. " His father, who was also a librarian, gave his son 
 this name be£aUM he thought him unusually small as a baby. In 
 the general distribution of wealth that takes place at the close of 
 the story, the doctor gets a fortune and turns his back on 
 library work immediately. Everyone gets something except 
 poor old Duodecimo, who in return for years of obsequiousness 
 to an eccentric millionaire finds himself and his library turned off 
 without a cent. 
 
 Is it because authors are sometimes received in libraries without 
 the reverence which their vanity requires that they are so fond 
 of getting in a dig at libraries and librarians ? Or does their pride 
 smart because some one of their books has not been purchased 
 in great enough numbers, or been perhaps excluded altogether ? 
 At any rate, many of them take pleasure in making us buy, 
 catalogue, and issue books containing the most preposterous cari- 
 catures of our calling and ourselves. There is "The Jessup 
 Bequest " by Miss Anna Robeson Burr. Of the " Chillingworth 
 Library " in her book, she says, " The catalogue methods of the 
 Chillingworth Library were such as to discourage culture. There 
 was a catalogue, a time-worn volume in microscopic print, wherein 
 the 'Autobiography of Leigh Hunt' was listed under 'Anony- 
 mous ', and Swedenborg's ' Heaven and Hell ', under ' Works 
 of Imagination and Fancy '. This superannuated authority was 
 backed up by a few drawers of cards in which the letter K stood 
 represented by' Keats, John, Life and Works of, 61, 107, 
 590, A. B. 2 . ' If you could remember this number and send it in, 
 yon might be quite sure of receiving a copy of Elsie Dinsmore. ' " 
 
 Having spent her powers of sarcasm on the catalogue and 
 other furniture of the library, the novelist turns to the people who 
 managed it. " Behind the counter presided an exhausted librarian 
 who seemed tacitly to echo the weary cry of King Solomon. He 
 was aided by a frantic haired boy who lived in a chaos of half- 
 remembered digits ; and on holidays by a pretty, fluffy girl who 
 
THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 told you when you asked her for the ' Phaedo ' that it was adver- 
 tised but not published yet ! " 
 
 Of all the comments of the writers of fiction upon us and our 
 trade.this is almost the coolest I Leaving the abused catalogue out 
 of the question, one is impelled to ask : who exhausted the poor 
 old librarian, and caused him to think that of the making of books 
 there is no end ? Who but the writers of fiction ? And who 
 gave the fluffy girl no time to catch up with the Greek classics, 
 but kept her dealing out the latest novels from dawn till dark ? 
 Was it the other librarians, or was it the modem novelists ? To 
 speak of piling insult on injury is all too tame to lit the case. There 
 is nothing to do,but, in bitterness of heart, and with a deep, abiding 
 sense of wrong, to suffer in silence, until some day when a librarian 
 shall choose one of his colleagues for the hero of a story which 
 shall represent him in his true light, struggling against " the on- 
 slaught of the savage hordes of the Six Best Sellers ". 
 
 But against Miss Josephine Daskam we have the largest 
 account of all. In ' A Little Brother of the Books " she assem- 
 bles three types — the head librarians of botfi sexes and the assis- 
 tant — and dismisses them, one by one, in terms of scorn and de- 
 rision. The male librarian apparently slept all day long, left the 
 library to rack and ruin, and seems to have been discharged for 
 incapacity and laziness. His successor is a most detestable type of 
 bluestocking and female martinet, a devotee of red tape and cast- 
 iron rules. The assistant is merely a vulgar person who reads 
 " Molly Bawn ", eats caramels, and refers to the theological col- 
 lection as " those old religious books "- They are all put to shame 
 by the hero — a small boy, who proves to have not only more of 
 the milk of human kindness, but a juster appreciation of literature as 
 well. 'The man librarian had seen this, and had slept in peacQ, 
 leaving the library in charge of the infant. The lady made some 
 righteous attempts to alter the state of affairs, but finding that the 
 readers regarded her as little better than a dragon, succumbed 
 
THE LIBRARIAN JN FICTION.- 
 
 also, his a satisfaction to record, that in this end, the boy-hero 
 caught some disease from a library book (another slander) and 
 passed beyond. 
 
 After these distressing pictures from fiction it is best to look 
 at two real instances. Over the first it is unnecessary tg linger. In 
 the " Lives of Twelve Good Men " anyone can read of " Henry 
 Octavus Coxe ; the Large-hearted Librarian ." The charm of that 
 alliterative title is alone enough to convince that he was a noble 
 scholar without need of apology or defence. The other character 
 is more complex, more important and more extraordinary. That 
 one of the worst rogues and absolutely the most scandalous rake 
 who ever described his own career should have ended his 
 days in that sancticity which surrounds the librarian's calling is 
 a paradox as delicious as it is unequalled. It illustrates how a 
 repentant sinner chose to be a librarian as the surest means of 
 grace. The doings of Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt are 
 told in what is to many very unedifying reading, but at least they 
 provide a definite answer to the question, " Can the librarian also 
 be a human being ? " 
 
 One author says, " In I 789, Casanova was among the guests 
 of the ambassador of Venice at Paris. Another of the guests was 
 Count Walstein, with whom he fell into a conversation touching 
 the arts of magic and the old clavicula of Solomon. Walstein, 
 delighted with his new acquaintance, offered on the spot to make 
 him the librarian of his castle in Bohemia. Ceisanova, old, poor 
 and weary of adventures, grasped at the proposal. The very next 
 day, in the count's company, he left for Castle Dux, near 
 Toeplitz, the abode in which he was to spend, in peace and quiet- 
 ness, the fourteen years of life which yet remained to him. A 
 librarian is not made every day out of an adventurer. But 
 Casanova's character was strangely mingled. He was, as a par- 
 rot had summed him up, a rascal ; he was a mixture of Gil 
 Bias, Cagliostro and the Wandering Jew ; but he was also a 
 
6 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 scholar, a poet and a wit. To the count he was in every way 
 an acquisition. He had looked with his own eyes on every side of 
 life ; he was the prince of talkers and companions, and the count 
 and the gay guests who thronged the castle, were never wanting 
 for diversion, when Casanova told, across the wine, or round the 
 ingle, the many-colored tales of his career. " 
 
LIBRARIANS AND READERS 
 
 " Librarians, " said someone, " librarians are the people wrho 
 keep you from getting the books you wish. " 
 
 It is curious that the notion persists of the librarian as a modem 
 dragon. There is scarcely a public library which does not know 
 one or two persons who are constantly in trouble with its rules. 
 Like the politician who could not see why the Constitution should 
 be allowed to come between friends, they are eternally annoyed 
 to find that the usual regulations apply to them as well as to others. 
 One man was forever sending for the librarian ( scorning to deal 
 with the humble assistant ) to ascertain if he must really obey this 
 or that rule. He was disturbed to find that he must, and finally 
 ventured the opinion that the librarian was a " bureaucrat " This 
 sounding, as it did, of St. Petersburg and bombs, was a terrible 
 thing to call a man, but the librarian was forced to put up with 
 it. 
 
 " We are not fond of making rules, " he explained ; " every one 
 we make is so much more trouble for us. It would be infinitely 
 easier if we could put all the books in a heap on the floor £uid 
 let whoever liked take what he pleased for as long as he desired. " 
 The explanation was probably wasted. If the vague complaints 
 against librarians could be boiled down into the brief articles of an 
 indictment, some of them would probably run like this : First, 
 that no book is ever " in " when it is wanted ; second, that the 
 librarian sets himself up as one having authority to say what books 
 
8 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 people shall not read ; third, that readers asking for bread in the 
 shape of books are frequently offered a stone in the form of a card 
 catalogue. 
 
 These accusations are more or less familiar to everyone. 
 There is some ground for them, though it would be preposter- 
 ous to blame the librarian for the first. His share of responsibil- 
 ity in the other two is limited — or, at most, a matter of difference 
 of opinion. Instead of going over well-ploughed ground and 
 attempting a defence, it will, perhaps, be more entertaining to 
 consider the counter charges which librarians might bring against 
 their readers. " Might bring " — for as a matter of fact they seldom 
 or never do bring them. It is a well-recognized convention for 
 a librarian to represent his clientele as composed entirely of reason- 
 able and serious minded folk. The motives for this may not be 
 unmixed, but in general the thing does not show to the discredit of 
 the profession. " We prefer, " they seem to say, " to speak of the 
 sensible people whom we have tried to satisfy, rather than of the 
 occasional crank or bore, whom no one could please. " 
 
 A discussion of these latter gentlemen does not belong here. 
 They are not peculiar to libraries: they occur everywhere. 
 There are, however, three classes of people whose reform would 
 rejoice the hearts of librarians. It is significant of the fact that the 
 complaint is not a bitter or illnatured one when it appears that the 
 reformation would simply permit libraries better to serve these 
 persons. They are, then, the reader who will not ask for what 
 he wants ; the one who does not want what he asks for ; and the 
 one who desires imaginary books. 
 
 ■ Speaking of the first of these classes, Mr. William Warner 
 Bishop, the superintendent of the reading room of the Library 
 of Congress, said recently : "We could devote an hour to telling 
 the experiences which we all have had in arriving at that most 
 elusive object of inquiry— the thing a reader really wants to know 
 about. The chief art of a desk assistant or a reference librarian 
 
LIBRARIANS AND READERS 9 
 
 is, as we all know, the knack of divining by long experience 
 what is actually wanted by inquirers. Tlie fact that so few readers 
 will ask directly for what they want, even when they have a clear 
 idea of their needs — which is seldom the case — is perhaps a 
 greater obstacle to successful reference work than poor equipment, 
 poor catalogues, poor bibliographies. ' 
 
 To find what a reader really wants is sometimes a little like 
 the game of " Twenty Questions," and the reference librarian 
 might well begin, on occasions, with the inquiry : ' Is it animal, 
 vegetable or mineral ? " This hesitation of the reader to disclose 
 his real needs comes from shyness, or a belief that he is saving 
 the librarian trouble, or a feeling that he ought to be ashamed 
 not to know where to look for the thing himself. Often he begins 
 far off in his inquiries — thousands of miles away ; and works 
 towzird his real object by almost imperceptible degrees. At other 
 times he asks a number of wholly unrelated questions, casting a 
 sort of fog over the situation, and then suddenly springs his real 
 inquiry like an attorney during cross-examination. 
 
 An instance of the first of these methods occurred when a 
 woman came into a reference library, leading a small boy by the 
 hand. " Have you any books of travel ? " she asked. They had 
 — about twenty or thirty thousand, though the reference librarian 
 did not say that. He merely replied in the affirmative and asked 
 what she wished. " Oh, just some books of travel — haven't you got 
 some handy ? What are those over there ? " " Those over 
 there " were a miscellaneous assortment of new books, and there 
 were some which described travels. " She is a casual reader, " 
 thought the librarian, " come in to while away an hour", and he 
 brought her four volumes — the latest South Polar expedition, 
 somebody's adventures in Tibet, a work recounting pleasures 
 and perils in British Guiana, and a very much illustrated book 
 about the missions of Southern California. With these the two 
 readers retired to a table, and beigan turning over the leaves at 
 
10 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 great speed. The woman soon returned to the reference desk, 
 but as it chanced to be a busy hour she had to wait a few minutes 
 while the reference librarian listened to the complaints of an 
 old gentleman who had found that some miscreant had cut out 
 a picture from the Scientific American — an act of vandalism 
 which sadly interfered with his enjoyment of the other side of the 
 page. After him, in order of precedence, came a little girl who 
 said that the " teacher " over in the children's room had told her 
 " to come over here and you would tell me how I can address 
 a letter to Mr. Rudyard Kipling so he will get it all right. ' Then 
 came a man who wanted last week's Saturday Evening Post as 
 he had missed that installment of " The Firing Line ", and then 
 came Mrs. Homer Maclay. 
 
 Mrs. Maclay was in trouble as usual. She had been at the 
 library early that afternoon to get a life of Watts — George 
 Frederick Watts, you know, the painter. She had found out 
 that he was Ellen Terry's first husband and so she wanted to 
 read about him, and she had taken out a book that she had 
 supposed was his life, and then gone all the way home and opened 
 it and it wasn't about Watts the painter at all, but Isaac Watts 
 the hymn-writer, and she had brought it back, and the young 
 lady out at the desk said that it was against the rule to return 
 a book the same day it was taken out, and that they were told 
 they must not break the rule, and so she came in here to see if 
 the reference librarian couldn't do something about it. She 
 didn't want Isaac and she did want George Frederick, and it had 
 cost her two extra car fares and all this trouble, and she thought 
 the library was to blame anyhow, or that boy who got her the 
 book was — why didn't he find out which Watts she was 
 after ? And she certainly didn't intend to go all the way home 
 again with this old Isaac. The reference librarian felt very sure 
 that Mrs. Maclay had merely asked for " a life of Watts, " and 
 he knew that Edgar, the fifteen year old page, did not profess 
 
LIBRARIANS AND READERS 
 
 mind-reading, nor have any particular interest in discriminating 
 between a Watts who wrote hymns and one who painted 
 pictures. Neither of them was on a league nine, and both of them 
 were dead, anyhow. But he also knew that in the end Mrs. 
 Maclay would get what she wanted and it was best to give in 
 gracefully at the start. So the rule was broken, as rules are always 
 broken for persons who make themselves sufficiently obstreperous, 
 and Mrs. Maclay went away with the book she desired. 
 
 All this time the travel lady was waiting impatiently. " Can't 
 you let me see some more books on travel ? " she asked. Certainly 
 he could, and four or five more were fetched. Lady Cicely 
 Waynflete's " Captured by the Moors " ; Dr. Von Hohen- 
 sticker's "Land und Leute in Samoa" ; a motor tour in Spain, and 
 so on and so forth. These entertained her and her son for half an 
 hour. Then she returned in apparent bad humor. " These are 
 not what I want, " she remarked shortly. 
 
 The librarian thought he saw his chance. " What do you 
 want ? " he inquired. " Some books on travel — haven't you got 
 any others ? " The librarian groaned in spirit. He saw now what 
 he had to deal with — a person who would not make known her 
 specific want, but would waste her time and his trying to achieve it 
 herself. And so it proved. The afternoon wore on and books of 
 travels were deposited by the ton, so to speak, on the table where 
 the woman sat. Finally she consented to narrow the field by 
 admitting that she was particularly interested in Africa. The 
 resources of the library on the subject of that continent passed in 
 review before her eyes. She grew more and more acid in her 
 manner. Finally she gathered together her bag and her boy, put 
 on her gloves, and sailed down the room, stopping a minute at 
 the reference librarian's desk. " I cannot find what I want ; I shall 
 have to go now. " The librarian made one last effort : " Just 
 what did you want ? " he asked. The woman looked at him in 
 the manner of one imparting the most delicate family secret. " My 
 
12 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 little boy", she said solemnly, " wished to see a picture, a large 
 picture, of an elephant. He wished to copy it. There was only 
 one in all those books, and it was very small. I am very much 
 surprised, and Leander is disappointed "- The librarian moaned 
 aloud as he took a large volume on zoology from a shelf nearby. 
 He silently exhibited a very fine elephant, indeed. The lady 
 said : "Well, it is too late now ", and out she went. 
 
 ' Now why ", asked the librarian, addressing the ceiling of the 
 reading-room, " why couldn't she have told me that in the first 
 place ? Why is it a base and shameful thing to desire a view of 
 an elephant ? Why was it only extorted from her at the eleventh 
 hour ?" And he called Edgar, the lightning page, and set him 
 at work carrying off the one hundred and fifty volumes of the 
 elephant lady's books, as a punisliment for not having divined 
 the unspoken thought of Mrs. Homer Maclay in regard to 
 Watts. 
 
 The reader who does not ask for what he wants, and the one 
 who does not want what he asks for are frequently combined in 
 the same person. The traits overlap. A man came into a read- 
 ing-room one evening and asked if there were any "essays" 
 there. " I don't suppose you've got any essays here, have you J' 
 was the form of his inquiry. Yes, they had, Macaulay's and 
 Emerson's — would he like to see them ? No, not those, exactly. 
 Some others, then ? Yes, some others. Whose, please ? Oh, 
 just some essays. So essays were brought. But they failed to 
 please, and finally the man brought them back. He drew near 
 the librarian. ' To tell the truth ", he remarked, as though there 
 were a strong temptation to lie about it, " what I want is ' Quo 
 Vadis ', — have you got that ? " 
 
 The reader who wants imaginary books appears in various 
 forms. Sometimes he is of that familiar type, dear to the heart 
 of all librarians, who wants " a red book." Or it may be " a 
 brown book", but that is the limit of his information about it. 
 
LIBI^ARIANS AND READERS 13 
 
 He had it a year ago, and he wants to read it again. What 
 was the title? That, he doesn't remember. Who wrote it? Oh, 
 he never knew that. What was it about? Oh, about a lot of 
 things ; it was hill of information. He does wish he could get it. 
 You must have it around here, somewhere — it was about so 
 high. And he indicates with his hands the not very unusual 
 height, known (in old times) as "duodecimo" 
 
 Some time or other there will be a librarian with a testy 
 disposition and a strong right arm. And he will deal with this 
 man. The accumulated and righteous wrath of years will be 
 visited upon him. The librarian will grab him by the throat and 
 run him back to the nearest wall, and bang his head against it — 
 hard. " You wearisome ass ! " he will say : " suppose you went 
 to a city of half a million inhabitants, and went up to a police- 
 man at the station and told him that you wanted to see a man 
 who lived there. And that you didn't know the man's name, nor 
 his house, nor his business. And that all you knew about him 
 was that he wore a blue suit, or may-be a black one, and that 
 he was five or six feet tall. Wouldn't that policeman ring for the 
 patrol and have you before an expert in lunacy pretty quick ? 
 Well, here goes for you ! The door? No, the window, by the 
 shade of Sir Thomas Bodley ! Heads, below, there ! " And out 
 the man would go. 
 
