第66章

It is rather awkward to answer such a question in the negative, but Isaid, with the best grace I could, "No, not the last edition."--Well, I must give you a copy of it.My book and I are pretty much the same thing.Sometimes I steal from my book in my talk without mentioning it, and then I say to myself, "Oh, that won't do;everybody has read my book and knows it by heart." And then the other I says,--you know there are two of us, right and left, like a pair of shoes,--the other I says, "You're a--something or other--fool.They have n't read your confounded old book; besides, if they have, they have forgotten all about it." Another time, I say, thinking I will be very honest, "I have said something about that in my book"; and then the other I says, "What a Balaam's quadruped you are to tell 'em it's in your book; they don't care whether it is or not, if it's anything worth saying; and if it isn't worth saying, what are you braying for? "That is a rather sensible fellow, that other chap we talk with, but an impudent whelp.I never got such abuse from any blackguard in my life as I have from that No.2 of me, the one that answers the other's questions and makes the comments, and does what in demotic phrase is called the "sarsing."--I laughed at that.I have just such a fellow always with me, as wise as Solomon, if I would only heed him; but as insolent as Shimei, cursing, and throwing stones and dirt, and behaving as if he had the traditions of the "ape-like human being" born with him rather than civilized instincts.One does not have to be a king to know what it is to keep a king's jester.

--I mentioned my book,--the Master said, because I have something in it on the subject we were talking about.I should like to read you a passage here and there out of it, where I have expressed myself a little more freely on some of those matters we handle in conversation.If you don't quarrel with it, I must give you a copy of the book.It's a rather serious thing to get a copy of a book from the writer of it.It has made my adjectives sweat pretty hard, I know, to put together an answer returning thanks and not lying beyond the twilight of veracity, if one may use a figure.Let me try a little of my book on you, in divided doses, as my friends the doctors say.

-Fiat experimentum in corpore vili,--I said, laughing at my own expense.I don't doubt the medicament is quite as good as the patient deserves, and probably a great deal better,--I added, reinforcing my feeble compliment.

[When you pay a compliment to an author, don't qualify it in the next sentence so as to take all the goodness out of it.Now I am thinking of it, I will give you one or two pieces of advice.Be careful to assure yourself that the person you are talking with wrote the article or book you praise.It is not very pleasant to be told, "Well, there, now! I always liked your writings, but you never did anything half so good as this last piece," and then to have to tell the blunderer that this last piece is n't yours, but t' other man's.

Take care that the phrase or sentence you commend is not one that is in quotation-marks."The best thing in your piece, I think, is a , line I do not remember meeting before; it struck me as very true and well expressed:

'"An honest man's the noblest work of God."'

"But, my dear lady, that line is one which is to be found in a writer of the last century, and not original with me." One ought not to have undeceived her, perhaps, but one is naturally honest, and cannot bear to be credited with what is not his own.The lady blushes, of course, and says she has not read much ancient literature, or some such thing.The pearl upon the Ethiop's arm is very pretty in verse, but one does not care to furnish the dark background for other persons' jewelry.]

I adjourned from the table in company with the old Master to his apartments.He was evidently in easy circumstances, for he had the best accommodations the house afforded.We passed through a reception room to his library, where everything showed that he had ample means for indulging the modest tastes of a scholar.

--The first thing, naturally, when one enters a scholar's study or library, is to look at his books.One gets a notion very speedily of his tastes and the range of his pursuits by a glance round his bookshelves.

Of course, you know there are many fine houses where the library is a part of the upholstery, so to speak.Books in handsome binding kept locked under plate-glass in showy dwarf bookcases are as important to stylish establishments as servants in livery; who sit with folded arms, are to stylish equipages.I suppose those wonderful statues with the folded arms do sometimes change their attitude, and Isuppose those books with the gilded backs do sometimes get opened, but it is nobody's business whether they do or not, and it is not best to ask too many questions.

This sort of thing is common enough, but there is another case that may prove deceptive if you undertake to judge from appearances.Once in a while you will come on a house where you will find a family of readers and almost no library.Some of the most indefatigable devourers of literature have very few books.They belong to book clubs, they haunt the public libraries, they borrow of friends, and somehow or other get hold of everything they want, scoop out all it holds for them, and have done with it.When I want a book, it is as a tiger wants a sheep.I must have it with one spring, and, if Imiss it, go away defeated and hungry.And my experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.

--I was pretty well prepared to understand the Master's library and his account of it.We seated ourselves in two very comfortable chairs, and I began the conversation.

-I see you have a large and rather miscellaneous collection of books.

Did you get them together by accident or according to some preconceived plan?