 That librarian would lose his job, and he would be held up 
 to reprobation as woefully lacking in library ideals, and he would 
 be openly denounced everywhere. But five thousand of his 
 coUeagues would gather in secret and they would send him an 
 illuminated address, and vote each one to give a month's salary, 
 and thereby they would collect $900, and they would send him 
 that, and they would pray for him every night, too. 
 
098 
 
 In spite of the popular belief that a librarian spends most of 
 his leisure reading the fascinating romances which his library has 
 acquired that day, there are times when I find the evenings a 
 little dull. Take last Friday, for instance. At half-past ten I was 
 still awake, but as I had looked through four auction catalogues, 
 seven bookdeaJers' lists, and a vast shoal of advertisements, I did 
 not regard with enthusiasm the three numbers of the " Pub- 
 lishers' Circular ' which still awaited me. I would have glared 
 at them if I had not been too sleepy to glare at all. 
 
 Before 1 could take one of them up, however, the door of my 
 room opened, and a man came in. 1 could not see him distinctly, 
 as the only light in the room was on my desk. He stood for a 
 moment looking at me, and I expected that he would apologize 
 and back out. The apartment house in which I live has dimly 
 lighted corridors, and it 'is not unusual to have people mistake 
 my room for their own. Instead, he came nearer my desk and 
 stood looking at me. He was an inoffensive-looking person, as 
 near as I could judge. ' Would you like to see my books ? ' he 
 asked. I told him that I never buy from agents. He chuckled. 
 " I haven't asked you to buy ", he replied. " I doubt if you could 
 buy them. It is my private library I am offering to show you. 
 You won't have to put on your hat ; — it is in this building. Will 
 you come? " 
 
 I did not remember having seen the man before, but I had a 
 fair idea what he wanted. There would be two or three hundred 
 more or less dusty volumes, a worn-out encyclopaedia— probably 
 the Britannica, with sheep bindings in tatters — some subscription 
 sets, and a few books which he would impress upon me, were 
 
098 15 
 
 " over a hundred years old." Then I would be asked to make 
 an offer for the lot. He would have an exaggerated notion of 
 their value, and clearly show that he considered me a thief, 
 unless I named a figure about eight times that for which they 
 could be purchased in any second-hand shop. As always hap- 
 pens in such cases, there would be one or two books which I 
 should be glad to have, but as he would sell the whole lot or 
 none, I should only have the irritation of looking at them. 
 
 However, anything was better than straining my eyes over 
 the "Publishers' Circular" just then, and I followed hiili out of 
 the room. He went to the elevator and rang the bell. An 
 astonishing thing happened, for the car shot up like lightning. 
 Now, it usually takes George from six to eight minutes to wake 
 up, and about five more to pull the lumbering old elevator up to 
 my floor. George was a new man, too — or, at least, a new boy, 
 for he had on a brand new, bright red uniform. We got in ; and 
 the car dropped at least twelve floors. As I live on the third floor 
 this was rather disquieting. 
 
 The man smiled at me. " I suppose you suspect that I am the 
 Devil ", he remarked. " Worse than that ", I answered, " I think 
 you're a book agent." " Not guilty ", he rejoined, " But here is 
 my room ; come in." 
 
 I followed him into a commonplace looking apartment. There 
 was nothing devilish about it at all. He had a cheerful fire, an 
 electric reading light over a large table, and a few plain book 
 cases. A long tailed bird, a parrot or macaw, I think, stood on 
 a perch eating a piece of apple. To make sure that I was quite 
 awake I looked at some of the papers on the table — there was 
 a Munsey's Magazine with an article by Brander Matthews on 
 the French Academy, and a New York Herald with a carica- 
 ture of Speaker Cannon. I had recognized the green cover of 
 Stephen Phillips' " Faust " when the owner of the room gave me 
 a chair and pulled a small revolving bookcase between us. 
 
16 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 ' I keep some of my best ones here ", he said ; " Here is a 
 good one ". And he handed me a small volume in a modem 
 Russia binding. I opened it and looked at the title-page. * The 
 True Precepts of the Dramatick Art " by William Shakespeare, 
 Gent. The imprint was of London, 1613. 
 
 "What do you think of that? " he asked. " It's a very clever 
 hoax", 1 said, "Who got it up?" He smiled again, and went 
 over to poke the fire. " Do you think it a hoax ? " said he. 
 Evidently the man was a little simple-minded. " Qf course it is 
 a fake ", I told him. " Don't you know there is no such work 
 as this in existence ? Don't you know there is no trace or men- 
 tion of anything of the kind ? Don't you know that if this were 
 a genuine work every book collector and literary critic and 
 librarian and Shakspearean scholar in the world would come 
 tearing in here and drag it out of your hands, and that you could 
 get heaven only knows how many thousands or hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars for it?" 
 
 He stood with his back to the lire and laughed. " I wouldn't 
 get so excited ", said he. " You haven't really looked at the book 
 yet. Rather a bother to get up a hoax like that, don't you 
 think? Not modem printing, nor paper, is it? Look at the 
 opening page of the text, you will see there that it is an auto- 
 graph presentation copy to Ben Jonson." 
 
 Sure enough there was some writing, illegible to me ; and, at 
 the end, the signature, much as it looks on the will, of "William 
 Shakspeare ". I put the book down. " I hope you don't think 
 that makes me believe in your preposterous book", 1 said. There 
 was something contemptuous in his manner, that made one forget 
 even the politeness usually accorded a man who has been 
 deceived by a literary forgery. Nevertheless he was so assured 
 that it would have made me uneasy even if 1 had not had vague 
 doubts about the book itself. 
 
 Forgery or not, it was an extraordinary thing, there could 
 
098 17 
 
 '( 
 be no question of that. The date, at least, had every appearance 
 
 of being genuine, and if it were, I asked myself, why should 
 not the rest be authentic? "It was published the year before 
 his death, you notice ", put in the owner of the book, who seemed 
 to have followed my train of thought. Precisely ; it was written 
 during those last three years at Stratford. It had always appeared 
 rather strange that he had written nothing at all at that time. 
 
 I reached out to take up the book again, but he removed it 
 and said, " Here is something that will interest you more, perhaps. 
 It is the prompt-book of Hamlet. It has the author's annotations 
 and directions for the stage business. There are none given for 
 the part of the Ghost — which was the part he played ". 
 
 He said all of this in a matter of fact way that made it seem 
 real enough. I turned over the pages of the thin little volume — 
 torn, soiled, a little worm-holed in places. The margins of the 
 leaves were filled with annotations, and I hunted for the third 
 act when the king and Polonius are behind the curtain to see 
 what the stage directions might be. In hunting I found a letter 
 inserted between two leaves. The strange individual who owned 
 these things spoke. " That is a letter to Burbage ", he said, 
 " from Shakspeare. It seems to be an answer to an inquiry about 
 the insanity of Hamlet. But of course you do not care for 
 forgeries ! " 
 
 I began to feel apologetic. " I enjoy these very much ", I told 
 him. " But I must say they remind me of a passage I read 
 somewhere the other day. It was about a Frenchman — ^one 
 Monsieur Chasles. He was the first geometrician of France — 
 what could you expect of a geometrician, anyhow ? He let some 
 one sell him a lot of autograph letters. There were three from 
 Cleopatra to Cato, one from Lazarus after his resurrection, and 
 one from Judas Iscariot to Mary Magdalene — all on paper and 
 in the best of French ! 
 
 As for your books they recall that one employed in 'The 
 
18 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 Temptation of Friar Gonsol '. Do you remember ? It was ' an 
 uncut unique of incalculable value ; the height of it was half a 
 cubit, and the breadth of it the fourth part of a cubit and the 
 thickness of it five barleycorns lacking the space of three horse 
 hairs. This book contained within it diverse picturings, symbols 
 and similarities wrought with incomparable craft, the same being 
 such as in human vanity are called proof before letters and 
 imprinted upon India paper ; also the book contained written 
 upon its pages diverse names of them that had possessed it, all 
 these having in their time been mighty and illustrious personages ; 
 but what seemed most delectable unto the fiiar was an autographic 
 wrriting wherein 'twas shown that the book sometime had been 
 given by Venus di Medici to Apollos at Rhodes. ' " 
 
 The small man looked a little bored during my recital of this 
 paragraph. He made no comment on it, but remarked when I 
 ended, " I have only one other Shakspeare item to show you". 
 " I suppose it is a lost play, " I suggested. " Yes, " he snapped, 
 " it is, ' The Raign of King Alfred the Great' , but you need not 
 look at it. Do books with a history interest you ? Here is a copy 
 of Marlowe's ' Edward II ', stained with his blood. He had it 
 in his pocket when he was stabbed. And next to it is a small 
 collection of the ' Federalist ' papers. Alexander Hamilton had 
 this in the boat v^th him when he crossed the river to the 
 duelling ground. " I suppose I looked a little incredulous at this, 
 for he added, " It hasn't any blood stains on it, if that's what you 
 are looking for. " " Are you not going to show me General 
 Wolfe's copy of Gray's Elegy ? " I asked. " No, I am not " he said 
 " but here is something more interesting. " He drew a little book in 
 green calf from the stand. " This is a book to appeal to a librarian 
 for it is the catalogue of the library of Count Walstein compiled 
 by his librarian Casanova. " I gazed at the title page : " Catalogue 
 des Livres dans la Bibilotheque de Son Excellence le Comte 
 Walstein, par Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt. " It was 
 
098 19 
 
 printed in Vienna in 1 798. Casanova took his time to get the 
 catzJogue out, for he had been eight years in the count's employ 
 when this was published, and the list of books was not long. 
 However, he really was engaged more as an " entertainer " than 
 as a libraman, and one did not have typewriters nor printed cata- 
 logue cards in those days. 
 
 Of all the personages who have been librarians at one time or 
 another during their lives there is no one who seems so incon- 
 gruous as Casanova. What the devil was he — the notorious 
 adventurer and rake— doing in that highly respectable galley ? 
 But I looked with unusual delight on the pages of the tiny 
 catalogue. I noticed that Casanova's ideas of cataloguing were 
 of the most primitive variety, and I suspected that the whole thing 
 was a piece of jobbery in which the printer and the librarian con- 
 spired to despoil " His Excellency the Count Walstein ". 
 
 It was in the front cover of this book, by the way, that I first 
 observed the book plate of the owner of these curious volumes. 
 It was a neat red leather affair, stamped in gold with a head of 
 Dante, and the usual " Ex libris " at the top. I do not think it 
 was undue curiosity for me to look below the portrait for the name 
 of the owner, but I might have saved myself the trouble. It was 
 in Italian — a phrase of three or four words, not looking like a 
 name at all. Unfortunately I do not read Italian, and try as I might, 
 the next morning, I could not recall the words to look them up 
 in Buetti. 
 
 My host must have knovra, somehow, that 1 was looking at 
 the book plate. ( I do not see how he knew it, for he had his 
 back turned at the time, and was poking the fire again. He 
 seemed very fond of this pastime. ) " Oh yes ", he exclaimed, 
 " that is my book plate. I am a great admirer of Dante. He 
 was a clever fellow, though he didn't know everything". I 
 thought his condescension toward Dante was rather quaint, but 
 I didn't say so. An idea occuned to me and remembering the 
 
20 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 volume of Stephen Phillips I had seen on the table, I asked 
 him if he were also an admirer of Goethe and Milton. 
 
 " Why do you put them together ? " he asked gravely ; " No, 
 I do not read Goethe. As for Milton, he is vtrell enough. Did you 
 know he wrote a five act tragedy, once ? " I assured him that I 
 was not aware of it. " Here it is," said he. I did not believe 
 him, but again it was, if not genuine, a very laborious hoax, indeed. 
 The play- dealt with the life and death of iCicero, and it was 
 embellished with what my host declared to be a genuine letter 
 from one of Milton's daughters to the printer. It' was a pathetic 
 little note and it said among other things : " Our fkher is more 
 testy and in very truth groweth more choleric day by day. " 
 Everyone has pitied the three girls who had to stay indoors and 
 listen to the dictation of " Paradise Lost " (and what was worse 
 to "Paradise Regained") when they wanted to go out to 
 parties and balls — or whatever Puritan girls -went to in those 
 jdays. Here was a witness to their anguish. 
 
 " Speaking of Cicero, " said the man, " here is his treatise on 
 the authorship of the Homeric poems. Translated by John 
 Dryden, you will notice. Never heard of it ? Well, it is very 
 dry reading I assure you. But he proves beyond a doubt that the 
 Iliad and the Odyssey were written by a Greek of the sixth 
 century named Calisthenes. " I could not stand this. "What 
 do you mean by the sixth century ? " I asked. " Why, the sixth 
 century," he stopped and stammered a little. " The sixth cen- 
 tury before the present era, " he said at last. " But that is utterly 
 absurd," I returned. 
 
 , He interrupted me : " Not half so absurd as this. Look, here 
 isa denial of the cherry tree storywritten by George Washington. 
 It is awfully solemn. You would enjoy reading it. " I refrained 
 from any comment on this fabulous creation. But I noticed in 
 the pamphlet, as I had noticed stamped on the book-plates of 
 most of the volunies, three figures: — a zero," followed by a nine 
 
098 2J 
 
 and an eight. The sign read 098, and it was repeated on 
 nearly all of his books. 
 
 I was about to ask him its meaning when he inquired, " Do 
 you care (or manuscripts and autographs ? Here is Lee's ' lost 
 dispatch' — found two days before Antietam and sent to 
 McClellan. It was wrapped around three cigars — the man who 
 found it smoked two of them, but I got the other, and here it 
 is. It is as dry as Cicero on Homer." 
 
 Here is a strategical study of Waterloo writteii by Napoleon 
 at St. Helena, — ' La Bataille de Mont Saint Jean '. And here 
 is a copy of Comeille presented by Napoleon to some English 
 girl atSt. Helena. Look at the inscription,?— he was trying to learn 
 English in those days : ' to Miss Betty with Friendship '. Only 
 the initial N as a signature." 
 
 This would be rather entertaining if you read Russian. It is 
 the sealed orders given by the czar to : the commander of the 
 Russian squadron that came to New York during the Civil War 
 It contains instructions as to the course of the Russian fleet if 
 England interfered on behalf, of the South. 
 
 " Here is the rest of the diary of John Wilke&Booth- Stanton 
 suppressed it all until 1867. Some of it was published then ^ — 
 this part never has been published. There is an account of the 
 attempt to abduct Lincoln, as well as of the 'poison plot'. 
 That would, have succeeded if Lfacoln h?kd; not by chance 
 changed his druggist. To go back to the, bdoks. Here are two 
 copies of Johnson's Dictionary. One of them is the identical 
 copy that Becky Sharp flung out of the carriage when she left 
 school. The other stood on Nelson's writing desk in his cabin on 
 the Victory. " 
 
 I took the latter from him and looked at it with some feeling. I 
 did not like to know that he had it. Of all scenes in history 
 there is none more pathetic than that of the little one armed 
 man in his cabin before the fight, writing his last letters, worrying 
 
22 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 his soul over his " beloved Emma ", and putting at the head of 
 his letter that most telling phrase : " In sight of the combined 
 fleets of Fiance and Spain, then distant about ten miles. " He 
 had always em ear for the dramatic, and no one could have 
 composed that sentence better. 
 
 The owner of the book remarked meditatively : " He took 
 this dictionary down from its shelf, and wrote his letters resting 
 them upon it. He held the book upon his knee "- I stared at 
 him. " How do you know that ? " But the man did not answer 
 me. He took out his watch. " It is nearly twelve. I beg your 
 pardon but I have to leave. I have an engagement in New 
 York, and I must catch the 1 2. i 5. You will excuse me, I am 
 sure ". 
 
 He lather hurried me toward the door. It was five minutes 
 before twelve. I tried to thank him, but he said " I will see you 
 again in a few days " and I was left alone in the corridor. 
 
 I got up to my room somehow — I only recall three flights of 
 stairs. George, the elevator boy, had gone to bed, and nearly all 
 the lights were out. Since that night I have tried to find the 
 man's apartment twice, but there is absolutely nothing below the 
 basement. 
 
 As soon as I could I consulted a Decimal Classification to 
 find what 098 might stand for. It says : " Imaginary books ". 
 
 As for George, when I ask him what he has done with his 
 red uniform, he only grins. 
 
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD 
 
 The cataloguer was surprised to see the President of the Board 
 of Trustees enter the room. Surprised, and a little terrified, as he 
 always felt in the presence of this important old gendeman, who 
 resembled Gladstone and did his best to play the part. 
 
 The President began in his customary oratorical manner : ' I 
 would be pleased, young man, if you would come out with me, 
 to this catalogue of yours, and explain the entire system. 1 wish 
 to be sure that I understand it perfectly. I may have occasion to 
 consult it, or I may desire to explain it to some visitor. At present, 
 I am not sure that I entirely comprehend its use. If I may disturb 
 you — ", 
 
 The cataloguer was already on his feel, relieved that there was 
 nothing worse in view, and as they started toward the other room 
 he began with the usual and hackneyed formula, " You see, it is 
 a simple dictionary catalogue, arranged alphabetically. The 
 
 books are entered under their authors, subjects and titles. The 
 
 n 
 
 " Ah, yes, " the President interrupted majestically, " 1 believe 
 I am aware of that. What I wish to ascertain is its method of use. 
 Now, here we are. Let us suppose that I desire to know what 
 books the library contains on the subject of the Civil war. I am 
 at present engaged — in so far as I can find the time, among 
 other pressing duties, in the compilation of a history of my regi- 
 ment, and especially its part in the Battle of South Mountain. 
 Now let me see. Here is the drawer with its little label : Ci — Cz. 
 That ought to be the one. ' 
 
24 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 He pulled out the drawer and began to move the cards with 
 deliberation. The cataloguer knew very well what was coming, 
 and he waited uneasily. The President was a man whom it 
 did not do to hurry or advise. Presently the card appeared. It 
 said simply, " Civil War, U. S., see U. S. History — Civil War." 
 The cataloguer felt that this was sound cataloguian and he was 
 prepared to defend it, if need be ; still he did wish that the Presi- 
 dent had not drawn a blank at the very outset. The President's 
 eyebrows — they were large and bushy ones, wrinkled a little. 
 
 " See U. S. History, Civil War, " he read in his most Edward 
 Everett manner. "Well, I suppose we shall have to. Where is 
 that ? Oh, down there at the other end of the room ? Rather 
 a long walk, young man ! " 
 
 And the two set out for the other end of the catalogue. " Now 
 we have it. Here it is. U. S. History, ah, urn, yes. Revolution, 
 where is the card ? What's this. War of 1812? No ; ah, here 
 we have it ! Now, I must put on my glasses. " 
 
 But the cataloguer had already read the card — for in place 
 of the dozens he expected to see, there was only one, and it 
 bore the neatly type-written insaiption, " U. S. History, Civil 
 War. Nothing doing. " By this time the older man had adjusted, 
 his eyeglasses. " What is this ? " he inquired, " What does that 
 signify ? " "I'm sure 1 don't know, " said the cataloguer, " there 
 should be a lot of cards there. I don't understand it. " 
 
 "Well, I am very certain I do not, " returned the President. 
 " I shall be very much surprised to learn that the librarian has not 
 procured any books at all on the subject. However, my object 
 now is to ascertain the use of this catalogue. Let us try again. 
 The recent great struggle in the Far East is a topic which Mr. 
 Mudge cannot have neglected. I have learned my lesson this 
 time. We will look under " Japan. History. " 
 
 The cataloguer hastily began : " I think, sir, you had better 
 look— " " No, no, young man, not a word, " the President 
 
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD 25 
 
 interposed. " You aie supposed not to be- here. I am one of your 
 patrons — a workman, let us say, using the catalogue for the first 
 time. " To the uncomfortable cataloguer it seemed that he was 
 an emissary of the Devil, but he didn't say so. The President 
 advanced to the drawer marked " Japan " and began again. He 
 was rewarded with this information. " Japan, History, War with 
 Russia, see Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905." 
 
 The president had the air of a man whose woret suspicions 
 were being confirmed, but whose patience and magnanimity 
 were boundless. He tramped back (fo the i.eljt^^' R of the 
 catalogue, and after a long and distressing interval he found the 
 card he sought. The wretched cataloguer felt the ends of his 
 fingers grow cold, and his forehead get hot as he read the one 
 word, "Siung!" 
 
 An alarming purple hue seemed to spread over the President's 
 face. The cataloguer really thought he was going off in an 
 apoplectic fit. " 1 do not imderstand this, " he burst out, " ,1 never 
 put any such cards here. Somebody has been playing tricks. " 
 
 The President began to boom like a Chinese gong. " Young 
 man, " he said, " I do not pretend to be conversant with all the 
 latest slang in use among street arabs. You are apparently 
 an expert in that line. I have always thought you to be too young 
 and too frivolous for your present position. I have always doubted 
 the value of this new-fangled catalogue. My doubts are justified ! 
 I shall summon the librarian and direct him to return to the use 
 of the book catalogue employed when Mr. Kirkwood was 
 librarian. " He touched an electric button and a bell began to 
 ring, noisily. It made such a racket that the cataloguer turned 
 to see where the sound came from. He looked into the face of 
 his alarm clock, and thence about the familiar walls of his bed- 
 room. He gave a sigh of relief to see that the indignant President 
 had vanished and that there was nothing worse before him than 
 the necessity of getting up. 
 
THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN VERSUS 
 
 HUCKLEBERRY FINN: A BRIEF 
 
 FOR THE DEFENCE* 
 
 One by one the children's departments of the public libraries 
 are putting up the little dTinity curtains of Extreme Respectability, 
 while from behind them appears the Children's Librarian shaking 
 a disapproving head at two old friends who stand outside. 
 " No, no, " she says, " Tom Sawyer, and you, you horrid Huckle- 
 berry Finn, you musn't come here. All the boys and girls in here 
 are good and pious ; they have clean faces, they go to Sunday- 
 school, and they love it, too. They say ' Yes, papa ' , and ' Yes, 
 mamma ' , and they call their teacher ' Dearest teacher '- They 
 never do anything bad or disrespectful. But you — you naughty, 
 bad boys, your faces aren't washed, and your clothes are all 
 covered with dirt. 1 do not believe either of you brushed his 
 hair this morning, and Tom Sawyer, I saw you yawn in church 
 last Sunday. As for you. Huckleberry, you haven't any shoes or 
 stockings at all, and everyone knows what your father is. Do 
 you suppose 1 would let you in here with RoUo and Jonas, and 
 all these other precious little dears ? Now, both of you run right 
 away as fast as you can, or I will call the policeman and have 
 him attend to you ! " 
 
 Together with a great many other men and boys I have wit- 
 nessed this moral scene a number of times, with a rising sense 
 of sorrow and indignation. Not that I would breathe a word 
 against the Children's Librarian. She has my deepest respect and 
 admiration. She has been to a school where they study to be 
 * Fiom "The Library Journal, " July, 1907. 
 
CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN VERSUS HUCKLEBERRY FINN 27 
 
 children's libiarieuis — I never have. She has spent (our or five 
 years in children's rooms. I have only observed them ( although 
 with interest ) from another part of the library. But one advan- 
 tage she has not had. She has never been a boy. And I claim 
 that possession ot that qualification renders me able to judge 
 (airly in the case o( the Children's Librarian oeraus Tom Saw- 
 yer and Huckleberry Finn. 
 
 At first I have thought that the case need not be argued nor 
 judged. I have (elt like saying, " Tom and Huck, you wouldn't 
 like it i( you went in there. Their boys and girls are a set o( little 
 goody-goodies. There isn't one of them that would have rescued 
 Becky (rem the cave as you did, Tom ; nor one that would 
 have risked his body and soul (or Jim, as Huckleberry did. 
 There is only one real boy in there— Tom Bailey o( Rivermouth, 
 and they will find out about him soon, and how he scared his 
 towns(olk with a battery o( guns, and then they'll put him out, 
 for (ear other boys will catch that habit. 1 know you, Tom and 
 Huck, and so do lots o( others, and I'd rather spend an hour 
 on your raft than listen to that Jonas any day. There are some 
 (ellows we can get to come along with us. Tom Bailey, o( course, 
 and his Centipede Club, and a boy named Davy who has a 
 Goblin with him — we'll get them. Then there's a boy (rom India 
 called Kim, and two more (rom the same country — British 
 drummer boys named Jakin and Lew — that lady wouldn't like 
 them, either, because they swear and fight, but they amount to 
 something, anyhow. 1( we want to talk with any girls, there's 
 that Alice — she's English and rather prim, but she has some 
 aw(ully (unny (riends. She'll do on rainy days when the raft is 
 up at the bank. Now, come on, and leave the lady and her 
 little darlings to themselves. All the boys and plenty of men will 
 go with us, and the mother's pets can go inside and play with 
 Little Lord Fauntleroy. " 
 
 At first, as 1 have said, this has seemed the only thing for a 
 
28 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 friend of Huckleberry and Tom to say. But the more one con- 
 siders, the more one becomes convinced that Tom and Huck 
 are urgently needed inside. There has been a great increase in 
 boys' books during the last twenty years, but the condition of 
 the class as a whole remains about the same. It is generally 
 agreed that the English Tom — Tom Brown — is nearly incom- 
 prehensible to American boys. Harvey Cheyne of "Captains 
 Courageous " is an extreme and detestable type to begin with, 
 and his reformation is a trifle obvious and " preachy " . None need 
 inveigh against " Stalky and Co. ° — it never became popular 
 with boys. As for the " Jungle Books " , if they are, as some 
 believe, the best of Mr. Kipling's work, they are entirely the 
 most conscious, and appeal, I believe, more to grownups than 
 to boys. Of Henty's international gallery of wax-works, it must 
 be admitted that they are in demand, but the faint praise 
 accorded them in the " A. L. A. Catalogue " seems a just esti- 
 mate of their worth. Mr. Barbour's athletic stories are well liked, 
 but they appear machine-made. Fairy tales are out of the pro- 
 vince of my discussion, as are juvenile historical, biographical, or 
 " scientific " works. In the class of fiction for boys there seems 
 to be little left, except Alger, Castlemon, Optic and Co., and 
 many of their works are barred out by the 3ame authorities who 
 exclude Tom and Huckleberry. 
 
 Now, just as certain novels for adults stand head and shoulders 
 above the rest because their authors dared depict men andwomen 
 as they are, these two books of Mark Twain, almost alone among 
 boys' books, deserve the appellation " great " ; because they 
 present real boys. Not Henty's wooden heroes, nor golden- 
 curled, lace-collared Fauntleroys ; but real boys, with all of boys' 
 absurd superstitions, hunger for romance and adventure, and 
 disregard for smug respectability. Their adventures are such as to 
 compel attention and interest. Professor Brander Matthews well 
 says that since Crusoe discovered the foot-print there has been 
 
CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN VERSUS HUCKLEBERRY FINN 29 
 
 scarcely an incident in literature to match the moment when 
 Tom Sawyer, lost in the cave, sees the hand of his enemy, 
 Injun Joe. William Morris used to read " Huckleberry Finn " 
 and declare it America's chief contribution to art. Professor 
 Barrett Wendell in his " Literary History of America, " makes a 
 similar claim, while Stevenson's praise of the book is known to 
 anyone who has read his letters.* But what do these scholars and 
 literary men amount to beside the thousands of men and boys 
 who have met with no better fellows in all the land of story- 
 books than Tom and Huck, and who now see their old friends 
 turned out of some library every year, and sent to herd with such 
 cheap and vapid creatures as Bowery Billy, the Boy Detective ! 
 
 " But, " says the Children's Librarian, " I know the books 
 are interesting and all that, but it only makes them the more 
 pernicious. They glorify mischief. When Huckleberry Finn 
 appears on the scene, what does he have with him ? A dead 
 cat! Is that the sort of thing we want to teach our boys to do? 
 Why, somewhere or other, a library had these books, and the 
 boys formed a Tom Sawyer Club, and they broke some windows 
 and did something else, I don't know what. The books are 
 irreverent toward sacred things and Sunday-schools, and oh, 
 they are utterly bad, and I. won't have them in the children's 
 room ! " 
 
 Against this it can only be urged that literature is nothing but 
 a record of people doing the things they should not do; that 
 condemnation of it for this reason alone is usually regarded 
 among enlightened persons as bigotry ; and that boys will have 
 to be reared in cloisters if they are never to commit mischief. " Of 
 
 * As I revise this there appears in the North American Reoiew an article 
 on Mark Twain by Professor Phelps, of Yale. Professor Phelps thinks that 
 " Hucklebeny Finn " can be fully appreciated only by adults —children devour 
 it, but do not digest it, he says. This is true only of the great books — " Alice 
 in Wonderland, " " Gulliver's Travels, " and " Pilgrim's Progress, " tor exam- 
 ple. Of course the last two were not written for children at all. 
 
 E. L. P. 
 
30 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 course they will be mischievous, " she replies, " but we musn't 
 furnish them with the impulse. " Are you sure that these books 
 do furnish the impulse, madam ? Do not the stories about the 
 boys made bad by them sound a bit thin ? Now and then the 
 newspapers tell of some young man who winds up a career of 
 dissipation by murdering his whole family. As he stands upon 
 the gallows he attributes his downfall to the day when someone 
 tempted him to smoke a cigarette or drink a glass of beer. 
 His own evil soul he absolves from blame, and puts it all upon 
 that universal scapegoat, the cigarette. The sin he did, he would 
 have done without the aid of cigarettes, and the mischief that 
 boys commit, would be committed if " Tom Sawyer " and 
 " Huckleberry Finn " had never been written. 
 
 I am appealing, with little hope, to a court whose decision is 
 already rendered. The word has gone forth that these two 
 books are to be condemned. Yet almost any hundred which the 
 children's departments contain could be better spared. For a 
 large cleiss of boys there are fathers and uncles and big brothers 
 who will see to it that they do not miss that trip down the 
 Mississippi ; that they too watch with beating hearts while Injun 
 Joe and his pal unearth the buried treasure in the haunted house ; 
 that they know that glorious pair, the King and the Duke ; and 
 that they see the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords and their 
 feud. These grown men would as soon dry up the swimming 
 pools in summer, or scatter ashes on the coasting hills in winter 
 as to deny their boys what they themselves so loved twenty or 
 thirty years ago. 
 
 But there is another class of boys whose relatives cannot pro- 
 vide any books. The public library is supposed to minister to 
 these as well as to the others. Whether these know Tom and 
 Huckleberry often rests with a lady who is horrified by a dead 
 cat, and shocked at Tom's lack of scriptural knowledge. If these 
 ladies could be prevailed to leave the case to their fathers or. 
 
CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN VERSUS HUCKLEBERRY FINN 31 
 
 uncles or brothers there might be a chance (or the poorer boys 
 as well. 
 
 The words of my friend Frank Marshall bear on this subject. 
 He was a director of his town library when they elected Miss 
 Timmins to succeed old Mr. Wheaton, who had presided over 
 the library for thirty years. Marshall's term of office, as director, 
 expired soon after, but he told me that Miss Timmins promised 
 well. " She is clearing things up, " he wrote me, " and 1 am glad 
 you advised me to send for her. It seems that she wants to open 
 a room for kids, and they have told her to go ahead. The Junior 
 and Bob are tickled, for old Wheaton used to drive them out 
 sometimes, and he never was very pleasant to me when I went 
 down to get books for them. " 
 
 I went over to see Marshall last week, and I gathered that 
 Miss Timmins had carried her clearing-up process too far to suit 
 him. " We thought we were getting a dove, " he said, " but we 
 were fooled. It turns out that they give them some kind of sail- 
 ing directions at that school, and one of the first articles is : into 
 the fire with Mark Twain. Why, there was a dear old copy 
 of ' Huckleberry Firm ' — I believe it was the same one I used 
 to read — and that young woman fell on it like a monk of the 
 Inquisition, and burned it up. Bob had never read it, and when 
 he went after it she told him that it was not a nice book at all. 
 He told her I had advised him to read it, but that didn't make 
 any difference. She gave him a thing called 'Little Brothers in 
 Feathers and Fuzz, ' or some such name, and told him to read 
 that. He hasn't opened it. I'd lick him if he did. Simpkin, over 
 here — you know what sort he is — chairman of the library board 
 now; he succeeded me. He says the town has been reading 
 too much fiction, and that Miss Timmins has already reduced 
 the percentage of it by several points. I asked him whether he 
 thought the ' Little Brothers ' were a good substitute. He said 
 they had ordered a good many books on nature. I tried to get 
 
32 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 out of him what was the net gain to the town, if boys took 
 home books they never read, but he is apparently satisfied if 
 the figures make us out as suddenly increased in intellect by 
 twenty per cent. 1 think it helps Miss Timmins along with the 
 other librarians, too. You ought to know about that — does it ?" 
 
 Marshall's sister came into the room before I could answer. 
 She is president of the Twenty Minute Culture Club, of which, 
 it appears. Miss Timmins is secretary. 
 
 Miss Marshall said, " Frank, I found the boys reading ' Tom 
 Sawyer' and ' Huckleberry Finn' — they said you got the books 
 for them." 
 
 " Quite so ; I brought them out from town this afternoon. " 
 
 " Why, Frank, don't you know Miss Timmins has banished 
 them from the library ? They are just as vulgar as they can be. 
 Miss Timmins says that no children's library will have them now. 
 She says that the famous library at " 
 
 " Emily, " interrupted her brother, " Miss Timmins is in supreme 
 command in the curious looking room she has fixed up there. 
 But she isn't here. 1 think she knows how to make the neatest 
 letters with a pen 1 ever saw, and she is very sweet and kind 
 with all those small children. I hear she tells them stories, 
 which is certainly a change from old Wheaton, who used to get 
 after them with a cane. But she doesn't understand boys. I^ow 
 could she? My opinion on their books is better than hers. 
 When she sets herself up as an authority on that subject, she is 
 meddling, just as much as I should be if I tried to teach little 
 girls to dress dolls. As for you, Emily, I am very fond of you, but 
 at times I suspect there is an infusion of buttermilk or weak tea in 
 your blood. Your only writer is Jane Austen, or when you 
 feel wild and desperate, Clara Louise Bumham. No wonder you 
 are shocked at men's books. I remember you find Kipling too 
 strong for your taste. Don't worry the boys, Emily. I didn't go 
 to the bad on Mark Twain, and I think they'll pull through. " 
 
THE CATALOGUE BEAUTIFUL 
 
 " A Plea for the Popularization of Card Catalogues ' is the 
 title of a forthcoming pamphlet from whose proof sheets the 
 following extracts are made, by permission. In the introduction 
 the author dwells upon two facts, both of sufficient importance 
 to attract the attention of librarians everywhere. The first is that 
 the patrons of libraries are displaying a growing repugnance to 
 to the use of the card catalogues. As these cabinets of drawers 
 increase in number until it seems as if the old joke about the 
 catalogues of the Boston Public Library and Harvard University 
 meeting on Harvard Bridge might become literally true, the 
 mental distress and physical exhaustion suffered by those con- 
 sulting one of them becomes too important to be disregarded. 
 
 Almost any day in any large library their fearful influence may 
 be observed. Dozens of harrowed individuals are seen trying 
 to think whether the name of Thomas De Quincy will be found 
 in the drawer marked De or that labelled Qu. Then they make 
 the choice — always v\rrong — and are seen, with pain only too 
 apparent on their brows, dashing off to the other drawer. 
 
 The careworn man who wishes to read the novels of Mr. 
 Winston Churchill is found pawing madly about the cards 
 headed " Win ". Rescued from this by a hurrying library at- 
 tendant, and told the secret of the inversion of names, he attacks 
 the letter C. Noticing by a sign that titles are also included in 
 the catalogue he thinks he may as well go at once for the par- 
 ticular story of his choice, and proceeds to the " Carvel " part to 
 find Richard of that clan. Again baffled, he has recourse to 
 
34 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 another librarian, who says that in this case he should have 
 sought the letter R and looked (or Richard. 
 
 Already the madhouse yawns wide for the poor wretch, and 
 who shall say what charge will be laid at the cataloguer's door 
 in the Day when all things are accounted for ? 
 
 Nor, according to the author of the pamphlet in question, 
 are the consulters of the catalogues the only persons whose 
 reasons are in danger. The cataloguers themselves, the very 
 ones who sit all day spinning this codified brainstorm, are in peril. 
 Not long ago a body of them got together and bound themselves 
 by a fearful oath not to part until they had settled once and for- 
 ever the question whether it is better to write " Department of 
 Agriculture " or " Agriculture, Department of ". They well 
 knew that many a strong mind has come to ruin on this reef, 
 but they were a reckless lot, and they plunged in. Midnight 
 came, and found them still bickering. The struggle continued 
 during the early hours of the morning, and at last the cold gray 
 light of dawn looked in at the shutters, but whatever it saw, no 
 solution of the problem was there, and the mental condition of 
 the disputants has ever since been one upon which it is not 
 pleasant to dwell. 
 
 " Consequently ", says the writer, " it is more than plain, it is 
 imperative, that something must be done. Cataloguers must not 
 be allowed to dally with paranoia ; nor library patrons to trem- 
 ble on the brink of doddering imbecility. What shall it be ? 
 The human mind has not yet devised any better machine for 
 its purpose than the card catalogue, nor is it likely to do so. 
 Books pour in upon us, clamoring each for its card, seven and 
 a half centimetres high and twelve and a half long, with a neat 
 hole punched in the bottom. " 
 
 " My solution is simple. The catalogue must be popularized. 
 No longer shall the task of finding a book in the catalogue be 
 weariness of the flesh alone, no longer shall the cataloguers find 
 
THE CATALOGUE BEAUTIFUL 35 
 
 their only joy in digging out the middle name and age of bash- 
 ful authors. Reports, even bulletins, are nowadays made inter- 
 esting. Why not catalogues ? The frigid scheme of annotation 
 did not do it, but that was because it did not work in the right 
 direction. " 
 
 " My plan is this : Let each heading, be it author's name, or 
 subject entry, be followed by a card or cards bearing some 
 brief extract, quotation, or original composition, throwing light 
 or giving information on the subject that shall be inspiring and 
 instructive and whet the appetite for more. To illustrate, let us 
 suppose that the reader is looking up the subject of camels. 
 What could be more useful, after he has read over the cards 
 showing the library's resources on the topic, than to find the 
 following entry, giving as it does, a perfect insight to the mind 
 and character of the animal : 
 
 ' The ' orse ' e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, ' 
 ' The elephant's a gentleman, the battery mule's a mule^ ' 
 
 ' But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said an ' done. ' 
 ' ' E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one. ' 
 
 "There you have the expert opinion which satisfies the 
 requirements of Mr. George lies, as well as a note which will 
 spur the investigators to more thorough research. " 
 
 " The same writer may be drawn on under the author entries 
 as well as under those for subject. In the catalogues of most 
 libraries may be found the heading, ' Roberts, Frederic Sleigh 
 Roberts, first earl, 1 832. ' There will occur a card for "Forty- 
 one Years in India, " and perhaps one or two other books. In 
 my scheme another card should be added with the lines : 
 ' There's a little red-faced man 
 
 Which is Bobs, 
 Rides the tallest ' orse ' e can. 
 
 Our Bobs. 
 If it bucks or kicks or rears, 
 ' E can sit for twenty years. 
 
36 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 With a smile round both ' is ears, 
 
 Can't yer, Bobs ? ' 
 If you stood ' im on ' is ' ead, 
 
 Father Bobs, 
 You could spill a quart o' lead 
 
 Outer Bobs. 
 ' E's been at it thirty years 
 An-amassin' souveneers 
 In the way o' slugs an' spears — 
 
 Ain't yer, Bobs ? ' 
 
 " To turn from men of action to men of letters, a brief charac- 
 terization of an author will be found decidedly helpful if inserted 
 in the catalogue, neatly type- written on a card. For American 
 writers the " Fable for Critics " offers many suggestions. This 
 for instance, should follow the name of N. P. Willis : 
 
 There is Willis, all natty and jaunty and gay. 
 Who says his best things in so foppish a way. 
 
 With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'er-laying 'em. 
 That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em ; 
 
 Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose. 
 Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose ! 
 
 " Even the gravest and dryest subjects can be so illumined by 
 the sweet light of poetry that people will begin to call for books 
 that have hitherto been mere accumulators of dust. The American 
 Library Association's ' List of Subject Headings ' includes the 
 formidable word ' Anthropology '. What workman or mechanic 
 will ever be tempted by that frightful word inscribed though it 
 be in letters of red, to learn about those charming individuals 
 who ' drew delightful mammoths on the borders of their cave '? 
 
 A poet comes to our rescue to tell us of primitive man : 
 
 ' He worshipped the rain and the breeze. 
 He worshipped the river that flows. 
 
 And the dawn, and the moon, and the trees, 
 And bogies, and serpents, and crows ; 
 
THE CATALOGUE BEAUTIFUL 37 
 
 He buried his dead with their toes 
 
 Tucked up — an original plan — 
 Till their knees came right under their nose : 
 
 'Twas the manner of primitive man !' 
 
 " Again, the subject heading " Prehistoric Archaeology " never 
 allured a shop girl from her mad pursuit of McCutcheon nor led 
 the young lady from the high school out of the dangerous mo- 
 rasses of Marie Corelli. How different if she could have been 
 made aware of the fascinating nature fakirs who tell of the 
 fauna of that ancient time when 
 
 ' There was a little animal no bigger than a fox. 
 And on five toes he scampered over tertiary rocks ; 
 
 Tliey called him Eohippos, and they called him very small, 
 And they thought him of no consequence, when they thought 
 of him at all ; 
 
 For the lumpish old Dinoceras, and Coryphadon so slow, 
 Were the heavy aristocracy in the days of long ago '. 
 
 " Thus ", concludes our author in his somewhat florid vein, " a 
 dawn of gladness is breaking, alike for the public and the weary 
 cataloguer. No more will strong men tear their hair and curse 
 when directed by the loan-desk assistant to look this up in the 
 catalogue, please. On the contrary, the catalogue will be sur- 
 rounded daily by an eager throng and its consultation will be 
 attended by all the joy that might come from a perusal of ' Ele- 
 gant Extracts '. No more will the cataloguer be sicklied o'er 
 with the pale cast of Cutter's rules nor be borne away shriek- 
 ing when she finds that all the books laboriously entered under 
 the name B. L. Putnam Weale were really written by a perfid- 
 ious man called Simpson. Counting fly leaves, and recording 
 such matters as ' 3 p.l., xiii, 9, iv., 326, front., illus., plates, 
 diagrs., 23 1-2 cm', will not be the whole of her existence. 
 The greater ecstasy of literary research shall be hers, and in her 
 eyes a brighter iris blossom. " 
 
MRS. POMFRET SMITH VISITS THE 
 LIBRARY 
 
 " Just tell Miss Anderson, that Mrs. J. Pomfret Smith is here, 
 will you ? Oh, here she is now ! Oh, my dear, you've got your 
 things on ! Are you going home ? You're not very tired are 
 you ? I've got to read a paper before the Twenty-Minute Cul- 
 ture Club, on the ' Decadence of French Literature ' and I 
 know you'll help me look up these books. You are so much better 
 than these girls out here at the desk. I hope they didn't hear 
 me ! Are you very tired ? It won't take you but just a jiffy, I'm 
 sure. " 
 
 Miss Anderson was very tired indeed. TTie librarian had 
 conceived the notion that morning of holding an exhibition of 
 books amd pictures on the subject of Navajo blankets, and she 
 had been working at top speed to get it ready. It was now five 
 o'clock, and she had exactly two hours to do three necessary 
 errands, get home to her dinner, and catch a car which would 
 land her at the Hubbard House Settlement at seven o'clock, 
 where it would then be her privilege to supply books for two 
 hot, ill-ventilated hours to a noisy crowd of unwashed children. 
 She knew exactly the sort of headache and feeling of sticki- 
 ness that would be hers at nine that evening. 
 
 But she smiled pleasantly at Mrs. J. Pomfret Smith, who had 
 already produced her list, and begun to talk again. " Oh, dear! 
 these horrid French names ! I can't manage them, but I've got 
 to get this paper ready. Now, this says to look up Alfred de 
 Mewzet — he wrote novels, didn't he, or am I thinking of 
 
MRS. POMFRET SMITH 39 
 
 Dammus ? Anyhow, get me some of his books ; translations, of 
 course, and is Marie Corelli, French ? She sounds so, doesn't 
 she ? And who is Decameron ? He isn't modem, is he? Some 
 of these things are awful; I told Pomhet the other night I 
 couldn't see why they were allowed in the library. This outline 
 says : note Decameron's influence. Then I want some novel, 
 by Lote-eye. He's the man who went crazy from drinking 
 absinthe and shot himself in the cafe where he used to write 
 poetry, isn't he ? Or was that Ouida ? No, she was a woman, 
 but was she French ? Her name was ' de la ' something, so I 
 suppose she was. " 
 
 Mrs. Smith interpolated these bits of literary gossip during 
 Miss Anderson's trips between the catalogue, the book stacks 
 and the issue desk. The pages had gone to their early suppers 
 all but one ; and Miss Anderson lugged out eurmfuls of books 
 herself. The clock went from quarter past to half past five. She 
 had eaten her luncheon in ten minutes that noon, and the indi- 
 cations were in favor of about five minutes for her dinner. Mrs. 
 Smith, was still fresh however. 
 
 " There's a critic I want to get hold of ; what's his name ? 
 Oh, yes, St. Boove, have you got any of the books by St. Boove ? 
 I want something to sum up the whole period. Dear me, is that 
 clock right ? Why it's ten minutes to six ! Tal^e these books 
 with me ? — gracious, no I I don't want them now, and I couldn't 
 cany all those. I'll just come around next Tuesday and look 
 them over here. I wanted to be sure you'd got them all, and 
 you've been perfectly lovel\f. Now, you just put' them away 
 somewhere, where nobody will get any of them. Will you ? I 
 know it's against the rules, but I guess it will be all right. " 
 
 The librarian was in his office putting a final polish on his annual 
 report. " Cooperation and helpfulness are lhe"keynotes of our 
 library service, " he wrote ; " Much valuable work has been 
 done in affiliation with the study clubs of the city. " 
 
MYTH 
 
 Every profession has its legendary characters. We are all 
 familiar with the marvellous lawyer, who without any other 
 preparation than the consumption of a quart of whiskey was en- 
 abled to carry on the examination of witnesses, to debate on legal 
 points, and finally, after two or three days without food or sleep, 
 to make an impassioned appeal to the jury, which resulted in the 
 triumphant acquittal of his obviously guilty client. Then there is 
 the doctor who in former days astounded rural communities by 
 diagnosing cases at ten miles distance,and predicting with absolute 
 accuracy the day and moment when his patient would recover. 
 
 Now without discussing whether library work may claim to 
 be called a profession, it has, at least, this mark of one. It has 
 its legendary characters. They are the omniscient old gentlemen 
 who knew the entire contents of every book in their libraries. 
 Not only that ; but their knowledge and memory were still more 
 extraordinary. The tales usually ran in form something like this : 
 " Why, old Mr. Bookworm has the most marvellous memory ! 
 If you ask him where you can get information on any subject, 
 he wrill say, ' You go upstairs, and turn into the fourth alcove on 
 the right hand side. Look at the shelves on the left and count 
 three from the top ; take down the seventeenth book from the 
 right — it is the twenth-sixth from the left. Open it at page four- 
 teen hundred and sixty seven, which is the left hand one. Run 
 down the page until you come to line twenty-three. You will 
 find there exactly what you want !' " 
 
MYTH 41 
 
 It may be merely the envy of a degenerate race of librarians, 
 who know more about catalogue cards than about books, which 
 prompts us to feel some suspicious misgivings about this old 
 gentlemen. Of one thing we may be assured — if he were alive 
 today even in the present disgraceful condition of library 
 salaries, he could command an income that would enable him to 
 go in for first folio Shakespeares, and ocean-going steam yachts. 
 But, as we sometimes wonder where all this talk about unicorns 
 arose if they aie really ( as Alice thought ) nothing but " fabulous 
 monsters ", so, we may inquire, is there not some foundation for 
 the stories about Mr. Bookworm? 
 
 We will answer this right away. There is. A reputation for 
 supernatural learning is sometimes as easy to gain as one for 
 ignorance. Everyone has probably had the experience of finding 
 himself regarded as an authority on some subject when he knew 
 very little about it. It is only necessary that this subject shall be 
 one of which the average person is in total ignorance. If you 
 know a trifle about heraldry, for instance, or edible mushrooms, 
 how soon does it go abroad that you know " all " about it ! So 
 with the fabulous librarian. He made a few lucky hits, induced 
 by the powers of memory which long familiarity with books pro- 
 cures, and immediately the myth arose. He was helped, too, by 
 the fact that in his day books were iax fewer, human knowledge 
 much more limited, and the inquires which came to him far less 
 varied than is the case today. We would like to maintain a 
 respectful admiration toward him. But it must be confessed that 
 a mythical librarian of powers more than human is a fearful 
 nuisance to those of us who are only mortal. 
 
 For one thing, Mr. Bookworm is probably responsible for 
 that famous remark which originated in the fourteenth century, 
 and is still huded at librarians — " Well, I suppose you have read 
 all the books in the library ! " Its brother is like unto it — " It must 
 be nice to be a librarian, and just read all day long ! " Then, 
 
42 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 too, he is to blame, when we are expected to know immediately 
 whether our library ( which contains (our hundred thousand 
 volumes ) owns a certain book or not. Tliis is flattering to our 
 powers of memory, but the diminution of respect that ensues when 
 we have to consult the catalogue to find out, just as if we were 
 ordinary human beings, is very painful, indeed. " Why, I thought 
 you would know right away, — old Mr. Bookworm would. " 
 " Yes, Madam ", we will shriek some day, " Bookworm would 
 know, and if I had him here now, I'd stuff the book down his 
 throat!" 
 
POEM 
 
 By Miss Pansy Patterson 
 
 Miss Pansy Patterson " fears that ' The Libtatian ' is a very 
 ill-inf oimed person, without high ideals. " She is " especially 
 distressed at his erroneous notions about Children's Librarians. " 
 So she sends a little poem to correct these false impressions. 
 Here it is. 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN 
 
 On Monday mornings, bright and fair, she takes her childish 
 
 band 
 To hear the little birdies peep, so they may understand 
 That the vocalizing methods of the yellow-crested wren 
 Are easy to distinguish from the common garden hen. 
 
 That afternoon, at three o'clock, they fare unto the park 
 And spend the happy moments till the coming of the deurk ; 
 So when they toddle home again, there's not a child but 
 
 knows 
 That the salmon-footed bullfinch won't associate with crows. 
 
 On Tuesdays you will find her, she is on the spot once more, 
 Expounding to her little ones all kinds of useful lore ; 
 She takes the purple pimpernel and cuts it up in bits 
 To show them if they chew it they'll assuredly have fits. 
 
 When the clock on Wednesday morning has scarcely sounded 
 
 nine, 
 She has her bunch of urchins a-standing in a line, 
 A bee-hive is before them, and by lure of cakes and jumbles 
 They learn to tell the honey-bee from ordinary Bumbles. 
 
44 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 Now Thursday is the day of days that's ever set apart, — 
 Devoted to the practice of the flower of her art. 
 She draws them all around her, on the floor she sits, herself, 
 Regaling them with stories of hippogriff and elf. 
 
 On Friday she is at it hard, from early morn till night, 
 Imparting unto little boys how bad it is to fight ; 
 Discoursing unto little girls of how to dress a doll, 
 And warning both the sexes 'gainst the snares of Alcohol. 
 
 With ruthless hand, she confiscates the vicious cigarette, 
 And expurgates such phrases as " I reckon " and " I bet " ; 
 She gives a little homily on " Books That Are a Sin " 
 And pours the vials of her wrath on " Huckleberry Finn ". 
 
 On Saturday she leads a class in making paper fans. 
 And sanitary pies of mud in hygienic pans. 
 In weaving little dinky v\rreaths of buttercups and myrtles 
 And teaching tricks of kindliness to poUywogs and turtles. 
 
 And if, by chance, she finds the time, she puts it in (for looks) 
 In furnishing their infant hands wdth infant story-books. 
 
" THAT GIRL AT THE LIBRARY 
 
 An extract from the diary of Miss Helen Martin, assistant in 
 
 the circulating division of the Public Library. The entry 
 
 is dated Jan. 30, 1 909, and it was written on Jan. 3 1 st. 
 
 When 1 got home last night I found a letter from Mabel 
 Oliver. I did not open it then, but I did this morning. It was 
 mostly about her visit in New York, and the plays she has seen. 
 One part appealed to me particularly. It was : " I wish you would 
 tell me about your library work. It must be awfully interesting, 
 seeing so many of the new books, and then you must meet some 
 weird people. Do tell me about it. " Well, I started to write her 
 about it, but I tore the letter up, thinking, " What's the use ? " 
 I believe it would do no good to give her the idea that there is 
 nothing to library work besides the return desk. I know that 
 there is something else, though I have not experienced much of 
 it so far. I have had a year of the circulating division now — 
 counting my six months' apprenticeship. If everything goes 
 well, if the city council grants the appropriations, if Miss Macom- 
 ber does not get too ruffled, if Mr. Pierce does not change his 
 mind (as he usually does) — if I do not make any very bad 
 breaks — and a few more " ifs " , I ought to get that promotion 
 into the reference department next June. There I may see a little 
 more of the insides of books, and have some of the library work of 
 which I dreamed. In the meantime I am going to write about 
 yesterday's experience in this diary, for my own amusement. 
 Perhaps it was not an " average " day. Certainly I have never 
 
46 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 had Mrs. Pomfret Smith, Miss Cecil Calvert, Mrs. Douglas 
 Boomwhacker, Mr. Paddock, Mr. Bakkus, Mr. Titewad, and 
 the Clarke twins, all in one day before. Moreover, it wras a 
 record breaking day for circulation, and so I suppose there were 
 more books returned than usual. But Miss Barlow, who has 
 been in the division seven years, said it was nothing extraordinary, 
 and that she had known people compared with whom Mrs. 
 Boomwhacker and the rest are as turtle doves. So I don't imagine 
 there is anything unfair in recording what happened to me 
 yesterday. 
 
 The morning really should have been free for me, and as I 
 was on duty until nine in the evening I was not due to arrive at 
 the library until one o'clock. But Mr. Pierce is getting up his 
 exhibition of books on " domestic science " and he is already busy 
 on an article for the Library Journal about it. Wednesday he 
 called for volunteers to work over time on this exhibition. Some- 
 one had volunteered from all the other divisions, and Miss 
 Macomber intimated pretty strongly that one of us had better 
 do so. Miss Abrahams and Miss Thomas were on duty at the 
 desks in the morning, anyhow ; Miss Sullivan is just getting over 
 the measles and isn't very strong yet, so that left only Miss 
 Merryfield and me. No one ever expects Louise Merryfield to do 
 any more than she has to, as her uncle is a trustee of the library. 
 Mr. Pierce and Miss Macomber think they are quite lucky 
 when Miss Merryfield does any work at all, and as she gets a 
 promotion as often as there are any to be had, she herself 
 does not feel the need of extra exertion. It was distinctly up 
 to me, so 1 presented a smiling face yesterday morning at nine 
 o'clock and five of us spent three hours in the exhibition room 
 up stairs. It was so cold there at first that we all wore coats, but 
 by standing on one foot at a time, and waving our arms about 
 we managed to keep warm. We got the books arranged, the 
 special labels on them, the lists posted, the notices, pictures, and 
 
"THAT GIRL AT THE LIBRARY" 47 
 
 posters up, and nearly everything done by half-past twelve. At 
 eleven, Dennis, in response to our requests for more heat, got 
 the steam radiator into full operation amd the temperature went 
 to 85 degrees. When we left the room at 1 2.30, Mrs. Green- 
 wood, the shelf-lister, and I decided we didn't want any lunch- 
 eon as we both had splitting headaches. We spent the half hour 
 walking around outdoors, and came back at one o'clock. I helped 
 Miss Macomber on the month's statistics until three o'clock, and 
 then relieved Miss Merryfield at the return desk. She was 
 excused early, to go to the Elmendorf lecture. 
 
 The person at the return desk sits on a high stool and presides 
 over four or five large trays of cards. These cards are set on end 
 and arranged by date. Each one of them belongs in a little 
 pocket in the back of a book which is out of the library on 
 loan. When a book is returned you have to open that book, 
 notice the date on which it was loaned ( this date having been 
 stamped on a slip of paper in the back of the book ) find the 
 card among the thousands in the trays, and put it back in its little 
 pocket, having first removed another card ( the " reader's card ") 
 from that pocket and stamped on that (with a miserable little 
 stamp attached to a lead pencil, which sometimes stamps clearly 
 and usually does not) the date on which the book is returned. 
 I have read over that sentence four times and I do not believe 
 that anyone could exactly understand it. But I understand it and 
 so wrill anyone who has ever performed the ghoulish operation. 
 The others don't matter. Then you give the " reader's card " back 
 to the person who has returned the book — unless he has had the 
 book out longer than the rules allow. In that case you tell him, or 
 her, how much he owes the library — at two cents a day, and in 
 ninety- nine cases out of a hundred he pays over that money 
 promptly and without a fuss. Often he has computed it himself 
 and has the four or six or eight cents, or whatever it is, all 
 ready. In the other case he, or she, makes some kind of a fuss. 
 
48 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 On a " rush-day " when there are over two thousand books 
 returned, there is the possibility of about twenty fusses during 
 the day, or say, fifteen between three and five in the afternoon 
 and seven and half-past eight in the evening, which are particu- 
 larly busy periods. The books, as fast as they are returned, 
 must be hastily glanced at, to see if they have suffered any 
 obvious injury, and then placed on a truck which is wheeled off 
 by a messenger as soon as it gets full, to be replaced by an 
 empty one. I have known a decent looking man to return a book 
 which was simply dripping with mud and muddy water and to 
 declare up and down that there was nothing at all the matter 
 with it, that he had not dropped it into a mud puddle, and that 
 we were a lot of cranky old maids anyhow, and if we 
 didn't 'keep quiet and give him another book and say no more 
 about it he would write to Andrew Carnegie " and have the 
 whole lot of us fired ". The number of persons, by the way, who 
 are on intimate terms with Mr. Carnegie is appalling. One old 
 woman, who insists on abstracting the directory from the regis- 
 tration desk just when it is most needed, gets a letter from him 
 nearly every day, and she informed me last week that " Andhrew 
 had got his eye on yez ". 
 
 But it is three o'clock on Suturday afternoon, and I am 
 beginning at the return desk. Books are coming in fast now, for 
 everyone is returning what he had, and getting another for Sunday. 
 By about half-past three a line has formed extending nearly out 
 to the door. In some libraries I believe this line never occurs — 
 they use a shorter process in the return of their books. Yesterday 
 there were forty to fifty people in line several times during the 
 day. There are some who object to standing in line. I am 
 grieved to say, and 1 never would admit it to a man, but these 
 are usually women. In fact (or downright disagreeableness — 
 pretty cattishness — women are the worst. Men sometimes swear 
 at you, and I have had experience with one or two drunken 
 
"THAT GIBL AT THE LIBRARY" 49 
 
 ones — witness Mr. Bakkus last night. But the women ! Well, 
 take Miss Cecil Calvert — a curious looking creature in a purple 
 gown. She arrived about quarter to four, when I was taking 
 in books, leaning and stretching forward and back over the 
 trays, stamping and handing back cards and calling frantically 
 to Jimmie to bring another truck. She wouldn't take her place 
 at the end of the line, not she ! She tried to elbow her way 
 into several crevices, but was promptly baffled by persons who 
 were already there. Then she came to the head of the line and 
 tried to hand her book over the head of the man whose 
 book 1 was at the moment discharging. Now, Miss Macomber 
 has forbidden our taking books in this way, for just as soon as 
 the people in line see it succeed, the line breaks and the whole 
 forty swarm about the desk in a confused mob. So I kept on 
 taking in books and ignored the copy of " Septimus " which she 
 pushed under my nose. This made her furious, but I could not 
 hear what she said, and presently she went back to the end of 
 /the line. By chance, the last person in the line was a litde 
 darkey, about ten years old. This caused her to boil over, and 
 she came back to the desk and slammed her novel down on it. 
 Did I know who she was ? Did I know that she was Miss Cecil 
 Calvert, and a member of one of the first families of Queen 
 Elizabeth County, Maryland ? Was she to be kept standing in 
 line behind a little nigger ? She reckoned she would see about 
 that. And she gave the book a vicious shove, so that it fell 
 into my lap, and then she stalked out of the library. 
 
 The man at the head of the line was a common-looking 
 individual, and when Miss Calvert had gone he remarked sym- 
 pathetically " 1 hope you don't have many of the first families. 
 Miss. " The next man was Mr. Titewad. His book was a day 
 overdue, and 1 informed him that the fine was two cents. He 
 said he had never received any notice that the book was over- 
 due and that he didn't intend to pay it. It was not the money 
 
50 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 he cared about, but the principle, he said. I told him that even 
 if the notice had not arrived, that he was supposed to keep 
 track of the time himself. He still refused to pay, and told me 
 to give him back his reader's card so he could get another book. I 
 replied that I was forbidden to return any card on which fines 
 were unpaid, whereupon he spluttered, snapped his fingers at 
 me and said : " Come, come, young woman, give me my card, 
 give me my card ! " As I did not do so, he went away in search 
 of the " real librarian ", as he called him, to make a complaint, 
 and I have not seen Mr. Titewad since. The rest of the people 
 in line had heard Miss Calvert's outcries, and were inclined to 
 be agreeable to me. Somehow the emnouncement that one 
 belongs to the first families never wins a great deal of admiration. 
 The line cleared quickly and easily. One of the last ones in it was 
 Mrs. Marietta Cooper CoUyer, the author. She is an old dear. 
 She comes into the library nearly every day, always goes 
 away with three or four books, and though she is over eighty 
 years old never makes any trouble at all. All of the girls like her 
 and will do anything for her. 
 
 A line formed ageun about four o'clock and at the very head 
 of it was Mrs. J. Pomfret Smith. She returned her book, and 
 began : " Have you read this ? It is Corell-eye's ' Holy Orders '. 
 It is just lovely. 1 read all of her books. Don't you ? I wonder 
 if you can get me another of hers. Oh, 1 just read them over and 
 over. Now, there was ' The Sorrows of Satan '. Lots of folks 
 didn't like it, but I did. Her books have such a lovely moral in 
 'em. Did you read ' Vendetta ' ? I read that four times. Of 
 course, it was horrible and all that, but I think that man was right. 
 Don't you? " While Mrs. Smith was discussing Marie Corelli, 
 the line was surging behind her, a very small man with three heavy 
 volumes was swaying under their weight as he held them 
 toward me at arm's length, and a massive woman with a pink 
 feather boa was apparently about to beat Mrs. Smith over the 
 
"THAT GIRL AT THE LIBRARY" 51 
 
 head with an umbrella. I told Mrs. Smith that I had not read 
 " Holy Orders " ; that she could get any book she wished from 
 the issue desk; and would she kindly move along, as there were 
 a number of people waiting behind her. " Oh dear, " she said, 
 " have I kept anyone waiting ? I am so sony ! Can't you give 
 me any books ? Oh, at the other desk ! I see. Well, I'll go there. 
 OiJy, I don't know that girl. You must read ' The Sorrows of 
 Sateoi '. Now, remember. Let me see, this is my card. I'm always 
 so afraid I'll lose it ; it's an awful bother. Here it is and there's 
 my purse, and here's my edging. Well, goodby ! " She went 
 away, aad I took the three heavy books from the small man. 
 
 Next after him came the massive person with the pink boa. 
 She handed me her book and while I wzis discharging it, leaned 
 over the desk so that her umbrella, which she had under her arm, 
 gave me a violent jab in the face. " Ain't that ' Holy Orders ' over 
 there ? I've been trying to get that for two weeks. Now you just 
 give it to me right now ! " I had observed her name on her 
 card — it was Mrs. Douglas Boomwhacker. I had often heard 
 of her from the other girls — they usually ran when they saw her 
 coming, but I never had met her before. Her book was four days 
 overdue and I told her the fine amounted to eight cents. " That's 
 all right, you'll get your eight cents quick enough, don't you worry 
 over that. I suppose you girls get all the chewin' gum you want, 
 havin' all this money handed in here. Just give me that ' Holy 
 Orders ' will you ? " I told her that I couldn't issue books at 
 this desk. " Why not, " she snapped, " piece of silly red tape ! " 
 And moreover I told her that by a rule of the library a book could 
 not be issued again on the day it is returned. She wanted to know 
 why not. I told her that it had to be examined, classified, and 
 go back to the shelves with the others that were retumed. Really, 
 there is also another reason for the rule — it is to prevent little cliques 
 from keeping a book among themselves weeks at a time, but I 
 thought it useless to explain that. At the same time I felt sorry 
 
52 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 (or her, for it must have been irritating to see the book she had 
 been after so long and not be allowed to take it. But I soon lost 
 whatever sympathy I felt, for she suddenly leaned over the desk 
 and made a grab for the book. I removed it from her reach and 
 put it out of harm's way, but I was not quick enough to catch a 
 tray of cards which she upset in her sudden manouever. ( It took 
 two of us half an hour to arrange the cards, and the work of 
 the desk was confused and delayed eJl day.) Mrs. Boomwhacker 
 grew crimson when 1 took the book away, and turned on me : 
 " You Soung snip in glasses ! What do you mean ? Give me that 
 book this minute!" 1 told her the rules forbade my doing so. 
 Goodness knows I hate the sound of that word " rules " myself, and 
 it always infuriates the public. " Who made the rule ? " snarled 
 Mrs Boomwhacker, " did you ? " 1 said that I did not, and she 
 remEirked that she was going to write to the papers about it. Was 
 this a free library or were we running it for our own fun ? Didn't 
 we have anything to do but make rules ? In the end she tore up 
 her card and threw the pieces in my lap and weJked out, fuming 
 with rage. Miss Barlow says that it is the fourth card she has torn 
 up, that she wtU come back and pay the fee for a new card in 
 about a week. And because this is a " free public library " and 
 Mr. Boomwhacker's brother is an aldermzai, she will be sJlowed 
 to repeat this scene to her heart's content. It is the third time she 
 has given an exhibition over this same business of trjring to get 
 a book that has just been returned. She always tries it with one 
 of the new attendants, says Miss Barlow. 
 
 Of course, during the afternoon and evening there came 
 scores of pleasant, courteous people, who handed in their books, 
 took their cards and went away. But when one's nerves are tired, 
 when one has been working for hours in a badly ventilated room, 
 little incidents like Miss Calvert and Mrs. Boomwhacker make 
 an impression. Sometimes 1 wonder whether the feverish anxiety 
 Mr. Pierce displays to get people to come to the library has really 
 
"THAT GIRL AT THE LIBRARY" 53 
 
 increased its value. Of course the use of books is very much 
 greater — twenty years ago the library must have been more dead 
 than alive. But I cannot help, now and then, having a suspicion 
 that such a desire to get people to come for something free, has 
 cheapened the library terribly. I wonder whether the absence of 
 nearly all restrictions has not attracted a class who want no 
 restrictions, but their own sweet wtII. Certainly, the inventory of 
 the open shelf-room was stopped suddenly by Mr. Pierce's 
 orders, and if I could gather anything from a few guarded remarks 
 which Miss Macomber uttered, there was an appalling state of 
 things there. TTiese are heretical sentiments, and they would 
 never put me in favor with Mr. Pierce. 
 
 At six o'clock there was a lull, and Miss Barlow and I had 
 supper in the basement dining room. It was a dismal meal, out 
 of paper bags, and cheered only by tea made on the oil stove. 
 From seven to nine the rush went on again. A man named 
 Paddock tried to get me into an argument because I would not 
 renew for him a " seven-day book. " He called loudly for the 
 librarian, and Mr. Hobart, the assistant librarian was sent for. 
 They drifted away in a discussion, and I was amused to hear 
 him call Mr. Hobart a " fat-headed, two-cent tyrant ". The 
 Clarke twins took out a boy's book, decided they didn't want 
 it, and knowing that it could not be returned until Monday, 
 conceived the neat idea of altering the date on their card and 
 on the slip. They took it into the reading room, and with the 
 aid of a knife and a fountain-pen made a sufficiently good imita- 
 tion of the blue rubber stamp date to cause me to search for some 
 ten minutes for the card, before the imposture was discovered. 
 A very intoxicated man named Jacob Bakkus positively refused 
 to pay a fine and as he was exceedingly disagreeable and as I 
 was tired to death, he got away without paying the two cents. 
 For which 1 was sharply reprimanded by Miss Macomber. From 
 eight till past nine o'clock there was no rest. It was a constant 
 
54 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 reach (or the book, reach for the card, hand back the book. 
 All sense of people as separate individuals went from me- — there 
 was only a long drawn out monster, a sort of boa-constrictor, or 
 crocodile-like creature called " the public ", which forever crawled 
 slowly up to my desk, pushed sticky books at me, and came 
 again with more books. The blurred figures on the cards grew 
 into a blue fog, my forehead was tight with headache, and I 
 slipped and fumbled with my date-stamp. Long after I had gone 
 home, and gone to bed, I could see the unending line of 
 people stretching out in front of me, and I saw it at intervals all 
 night. 
 
THE MAN BEHIND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 Mr. Bruce Feinald occupies a position in a certain public 
 library which is professionally described as that of " reference 
 librarian ". It is usually considered one of the enviable posts in 
 library work, for it is the privilege of such as he not merely " to 
 hand out books over a counter," but to hold the cup of know- 
 ledge itself to the lips of the thirsty, and discharge the functions 
 of high priest of the Pierian spring. To his lot it falls to ' inter- 
 pret " dictionaries, encyclopedias and other weighty volumes to 
 the seeker after wisdom, and to aid the student in his researches. 
 This student may be of the " serious " variety, revered by librar- 
 ians, or he may be a casual inquirer who enters the library but 
 to ask a single simple question, then to go forth forever. 
 
 Should there ever be a school established, especially to train 
 persons who wish to learn the elements of this kind of library 
 work, it will probably have engraved over its doors the saying 
 of Dr. Johnson about the two kinds of knowledge — the first 
 being when you know a thing itself, the second when you know 
 where you can find it out. The second kind is supposed to be 
 Mr. Femald's stock-in-trade. It sometimes fails him, and even 
 after he has had fifty or sixty years of experience it will fail him 
 occasionally. In much that is written professionally about the 
 " qualifications of the reference librarian " it is demanded not only 
 that he be a person of " unfailing tact and courtesy ", but that he 
 be also endowed with a degree of omniscience above that of 
 the archangels. It is well to set the ideal high, to hitch our wagon 
 
56 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 to a star, but after all it is a wagon we are to hitch — not a steam- 
 calliope nor a chariot of fire. One of Conan Doyle's medical 
 stories tells of a young doctor who, when suddenly called to 
 see his first patient, went half expecting to have to perform a 
 trephining. The patient had the gout. 
 
 It is not surprising if a neophyte reference- librarian taking his 
 seat in the reading-room and looking to see Professor Hamack 
 rush in with an abstruse question in Chaldaic transliteration, is 
 somewhat disgusted when a schoolboy enters and asks for last 
 week's Puck. He need not despair — some puzzles worthy of 
 his mental furniture will come to him before long, and every bit 
 of information that he ever gathered anywhere will be of use. 
 Much that he studied in the library school about foreign biblio- 
 graphy will be of service to him, once every five years or so ; many 
 things that he reads in the morning paper he will need to use that 
 same day. Both matters are important. It would be a grievous 
 thing if he could not talk among his colleagues of " Antonio 
 Vetus ", " Petzholdt ", and " Brunei ", as if those gentlemen were 
 in the habit of dropping in to tea every day or so. And it would 
 be a bad thing for his own work if he were not informed upon 
 the questions of the day. 
 
 Mr. Fernald has to deal with as many kinds of people as of 
 books. There are the frankly ignorant or uninformed ; the 
 half baked pretenders to knowledge ; and the really learned. 
 He is able to help the first kind ; the last named are of much 
 benefit to him. The others furnish him with exasperation and 
 amusement, and they aid in the growth of his soul. There is no 
 work in the world exactly similar to his ; no point of view pre- 
 cisely the same. From it he can observe with amazement the 
 chaotic and changing systems of education, and hear its doctors 
 disagree. He can see library work rising suddenly from discon- 
 nected units into an embryonic " science " ; young, eager to try a 
 new thing, to run a little while in this or that track, and then to 
 
THE MAN BEHIND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 57 
 
 drop them, and shift its course. Some of his comments, written 
 in a letter to a friend about five weeks ago, we are allowed to 
 quote. 
 
 " This is a hot night, past nine o'clock, and the reading-room 
 is nearly empty. I am breaking the library's rules in writing this 
 letter, but the few persons who remain are sunk in a comatose 
 state over the illustrated papers. They are unlikely to observe 
 that I am not obeying Mr. Dwight's precept that a reference 
 librarian should occupy himself with library work, while main- 
 taining a degage air, so that people who wish his services will 
 not have to apologize for interrupting him. Just how to do any 
 work worth anything and at the same time appear quite alert 
 and open to inquiries, is something that Mr. Dwight may have 
 solved, but I am free to confess that it remains a mystery to me. 
 However, at the really busy times I do not get a chance to sit 
 down at all, so there can be no cause for suspicion then in the 
 minds of patrons that we spend our time ' just in readin' books. ' 
 It is frightfully hot tonight, and numerous insects whiz and buzz 
 cheerfully around my desk-light. I turned an electric fan in this 
 direction until I got a severe crick in the back of my neck; 
 then 1 had to switch it off and put up with the heat and the 
 
 cntters, 
 
 n 
 
 " The big, brown-bearded German who spends every even- 
 ing here from seven to nine, came in tonight as usual, and stood 
 near my desk. I was aware of him before he spoke or came 
 into sight, for he belongs to some sect which has scruples against 
 bathtubs, — but he is a good fellow at a distance — and I like to 
 talk to him. He mopped his brow, and gleamed at me through 
 his spectacles. ' Ach ', he began, ' dis vas dropical ! Die young 
 voman oudt dere asked me tit I vant ' Der Chungle ' to read ! 
 I haf toldt her no ; dere vas Chungle enough for me all aroundt ! 
 Ho ! Ho ! How vas dot ? See here vat I haf — ' Die Ameri- 
 caner ' , by Munsterberg. You haf peen at Harfard— tit you 
 
58 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 know Munsterberg ? Veil, he iss all right, but he iss too fond 
 of Villum. Who ? Of Villum — ^der Kaiser. See here, dere iss 
 a baper calldt 'Der Bo-o-okmann ' — haf you got him ? ' 1 found 
 him the Bookman, while he looked at a copy of the Ladies' Home 
 Journal which a woman had just left at my desk. 1 offered him 
 that ; but saying he did not want ' her ', he went away to a desk, 
 where he sat for two hours, breathing heavily, and reading with 
 evident pleasure. " 
 
 " This has been a busy day as well as a hot one. The schools 
 are now in full swing, and we have a little one of our own. 
 That is to say, we have a class of ' apprentices ' — fourteen 
 women and one lone boy — who are learning library work by 
 ' actual experience '. They are farmed out in twos and threes on 
 the various departments of the library, and I have two in my 
 care. Every three or four days they meet together for a lecture 
 from Mr. Dwight, or some of the rest of us. I feel some diffi- 
 dence in lecturing on a subject of which I have such a tremen- 
 dous lot to learn, to a class of persons one or two of whom left 
 school when I was being inspected by relatives and friends to 
 see what color my hair was going to be. Mr. Dwight gave 
 them an introductory talk on Monday. When he assured them 
 that they were beginning a kind of work that was its own reward, 
 and that they must not brood too much over the subject of salaries, 
 I thought I noticed a curious twitching about the corners of the 
 mouth among some of the members of the library staff. Perhaps 
 they remembered that dark day last June when it was announced 
 that the appropriation* for the City Council for next year left the 
 chief librarian's salary at $4000, instead of accepting the trustees' 
 estimate of $5000." 
 
 " The two apprentices who have fallen to my lot are quite 
 dissimilar. One is a girl of what is usually called the ' society ' 
 type. Why she has gone into library work is a matter for won- 
 der. It certainly cannot be for the small amount of money — 
 
THE MAN BEHIND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 59 
 
 when even that amount is all in the future and uncertain. 
 Apprentices, as you have probably guessed, work for nothing. 
 This young lady has lived in that part of the country where the 
 average girl has the ' West Point habit ', and when one's maiden 
 fancies have played around that gorgeous type of youth, delib- 
 erately to throw herself among bespectacled librarians is an act 
 savoring of madness. She regards me with open scorn. While 
 I am delivering the most weighty sentences concerning Littre's 
 Dictionary or the International Encyclopedia, I observe that she 
 is apparently wondering how any live man can spend his time 
 among such things when he might be wearing a lovely gray coat 
 with little tails, white duck trousers and have a beautiful hollow 
 in his back. She looks up the questions which I set her in a listless 
 sort of way, too proud to do bad work, too blase to show any 
 interest in it, and she customarily refers to the ' A. L. A. 
 Catalogue' (Great Heavens ! ) as ' thai old green book ' ! " 
 
 " The other is an eager and intelligent woman, some fifteen 
 years older than Miss Van Ettrick. This one knows so much 
 about reference books that I am unable to find anything 
 to teach her, and in order to get her off my hands for a few 
 hours, so I can do necessary work, 1 have actually had to try 
 to ' stump ' her with difficult questions, well known to reference 
 librarians, and usually requiring hours of research. But does it 
 work ? Not with Miss I~laskyns ! She noses out the information 
 in a little while, and comes up bright and smiling with : ' I found 
 it, Mr. Fernald I It was in Darius Quimby's Encyclopedia on 
 Gothic Horticulture, and there is another book about it by 
 Peleg Warmbatte — they have a copy in the British Museum. 
 What shall I do now ? ' Miss Haskyns was under the tutelage 
 of Mr. Vincent, the head of the bindery, for two days at the 
 beginning of the week. On the afternoon of the second day Mr. 
 Vincent was seen tearing through the stacks at high speed. He 
 darted into the cataloguer's room, and to the astonishment of 
 
60 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 Miss Carey and her myrmidons, jumped behind the door. The 
 cause of his (right was seen in a moment, when Miss Haskyns 
 dashed through the room, hot on his trail. She had learned all 
 about book-binding in forty-eight hours, and was hungry for 
 more. Mr. Vincent went home that night with a nervous attack 
 and has not yet returned. " 
 
 " I had an agreeable hour early this evening with Admiral 
 Bates. He is writing a book on deep-sea soundings, on which 
 he is an accepted authority. We haven't many books which can 
 help him, but he knows exactly what we have, and he never 
 looks them over with snorts of contempt (like old Professor 
 Gideon, the Greek-coin man ) only to declare that he 'supposes 
 he will have to go to Washington to look it up '- The Admiral 
 wears a kind of pith helmet ( I suppose it is a pith helmet ; I 
 never met one outside of the stories of Kipling or Richard Hard- 
 ing Davis), and in the daytime carries a green-lined umbrella. 
 He has had me help him search out some facts about a number 
 of ocean-exploring voyages, and I can talk quite learnedly on the 
 various ' deeps ', and so forth. Most of the book writers who 
 come in are either very fussy, or rather high and mighty, so the 
 Admiral, like his subject, is refreshing. " 
 
 " We have had a rather curious experience, lasting over three 
 days, with a man who was deeply concerned over the threatened 
 extinction of the American bison, or buffalo. He was always very 
 indignant if one called it the ' buffalo ', and rebuked me sharply 
 for committing that error. He arrived in the reading-room one 
 afternoon and delivered an impassioned address on the neglect 
 of the American Government toward this animal. 1 was under 
 the impression that something had been done for the buffaloes 
 — 1 mean bisons — but he assured me that it was totally inade- 
 quate. He said that he was the owner of a large herd ( the 
 second largest in the United States ) of these interesting creatures, 
 and that he was on his way to Washington to arouse Congress 
 
THE MAN BEHIND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 61 
 
 to take steps in the matter. He became so eloquent.and described 
 in such pathetic terms the condition of this country when it should 
 awake to find itself absolutely unbuffaloed, that I became quite 
 agitated, and found him all the books and articles that the library 
 contained on the subject. He came in again next morning and 
 aroused my assistant, Miss Bixby, to a state of acute distress by 
 picturing to her startled vision the sad moment when the last 
 buffalo should be gathered to his forefathers. She afterwards 
 confessed that she was somewhat surprised when he bonowed 
 a quarter of her to get some luncheon, but she let him have it, 
 for it struck her as rather noble that he should be travelling about 
 the country almost penniless, rather than sell one of the magnifi- 
 cent buffaloes with which his ranch in Montana was stocked. She 
 said she went out to the Zoo that afternoon and regarded the 
 two buffaloes there with renewed interest. " 
 
 " From Miss Bixby the man passed on into the office of Mr. 
 Dwight, where he waxed positively lyric over the buffalo and 
 his dwindling grandeur. Mr. Dwight is a supporter of the Aubu- 
 don Society, and he plasters the whole front of the library witb 
 colored pictures of birds, though he is totally unable himself to 
 tell a guinea-hen from a cock-robin. He became instantly aroused 
 in behalf of the buffalo and I was forthwith commanded to 
 compile a bibliography of buffaloes. That is his panacea — bib- 
 liography. Mr. Dwight is a good man, and a learned librarian, 
 but 1 cannot, at times, help feeling that he places an undue 
 amount of trust on bibliography as a remedy for the ills that beset 
 mankind. When the Messina earthquake occurred, he was ter- 
 ribly distressed by the suffering, until he had typewritten a bib- 
 liography of earthquakes. After that he leaned back in his chair, 
 and, I verily believe, felt convinced that he had taken no small 
 share in improving conditions in Sicily. " 
 
 " Well, at any rate, it was not very difficult to please him in 
 this matter. For the rest of that day there was nothing but 
 
62 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 buffaloes. The following day the owner of the herd returned 
 again and was rapidly getting the whole library staff excited on the 
 subject, when two men, who had driven up in a closed carriage, 
 entered the library. They sought out the buffalo man, and one 
 of them got him into the carriage, while the other told Miss Carter 
 that he ( the buffalo man ) had recently escaped from a private 
 sanatemum, and that he had never been west of Utica in his 
 life. How or why he became interested in buffaloes nobody could 
 say, but I will certify that it was a topic on which his conversa- 
 tion was ' convincing '. " 
 
 " The ethics of librarians taking tips is a subject on which 1 
 meditate a ' paper ' for some library publication. I do not mean 
 tips on the stock market, nor on the races, but tips of the kind 
 which you give to waiters. I say you give them, for it is charged 
 against librarians, by hotel employees, that they do not give tips. 
 How should they ? When their remuneration becomes equal to 
 that of the waiters, perhaps they may. But a man for whom I 
 looked up a point about the registration of dentists in this State 
 ( it took me heJf an hour's hunting ) brought the book back to my 
 desk, and slipped me something wrapped in a bit of paper. He 
 went out instantly, and when I had opened the paper I found 
 that the object was a ten-cent piece ! I believe that Anthony 
 Trollope was once given sixpence for escorting some German 
 royalty through the post office, and 1 know how he felt. Ten 
 cents I Had he made the insult sufficiently great, as Pooh-Bah 
 said, I might have swallowed it, but I think 1 shall contribute 
 that dime toward the distressed buffaloes." 
 
 " Only this evening 1 made a painful discovery about one of 
 our oldest and most valued readers. He has been coming in for 
 months — years, perhaps — and he always asks for one book. 
 ' Plato's Republic ' , in the original, mind you, and in one of 
 those miserable little German editions. He will have no other, 
 and on one occasion when his pet copy was out and Miss 
 
THE MAN BEHIND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 63 
 
 Bixby offered him an attractive, annotated edition he became 
 perfectly hirious. While it is being brought he amuses himself 
 with illustrated periodicals. When it comes, he retires into a 
 comer and ( apparently ) reads Plato with burning devotion 
 for hours at a time. He has become an institution ; 1 told 
 Mr. Dwight about him and he was simply entranced. He came 
 into the reading-room and looked at the Plato man, and rubbed 
 his hands with glee. 1 think he meditated having the man's 
 picture taken to put in the report. Tonight I happened to pass 
 behind the man, looking for some book, when I was over- 
 whelmed to notice that he had Plato upside down ! I thought 
 perhaps it was an accident and that he had gone to sleep — but 
 no, there were distinct thumb-marks on the top of the page that 
 showed that he always held the book that way. It was quite 
 worn and tattered in that spot. I went around in front of him and 
 looked at his eyes — they seemed to be wide open, and they 
 were fixed on the pages. After I got back to my desk I looked 
 at him now and again, but I never saw him turn a leaf in an 
 hour. What joy he finds in glaring at a Greek text, upside down, 
 for hours at a time is beyond me. Is he really asleep, with his 
 eyes open ? Or does he put himself through all that weariness 
 just for the sake of the few minutes he spends on the illustrated 
 papers before Plato comes ? If so, why on earth does he think 
 it necessary to make this classical bluff as though it were a shame- 
 ful thing to look at Harper's Weekly and the Literary Digest ? 
 I have known people to go to lengths almost as wild as that. 
 Or is he trying to hypnotize himself ? What do you think ? I 
 will give you — let me see — I will give you the ten-cent piece 
 I got as a tip, for a satisfactory answer." 
 
AN AMATEUR'S NOTIONS OF BOYS' 
 BOOKS. * 
 
 In the book by Mr. Edmund Gosse called " Father and Son " 
 there occurs the following anecdote told of a boy eight or nine 
 years of age. The boy's parents left him very much to himself, 
 and like other boys he found his way into the garret : 
 
 " The garret was a fairy place. It was a low lean-to, lighted 
 from the roof. It was wholly unfurnished, except for two objects, 
 an ancient hat-box and a still more ancient skin-trunk. The skin- 
 trunk was absolutely empty, but the inside of the lid of it was 
 lined with sheets of what I now know to have been a sensa- 
 tional novel. It was, of course, a fragment, but I read it, kneeling 
 on the bare floor, with indescribable rapture. It will be recol- 
 lected that the idea of fiction, of a deliberately invented story, 
 had been kept from me with entire success. I therefore implicitly 
 believed the tale in the lid of the trunk to be a true account of 
 the sorrows of a lady of title, who had to flee the country, and 
 who was pursued into foreign lands by enemies bent upon her 
 ruin. Somebody had an interview with a ' minion ' in a ' mask ' ; 
 I went downstairs and looked up those words in Bailey's 
 ' English Dictionary ', but was left in darkness as to what they 
 had to do with the lady of title. This ridiculous fragment filled 
 me with delicious fears ; 1 fancied that my mother, who was out 
 so much, might be threatened by dangers of the same sort ; 
 
 * Read at the convention of the American Library Association, Lake Min- 
 netonka, Minn., June, 1906. 
 
AN AMATEUR'S NOTIONS OF BOYS' BOOKS 65 
 
 and the fact that the narrative came abruptly to an end, in the 
 middle of one of its most thrilling sentences, wound me up almost 
 to a disorder of wonder and romance." 
 
 A few years later he came into contact with other works of 
 fiction. His father declined to allow him to read the Waverly 
 Novels on the ground that those tales gave false and disturbing 
 pictures of life, and would lead away his attention horn heavenly 
 things. But Scott's poems were permitted, and stranger still, 
 under the circumstances, the novels of Dickens. Mr. Gosse 
 writes : " I recollect that my step-mother showed some surprise 
 at this, and that my father explained to her that Dickens ' exposes 
 the passion of love in a ridiculous light '. She did not seem to 
 follow this recommendation which indeed tends to the ultra- 
 subtle, but she procured for me a copy of ' Pickwick ' by which I 
 was instantly and gloriously enslaved. My shouts of laughing at 
 the richer passages were almost scandalous, and led to my being 
 reproved for disturbing my father while engaged, in an upper 
 room, in the study of God's Word. 1 must have expended 
 months in the perusal of ' Pickwick ', fof I used to rush through 
 a chapter, and then read it over again very slowly, word for 
 word, and then shut my eyes to realize the figures and the action. 
 I suppose no child will ever again enjoy that rapture of unre- 
 sisting humorous appreciation of ' Pickwick '. I felt myself to be 
 in the company of a gentleman so extremely funny that I began 
 to laugh before he began to speak ; no sooner did he remark 
 ' the sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw ', than 
 I was in fits of laughter." 
 
 I have quoted these passages because they form one of the 
 latest published accounts of a conunon experience — a boy's 
 enthralment by imaginative literature. While it is safe to suppose 
 that few boys begin their acquaintance with fiction through 
 tales like that of the minion in a mask, or, on the other hand, 
 are able so early to enjoy Pickwick, yet the emotion is much the 
 
66 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 same whatever the yarn. There is nothing like it. A boy's first 
 trip to the land of story-books— it is like the first island landfall 
 described in Stevenson's " South Seas " and all the other won- 
 derful sunrises in fact and in romance. It is the privilege of many 
 of the members of this Association to start boys, if not on their 
 first trip to the land of wonders, at least on early voyages. The 
 privilege is more highly valued than it used to be, and more 
 wisely exercised. And it is well that it should be appreciated, 
 for of all the tasks that fall to librarians, this is one of the pleas- 
 antest. Some of us are charmed to have drawn the shop-girl 
 from the level plains of Laura Jean Libby to the altitudes of 
 Mr. Howells. Others thrill with delight at capturing a genuine 
 " workingman " and at sending him away enraptured with 
 Trautwine's "Civil Engineer's Pocket-book ". To me these joys 
 seem, pale, indeed, compared wnth opening the magic casements 
 for others, and living over again, in one moment, the hours of 
 happiness. 
 
 The small boy ( and perhaps, the small girl, but I do not claim 
 to know much about her ) is almost the only person left who is 
 allowed to read for the pure fun of the thing. Those of us who 
 are not engaged in an unblushing assault upon romance and 
 fiction, are sheepishly apologizing for it. We are patting Dickens 
 and Thackeray, forsooth, upon the back, and assuring them 
 that they are pretty good fellows, after all. Led on by the 
 necessity of appeasing " practical " trustees, we admit that we do 
 have novels in our libraries, yes, and we are not ashamed of it 
 either ; but then, we have plenty of really valuable books that tell 
 how to dig post holes, and shingle roofs. A magazine editor, in 
 a moment of idleness, writes a space-filler alleging that libraries 
 haven't as many books about potato bugs and traction engines 
 as they should have, and a chill goes down the spine of the 
 entire American Library Association. Of course, grown-ups do 
 not read novels any longer for the mere pleasure of it. They do 
 
AN AMATEUR'S NOTIONS OF BOYS' BOOKS 67 
 
 it because they are taking a course in English prose fiction, or 
 they do it for " general culture " or " education ", or some other 
 noble purpose. And librarians read them to see i( they are all 
 right for other people to read. So in the rising tide of utilita- 
 rianism and pose there remains one small island, upon which is 
 seated the small boy — almost the only honest reader we have 
 left. 
 
 It is good to know that he is encouraged. The change has 
 come in recent years. I can remember a librarian who always 
 insisted on my taking home a book called " Spectacles for Young 
 Eyes ". He wished, you see, to fit me out with eye-glasses before 
 the natural course of misfortune did so. As I was afraid of him, I 
 often took the book home ; and, as soon as I dared, returned it, 
 — unread. There were no children's librarians then, or I might 
 have fared better. Improvements have been made in the treat- 
 ment of boys in libraries, and improvements have yet to be made. 
 
 There are certain axioms concerning boys' books which it may 
 be well to state. No one, I suppose, denies that a boy's book 
 must have action, and that it must not preach. Another opinion, 
 widely held, but not everywhere accepted, I am glad to say, is 
 that these books must contain, somewhere, a " moral ", and that 
 they must, somehow, be " instructive " I am glad to say that the 
 necessity of the " moral " is not everywhere accepted, for it would, 
 of course, deprive boys of some of their best books, just as the 
 same requirements would deprive adults of many of the noblest 
 works of literature. As for the " instructive " element, it would 
 seem to need no argument that the schools are cramming 
 children too much already ; that libraries are now assisting in 
 school work ( not necessarily in the cramming ) and that if every 
 story-book chocolate-drop must be accompanied by its cod-liver 
 oil of " instruction ", there is precious little joy left in life. Few 
 libraries object to " Treasure Island ", but how, except by the 
 veriest cant, do you find either a " moral " or " instruction " in it ? 
 
68 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 If a boy's book is to have action it will usually deal with one 
 of three things, — war, sport or travel. Some persons would 
 exclude war from the list, — I believe that a well-meaning gen- 
 tleman returned only last summer from a European trip spent in 
 a vain endeavor to induce the makers of toy-soldiers to desist 
 from their diabolical trade. It may be questioned whether the 
 influence of certain books has not been exaggerated. Certainly, 
 " dime-novels " have received more than their fair amount of 
 blame. They have been made a scape-goat when the real 
 cause of a boy's misdoings lay far deeper. They are cheap and 
 frequently dull, and no one wishes to see them in the public 
 libraries. The amount of horror they cause many worthy people 
 is, however, absurd, and is frequently founded upon a complete 
 ignorance of their contents. 
 
 An author who combines adventure with instruction in a 
 curious fashion is Captain Mayne Reid. Some one has lately 
 described his method. He will end a chapter, said this writer, 
 with words after this fashion : " There was a rustling in the 
 bushes, a low growl, and then the bushes parted before a terrible, 
 hairy form. Jack gazed upon the open, foam-flaked jaws, the sav- 
 age teeth, the glaring eyes. There was no doubt about it. With 
 his last cartridge spent, Jack was confronted by that terror of the 
 Rockies, the Grizzly Bear. " So ends chapter 1 2, and you 
 naturally tum the page in great excitement to see how Jack got 
 out of this difficulty. But chapter 1 3 begins, " The Grizzly 
 Bear ( Ursus horribilis Americanus ) is an hybemating animal ", — 
 and so on for the entire chapter, about the manners and cus- 
 toms of the bear, while he and Jack are left glaring at each 
 other, and you are in the most painful suspense. But the charm 
 of this method is that all this " instructive " matter is in a lump, 
 and you can skip right ahead to chapter 1 4, and find out how 
 Jack slew the bear. For those whose interest lies chiefly in facts, 
 I may say that I have been told by a man in a position to know. 
 
AN AMATEUR'S NOTIONS OF BOYS' BOOKS 69 
 
 that Mayne Reid's statements about the wild lands that his 
 books describe have never been found in any important degree 
 inaccurate. 
 
 Do boys read Jules Verne now ? There has been more or 
 less talk about his being supplanted by Mr. H. G. Wells, but 
 I cannot believe that boys would prefer the Englishman. I used 
 to think Captain Nemo the most magnificent of mysterious 
 heroes. Jules Verne had a gallery of wooden characters, but 
 their adventures were passing fine. I was very proud of a note 
 which I once received from him, in reply to one which I 
 addressed to him in the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe. The 
 books of Horatio Alger and his school do not, I believe, meet 
 the approval of the modern children's librarian. I cannot shed 
 any tears over his loss, for only one of his was familiar to me. 
 I should be sorry to see Harry Castlemon packed off, however, 
 and it does not seem that the librarians who banish Alger and 
 Optic have a very strong position. There are not many to 
 take their places. Mr. Trowbridge is still in favor, as he cer- 
 tainly should be, with his two excellent stories, — " Cudjo's 
 Cave " and " The Three Scout?." 
 
 The chief appeal that is made for the works of the late Mr. 
 Henty is that certain things^pan be got " out of " them. What I 
 got out of the few I tried to read was weariness of the flesh. 
 With their everlasting prefaces beginning " My Dear Lads " and 
 their stereotyped heroes, they covered a period from the dawn 
 of time dowTi to yesterday afternoon, and they blazed a trail of 
 earnest mediocrity. Lowell says of Cooper's Indians that they 
 are only Natty Bumppo daubed over with red. Mr. Henty 's 
 heroes are one youth with a variety of costumes that might make 
 the German Emperor envious. If Mr. Henty had been alive at 
 the time of the California earthquake, I suppose there would 
 have been a volume from his pen within two days called "With 
 Funston in 'Frisco", and there would have been a deal of 
 
70 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 useful information in it. I believe that many boys read the 
 Henty books and like them, so it is a pleasure to know that they 
 are considered " educative " and not likely to be cast out. 
 
 The two best books for American boys are " Huckleberry 
 Finn " and " Tom Sawyer ". There is a determined attempt in 
 many libraries to keep boys from reading them. Like many 
 attempts it is well-meaning, and like many well-meaning attempts 
 it is entirely mistaken. In its inception and progress it has been 
 largely a feminine movement. Nothing more clearly demon- 
 strates the need for men librarians to take an interest in boys' 
 books ; nothing shows better how women often fail to realize 
 that boys and girls cannot be judged by one standard. Those 
 who know and love " Hucklebeny Firm " do not need to hear 
 it praised. They realize that its author knew boys as very few 
 have done. They know that it has furnished the inspiration for 
 a number of more or less successful imitators. Mr. Kenneth 
 Grahame and Mr. Kipling have both drawn upon it and the 
 best parts of Mr. Barrie's delicious play " Peter Pan " owe a 
 great debt to it. It is literature in a high sense, because it is a 
 transcript of life. It represents boys not as Sunday School 
 teachers wish them to be, but as they are, and those who con- 
 demn it for this reason must also, to be consistent, condemn the 
 great realistic novels for adults. Some of its passages aie never 
 to be forgotten, — the description of Colonel Grangerford is as 
 vivid a bit of writing as Thackeray's famous picture of Beatrix 
 descending the stair-case. Of course, it must be admitted that 
 there are lapses from the best taste in it, and a few things that 
 we could wish omitted. But there is no great writer of whom 
 this is not true, and for the mind that sees nothing in the book 
 but vulgarity, what can be said, except that it indicates a prudery 
 that would have probably abolished Shakespeare on account 
 of a few passages obiectionable to modem taste. Children's 
 departments may condemn or " restrict " the book, ,but it will 
 
AN AMATEUR'S NOTIONS OF BOYS' BOOKS 71 
 
 merely have the effect of sending the boys where they can get 
 it, — either the adults' department of the same library, or else- 
 where. 
 
 I have indicated a belief that certain improvements are yet to 
 be made in the treatment of boys in libraries. One of these is a 
 frank acknowledgment of the fact that books for entertainment 
 are books for entertainment, and need not be sugar-coated pills 
 covering the medicine of "instruction" or "morals". The Puri- 
 tan idea is long-lived, but there is no more reason for insisting 
 that books read for fun shall have a " moral " wrapped up in 
 them than in compelling boys before going in swimming to listen 
 to a lecture on the theory of displacement of fluids. Men should 
 have more to say in the choice of boys' books, and there should 
 be more independence of judgment in the matter by both sexes. 
 I have seen indications that the condemnation of a book by one 
 or two persons prominent in children's libraries carries such 
 weight as to lead others to ascribe the most fearful characteristics 
 to the book without themselves really knowing much about it. 
 Books that may horrify or frighten little girls do not necessarily 
 frighten or harm little boys, — a fact not everywhere patent to 
 children's librarians. Yet it must be said, by one seeking to be 
 fair, that the children's librarian of today is almost universally 
 more sane and broad-minded than^the librarian, either man or 
 woman, of a past generation, and moreover, that there occa- 
 sionally arise men, who for prudishness surpass the most finical 
 woman who ever existed. 
 
 My strongest appeal is for the boy who reads " for fun " and 
 tastes one of the great joys of life. A boy who was not very old 
 eighteen years ago recalls capturing a certain English magazine 
 which contained a story by his favorite writer. To make sure 
 of reading it undisturbed he sneaked it away from the other boys 
 who used to play in the garden of that house on summer evenings, 
 and climbed up into a cherry tree. The twilight and his 
 
72 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 insecure position probably added to the effect of the story, but • 
 he is very sure that if he could have his choice between that 
 hour over again or an election as librarian of the British Museum, 
 the trustees of the Museum would have to look for some one 
 else. 
 
 We may fancy that a crowd of boys once followed an old 
 blind man about the streets of a seaport town. The old man 
 told, or perhaps sang, in the custom of the day, the most won- 
 derful stories about fighting men, who had crossed the seas, and 
 fought for ten years about the walls of a great city. 
 
 Probably there were in that town persons who became 
 alarmed at the spectacle. They went to the boys and said : " Do 
 not listen to this old beggar any longer. I am afraid you will 
 get a taste for fighting. These are dangerous stories, — they may 
 lead you to form an Achilles Club, and sail off to light with 
 foreigners. Besides, what he says is probably not true. Come 
 over and listen while some one or other talks about the habits 
 of the honey-bees, or hear what the great philosopher Whalsis- 
 name has to say about cosmos. The sandal-maker who lives 
 down by the wharf has invented a new way to fasten sandals, 
 — -come down and learn how that is done. These things would 
 be useful and instructive — not full of false and dangerous ideas 
 of life, such as the tales this blind man tells." 
 
 But the boys kept on following the blind man just the same, 
 for they didn't have to learn what aorist passive means, nor yet 
 iota subscript, before they understood him. He spoke their own 
 language, and they wanted to know whether Hector or Achilles 
 came out on top. They were just as much interested in all 
 these adventures as the boys of another country thousands of 
 years later are to hear of a boy and a negro slave who floated 
 down the Mississippi on a raft and had exciting adventures on 
 the way. And meanwhile we have a new set of theories about 
 the honey-bees ; the great philosopher Whatsisname has had his 
 
AN AMATEUR'S NOTIONS OF BOYS' BOOKS 73 
 
 idea about cosmos upset and reinstated five or six times, and the 
 wonderful invention of the sandal-maker is entirely lost, and 
 would not do us much good if it were found. But the old blind 
 man's stories, fictitious as they may be, and bloody as they 
 undoubtedly are, survive ; and the hearts of boys are hungry still 
 for other stories like them. 
 
THE SQUARE PEG 
 
 When one o( the library m2igazines announces that a 
 young gentleman, recently graduated from a library school, has 
 ' accepted " a position in this or that library the uninitiated might 
 think that the whole thing had been very simple. One fancies 
 the young man sitting quietly at home, while various celebrated 
 librarians call upon him and urge him to give them the benefit 
 of his distinguished services. One man, at least, had a slightly 
 different experience, and he has consented to relate it for our 
 benefit. 
 
 "The summer that I left the library school I began to be 
 aware that there were few points of attack. Though the country 
 was dotted with libraries, each had its smiling chief, complacent, 
 healthy, and long-lived. 1 stood before the country, full of 
 bibliothecal theory, not wholly innocent of experience, but 
 no municipality called for me, no college called aloud my nsune. 
 I yearned to ' bring unto the people the books that belonged to 
 them ', and to be an apostle of light and culture in their midst, 
 but the people regarded my yearnings with a calmness bordering 
 upon complete indifference. " 
 
 ' I cast my vision over the whole United States, and as the 
 orators say, from the Kennebec to the Rio Grande, from the 
 Everglades of Florida to the Whatyoumaycallems of Oregon 
 the word went forth that 1 awaited the summons — a librarian 
 manque. The school stood by me nobly, and my name went 
 
THE SQUARE PEG 75 
 
 east and west and south and north like the heralds of Lars 
 Porsena. Replies of a sort were quick. 1 had not reached 
 my home before a telegram had arrived — a librarian was 
 spending a few days in New York : would I come and see him 
 with a view to becoming his assistant ? I spent a very hot day 
 hunting him, but in the time that intervened between the sending 
 of his despatch and my arrival — a delay for which I was in no 
 manner to blame, he had become convinced that I was not the 
 man for him, and had gone, like great Orion, sloping slowly to 
 the West. He had found an assistant en route. The mishap 
 was hardly finished before glittering accounts of a new library in 
 a northeastern town sent me into the land of maple sugar. The 
 library — that is, the building — was certainly there. A selectman 
 unlocked it for me and showed me about. There must have been 
 nearly two hundred books — counting magazines as such. ' Well, 
 he sposed they might want a libarian. He didn't know. Salary? 
 Well, old Mis' Carroll had been libarian and she didn't get no 
 salary — liked to have the place to set and do her knittin'. He 
 sposed the new libarian (if Mis' Carroll didn't get well and take 
 it up again) could count on board and keep anyhow. Next 
 train for Boston? Oh, it leaves at four twenty' . " 
 
 " That night the ' library of my own ' idea did not seem so 
 feasible and I addressed letters to three or four of the great 
 libraries. The replies were all polite and fiendishly non-com- 
 mittal. They all enclosed blank applications for me to fill out. 
 Some of these applications were sufficiently searching in their 
 inquiries to fulfill the requirements of a matriculation at Oxford, 
 an enlistment in the army, confirmation in the Church, and the 
 purchase of an insurance policy. I filled them all out — it look a 
 day or two — and sent them in. Meanwhile the hunt went on. 
 A Western college president was visiting the Atlantic coast in 
 search of health and a librarian. He cost me something in 
 postage and telegraph tolls. The way the man would dart about 
 
76 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 was unbelievable. A telegram would arrive saying ' Meet me 
 Colonial Club at 12', and 1 would hurry out to Cambridge 
 only to find another message, ' Had to go back to New 
 Rochelle, sorry. ' Finally I met himatKennebunkport. He was 
 pleasant, and he gave me a good luncheon, but he shook his 
 head the minute he saw me. ' I didn't know you were so young ', 
 and that ended me. I was hrequently under the accusation of 
 being young that summer. I wondered if these gentlemen really 
 expected to find that the applicant for their seventy-five-dollars- 
 a-month positions was a man sixty years of age, fresh from thirty 
 years' experience as Directeur of the Bibliotheque Nationale. 
 One of the great libraries suggested that I might come there and 
 work for nothing if I liked, but that did not seem to be any im- 
 provement over filling the shoes of the moribund Mis' Carroll — 
 especially as her library was only open Wednesday and Satur- 
 day afternoons. " 
 
 ' Discouraged at being thought too young, I assumed a pair 
 of heavily rimmed spectacles and a serious expression the next 
 time I interviewed a board of trustees. I was rewarded for this 
 effort by hearing afterwards that the leading member of the 
 board — a lady — thought that I was altogether too solemn, and 
 feared I had no sense of humor. One library found that my 
 educational equipment was not sufficient ; another was sorely 
 prejudiced against anyone who had attended a library training 
 school. With one librarian it was all over when he saw me 
 smoking. Another, with whom I took luncheon, offered me beer, 
 and when I declined on account of the heat and drank iced tea, 
 he immediately stiffened up, took his bottle of beer with a 
 sarcastic manner and made certain remarks which convinced me 
 that I appeared in his eyes a mere priggish teetotaller. I arose 
 at early hours and galloped to distant parts of the state. The 
 correspondence that I conducted was, to say the least, voluminous, 
 and friends whom I named as references began to receive 
 
THE SQUARE PEG 77 
 
 inquiries about me from the uttermost parts of the earth. One 
 of them got the impression that I had enlisted as a book agent." 
 " I was not uniformly unsuccessful, of course. One or two 
 libraries in far off places, one or two where the salary was not 
 large enough to attract more experienced persons, intimated that 
 they would receive me with open arms. Teachers' agencies 
 pestered me with correspondence. The fact that one library 
 would consider me as unavailable for some quality the lack of 
 which had inspired another to reject me was curiously illustrated, 
 particularly in one case. A certain library found that I had not 
 shown sufficient eeunnestness in trying to get a position. The 
 reason for my impassive attitude is easily explained. I had just 
 finished an active campaign in another town. This place had . 
 just built a new library, when its librarian was called to what are 
 usually termed ' greater spheres of usefulness '. A large number 
 of persons began to seek the position. Some of them — a very 
 few — were either librarians or library school graduates, like 
 myself. The rest included city politicians, teachers, and even 
 a retired undertaker. The choice lay with the board of trustees, 
 in wjjich an ex-officio membership belonged to the mayor and 
 one or two more city officials. I found that the other candidates 
 were calling upon the trustees like aspirants for the French 
 Academy. So 1 plunged into the struggle. I interviewed them 
 all. The mayor received me with ceremony in his room of 
 state. The president of the board of aldermen I only found after 
 a long search. His son led me to the rear of the parental cigar 
 shop and pointed out a ladder that leaned against a shed. I 
 ascended the ladder and found His Worship painting the tin 
 roof. He received me courteously and I expounded my case. 
 There was some difficulty in doing this impressively, however, 
 for the shed overlooked a railroad track. Trains were passing 
 almost constantly, and 1 had to describe my attractions in a series 
 of spasmodic yells. 1 do not remember that the library school 
 
78 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 gave one any instructions how to convince an alderman of one's 
 capabilities in librarianship under these circumstances. But I 
 finished and went down the ladder — my throat full of cinders. 
 I fear that the president did not vote for me, when the time came, 
 for the undertaker swept ail before him, and is libreurian even 
 unto this day. Perhaps he has solved the vexed question that 
 troubles so many librarians — what to do with ' dead books '. " 
 
 "This campaign rather sickened me for active efforts, and I 
 tried the merely receptive attitude, with the ill success which I 
 have mentioned. At times I would stop and ask myself 'What 
 is it that maketh the librarian ? For some I am too young, for 
 others too far gone in age. I must either smoke or not, drink or 
 not, be earnest or frivolous, grave or gay, lively or severe. Is there 
 some divine middle course that I have missed ? What is it ? Or 
 is there a vast, far-reaching conspiracy against me ? ' I overhauled 
 the notes of the lectures which I had attended on the ' Qualifi- 
 cations of a Librarian ', and I asked myself, is there any one of 
 these requirements which my rival, the undertaker, fulfills? 
 And with ray hand on my heart I answered, ' Not one '. Yet 
 there he sat, in his place of power, purveyor of knowledge to the 
 whole city of Poodelville, while i, forsooth, I, might howl with- 
 out, for all the Poodelvillians cared. The question was too great 
 for me, and while I was still worried by it, there came the com- 
 bination of the time, the place, and the library, which put my 
 doubts aside." 
 
MEETING THE PUBLIC " 
 
 In the Public Library, Miss Florence Carter is known 
 
 as " chief of the circulation division. " She has been in the service 
 of the librauy twelve years, is a graduate of Smith, and has spent a 
 year on one occasion, and two or three months at other times in 
 studying libreuy work at schools established for teaching that 
 subject. Her duties are simple. She is commander-in-chief of 
 twelve women — some of them older than herself, but most of them 
 younger ; and of eight boys, of about the high school age — pages 
 or messengers. She arranges the schedules of work, and the work 
 itself for these twenty persons ; keeps a complicated set of statis- 
 tics concerning the number of books issued each day, and divi- 
 ded into about a dozen classes of the various kinds of literature ; 
 supervises the mailing of dozens of notices daily to persons who 
 who have not returned their books promptly, or who have not 
 called to get books which they have requested ; represents the 
 library to hundreds of persons who are unaware of, or indifferent 
 to the existence of a chief libreuian somewhere in an inner 
 office ; keeps track of the names and knows something about 
 the contents of the current books of the day, not only novels, 
 but history, travel, biography and art criticism ; can discuss the 
 question whether Mrs. Ward's latest heroine is "convincing" 
 with an admirer of that novelist, or tell a man when the library 
 is going to get the newest edition of somebody's book on the 
 scientific construction of culverts. Also, if necessary, she takes the 
 
80 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 place of any one of her assistants at the desk, when that one is 
 carried off amid the fumes of lavender smelling salts ; teaches 
 something of her art to three or four " apprentices, " who are 
 finding themselves on the working side of a library desk for the 
 first time ; puts in a pleasant evening at home with the statistics, 
 two or three times a month ; and employs other hours of her own 
 time in looking at a daily newspaper, six weekly reviews, two 
 fortnightlies, and about fifteen monthly magazines, all read pri- 
 marily in connection with her work. She has charge of between 
 two and three thousand dollars a year, taken in over the desks 
 in sums of two, four, or eight cents at a time. She can, moreover, 
 tell a person who wants to write a " paper " on " The Old 
 Cities of Florida " and who has asked if " The Confessions of St. 
 Augustine " is the best book to begin with, that there are better 
 books for the purpose, and see that that person gets the better 
 ones without experiencing the slightest wound to his or her 
 feelings. She works eleven months in the year, six days to the 
 week, and seven or eight hours to the day, and she gets almost 
 as much salary as a high-school teacher who works nine months 
 in the year, five days to the week, and five or six hours to the 
 day. 
 
 Of an afternoon at the library she wrote recently to a friend 
 as follows : " Miss Robinson is best of all at the issue desk, for 
 she never looses her head. I did feel sorry for her this afternoon 
 when Professor Sears came in. When he enters the librsuy 
 everyone stops and looks at him. With his big slouch hat, white 
 hair and whiskers he looks like Walt Whitman ; but the resem- 
 blance ends there, for I believe Whitman was rather genial in 
 manner. Professor Sears usually sends his daughter ahead of 
 him in the morning and she spends an hour or two at the cata- 
 logue. She is a rapid and experienced worker and she makes 
 out a thick packet of call-slips, which the professor presents at 
 the desk when he arrives in the afternoon. On this particular 
 
"MEETING THE PUBLIC" 81 
 
 afternoon he handed in about a hundred. Some of them called 
 for the volumes of a scientific magazine covering the last thirty- 
 five years, and there were also a large number of reports of the 
 Smithsonian Institution among his wants. The pages brought 
 them first in armfuls; then they came with loaded trucks. 
 They started into the reading room with them, but the professor 
 snapped his fingers and beckoned for them to be placed on 
 the issue desk, where Miss Robinson, balanced on a stool 
 was trying to keep her cards and records straight, and attend 
 to the wants of the eight or nine people gathered in front of 
 her. When the piles of books began to look like so many Towers 
 of Babel, she asked him very melodiously, if he wouldn't rather 
 have them in the reading room, where he could have a desk 
 aad a chair. He was already engaged in examining one of them 
 — his hat pushed back on his head, his walking stick under his 
 ium, and pointing out straight behind him, and his spectacles 
 well dovra on his nose. She had to repeat her question twice, 
 till the professor raised his head, looked at her, grunted like a 
 hippopotamus rising to the surface of the water and then went 
 on with his reading. A few minutes afterward I heard Miss 
 Barlow pointing out the professor to one of the apprentices. 
 ' That is the famous Professor Sears ', she said, ' the man who 
 discovered the moons of Mercury, "and is on the editorial 
 board of sixteen encyclopedias. He belongs to more learned 
 societies in Europe than all the other people in America put 
 together, and it takes two columns of fine print to name the uni- 
 versities that have given him honorary degrees. He has just been 
 awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dark Brown Eagle 
 by Kaiser William, and he has the manners of a rhinoceros and 
 the gentle graciousness of a polar bear. Whenever he comes in 
 you must let him have all he wants, in any way he wants it, for 
 as long as he likes, and let him do whatever he pleases with it, 
 or he will get frightfully angry, and never come in again '. " 
 
82 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 " While Miss Robinson was struggling along in the shadow of 
 the professor's mountains of books, Miss Bixby came out of the 
 reading-room, followed by a sullen looking little woman in a 
 brown dress. She came over to me. " Miss Carter, I wish you 
 would see that this lady gets some of these books. I have made 
 out the slips for her. She wants to study Holland in the seven- 
 teenth century, and she won't have any books unless they call it 
 'Holland'. Most of them call it the Netheriands, or the Low 
 Countries, or else Flanders and she thinks I am trying to give her 
 something which is not genuine'. She glanced over at the 
 woman, who was regarding the catalogue with great contempt, 
 and then added, ' She's awful ! ' With that Miss Bixby retreated 
 into the reading-room. " 
 
 " I sent Jimmie with the call-slips, and he presently returned 
 with four or five of the books. The woman had sauntered 
 slowly over to one end of the desk, opposite to that at which 
 Professor Searls was pursuing his researches, and I showed her 
 the books. She never looked straight at them, nor did she look 
 at me. Instead, she kept her eyes directed downward, and 
 glanced at the volumes in a slanting fashion. When she spoke 
 it sounded as if her voice issued from one comer of her mouth. 
 ' I want something about Holland ', she remarked. ' These are 
 about Holland ', I explained, ' only, most of the older books call 
 it by its older name '. She pointed to the heading of a chapter : 
 ' That says Netherlands', she muttered from the side of her 
 mouth. I started to explain, but she sidled away, and I saw 
 her a few minutes later examining a book about wild-flowers. " 
 
 When I turned around I found Mr. Doty standing at my 
 elbow. Mr. Doty is a trustee of the library, and the only one 
 who ever comes near it, except when there is a meeting of the 
 board. His silky smile was all ready, and he shook hands in his 
 usual fashion — holding my hand some three or four times longer 
 than was necessary. ' Ah, Miss Carter, ' he began, ' busy as 
 
"MEETING THE PUBLIC" 83 
 
 usual — always busy ! Wonderful — wonderful — I don't see how 
 you do it. All your assistants here, busy as bees, too I Ah I it's 
 a great work, a great work — the university of the people — that 
 is what I call this library, Miss Carter — the university of the 
 people I ' And he had the air of a man who has made an 
 original and startling remark. Then he turned from epigrams to 
 business. ' But there is a little thing that I want to speak to you 
 about. Miss Carter. I have here a copy of the Forum which I 
 brought from the reading-room. Of course, I don't want Miss 
 Bixby to know anything about this '. He glanced over his 
 shoulder in the direction of the reading-room, and opened the 
 magazine binder which held the Forum. On the top of the 
 magazine was stamped rather faintly in blue ink the words : 
 ' Presented by Ferdinand K. Doty '. Then he explained : 
 ' You know I give $ 1 00 a year to provide magazines. We 
 subscribe to about twenty of the leading periodicals through 
 this fund. Now, look at that stamp. You can heurdly read the 
 name. I have spoken to Dr. Pierce about it, and he went to 
 Miss Bixby in the matter. That was three months ago. It 
 improved for a while, but now it is back where it was before. 
 I know Miss Bixby means to do well, but some of her assistants 
 must begetting careless. I don't vsrish to speak to her myself — 
 can't you give her a hint ? ' " 
 
 " I promised Mr. Doty that I would do what I could about it, 
 and he smilingly departed, going the rounds of the library, 
 shaking hands ( in his most lingering manner ) with all the girls. 
 As he left, Edgar came to me and said that Dr. Pierce, the 
 librarian, wished to see me in his office. I started in that direction, 
 but not before Dr. Pierce came hurrying out with his coat-tails 
 flying. ' Miss Carter, I wish you would look up to see what 
 books we have on Holland in the seventeenth century. Come in 
 my office and see this lady, she is going to study the subject . . . .' 
 We were in his office now and he looked round blankly : ' Why, 
 
84 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 where has she gone ? She was here a minute ago ! She must 
 have gone into the fine arts department ', and he darted through 
 into that room. " 
 
 " When I got back to the desk, a woman who had been talk- 
 ing with Miss Robinson detached herself and came toward me. 
 She was clothed in a singular costume, that was somehow sug- 
 gestive of the Orient, and I almost expected to see that she wore 
 sandals. She had a scarf thrown over her head in place of a hat, 
 and her dark hair was parted in the middle. If you can imagine 
 George Elliot preparing to go to a ball in the costume of 
 Cleopatra you wdil get some idea of what she looked like. She 
 addressed me in low and thrilling tones. ' Good afternoon. The 
 young lady at the desk told me you have charge of this part of 
 the library. Perhaps you can tell me what I am interested to 
 learn. 1 understand that you purchase the novels of the leading 
 writers in large numbers, do you not ? ' I said that it was true. 
 ' Now, when Mrs. Ward produces a new book, how many 
 copies do you take ? ' 1 said that we buy from thirty to fifty 
 copies of Mrs. Ward's books. 'And Mrs. Wharton?' she 
 inquired in solemn tones. ' Mrs. Wharton is not so popular ', 
 I answered ; ' you understand I do not mean to say that her 
 novels are not as good — personally, 1 prefer them, but she is not 
 quite as popular. Still, we take nearly as many '. The woman 
 regarded me intently. 'And Morton', she said — 'Millicent 
 Morton ? ' 1 hesitated for a moment, for I could not recall 
 immediately who Millicent Morton was. Then 1 remembered — 
 of course, she is the author of ' Loves of Long Ago ', ' Hand- 
 clasps by the Firelight ' and a whole line of intensely sentimental 
 books that are usually issued in padded silk bindings embroidered 
 with forget-me-nots, and printed on paper highly decorated with 
 pink roses and marguerites. Her works are said to sell like wild- 
 fire, especially among languishing maidens, and are advertised 
 as eminently suitable for ' gift-books '. It did not take me long 
 
"MEETING THE PUBLIC" 85 
 
 to remember all this, and I had to smile a little at Millicent 
 Morton's proximity to Mrs. Wharton. ' I think we always get a 
 copy of her books', 1 said, and as I did so I was aware that 
 Miss Barlow, in the distance, was making violent signs and 
 gesticulations at me. I was too stupid at the moment to realize 
 what she meant, however. The Oriental-looking person repeated 
 with great astonishment : ' You get a copy — one copy only, do 
 I understand ? And you buy thirty copies of Edith Wharton ? 
 Good heavens, what taste ! Who is responsible for such actions?' 
 
 "At this moment a small man came hurriedly into the library, 
 rushed up to the indignant lady, and exclaimed ' Oh, here you 
 are ! Hurry now, or we'll be late '. She turned slowly about, 
 looked me over with what I suppose was scom so witheriag that 
 I ought to have shrivelled up like a caterpillar on a hot shovel, 
 repeated with great emphasis : ' One copy ! Good God ! ' and 
 glided slowly out with the little man. Instantly Miss Barlow 
 rushed over to me. 'Don't you know who that is? That's 
 Millicent Morton, the author of ' Loves of Long Ago ' and all 
 those other books. I hope you didn't tell her that Dr. Pierce 
 won't have her books in the library — if you did she'll put us all 
 in her next novel — authors are always getting peevish at librarians 
 and doing that' ." 
 
 "Jimmie now brought me a note from Miss Larkin, the children's 
 librarian, it said : ' I do wish you would send me down some 
 books on Holland in the seventeenth century. There's a woman 
 here after books about Holland, and nothing that I can find will 
 satisfy her '- I was composing a note to assure Miss Larkin of 
 my deep sympathy when Mrs. J. Pomfret Smith sailed up to my 
 desk. She moved amid a rustle of silks, and her hat loomed on 
 the horizon — a thing portentous, like a child's old-fashioned 
 bathtub. But before beginning to speak she saw Dr. Pierce in 
 his office — the door was open. I think he saw her, and that he 
 would have retreated into the wardrobe, but he was too late. 
 
86 THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN 
 
 She bore down on him, with one hand outstretched ; the other 
 chitching a mass of flapping papers. I could hear her distinctly, 
 and so could everybody in that part of the building. ' Dr. 
 Pierce ? Oh, how do you do ? 1 have never met you before, 
 but I know Mrs. Pierce. And I have used the library for years. 
 I often got books here when old Mr. Akers was librarian, but 
 I was quite a girl then, euid 1 guess I never read much but fairy 
 books. I almost always ask for Miss Anderson when I come 
 here ; she is lovely — a perfect treasure — and takes such pains. 
 But they say she's away on her vacation, and so is Miss Hardy, 
 in the reading-room. Now, I'm going to read a paper next 
 Monday afternoon before the Twenty-Minute Culture Club ; it's 
 the first meeting of the season, and at my house. Here's the 
 title : " Italian Paunters of Cinquecento '- I can't for the life of 
 me find where Cinquecento is, and I've looked through all the 
 gazetteers and geographies you've got. Mrs. Brooks gave me 
 the name of a lot of painters, but I don't believe she knows much 
 about them, or where they came from. First, there is Vassery's 
 Lives of the Painters ; then there is this Carlo Dolce far Niente, 
 who lived in 1 49 7, and painted frescos for the Bascilica of San 
 Raphael, whoever he may be.. And I know I've read an article 
 somewhere about Bambino ; I wish you would let me take some 
 book about him. Oh, yes, 1 remember ; he was a monk who fell 
 in love with a nun he was painting, and instead of eloping with 
 her, retired to a convent and wrote sonnets about her all the rest 
 of his life. The Italians are such an artistic race, and their art is 
 $0 mingled with their love affairs. There was someone, I remem- 
 ber — I think it was Ponte Vecchio, but I am not sure — who 
 painted a lady's portrait, and had musicians playing all the time 
 so her husband wouldn't hear him make love to her. Oh, I 
 remember it all ! You recall it, don't you. Dr. Pierce ? TTiere 
 is a picture, I saw it not long ago, that shows him meeting her, 
 and he has his hand on his heart. When he died he left all his 
 
'MEETING THE PUBLIC" 87 
 
 sonnets to his friend, Vita Nuova, and made him swear to bury 
 them all in the lady's coffin, and he did, and they weren't dug 
 up (or a hundred years, and then nobody could read what they 
 were about, because they were all written in cipher. Then they 
 were published in the Golden Book of Venice, and every year 
 they made the Doge jump into the sea. Then I want to get 
 a book about Andrea del Sarto because it struck me that Sarto 
 was the name of the present pope, and it would be interesting 
 to see if they are related. And I wonder ' " 
 

 DISC. AUG 1955 
 
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