The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bibliotaph, by Leon H. Vincent

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Title: The Bibliotaph
and Other People

Author: Leon H. Vincent

Release Date: May 2, 2007 [EBook #21272]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE BIBLIOTAPH

And Other People

BY

LEON H. VINCENT

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1899

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY LEON H. VINCENT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TO MY FATHER
THE REV. B. T. VINCENT, D.D.
THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS
Dedicated
WITH LOVE AND ADMIRATION

Four of these papers--the first Bibliotaph, and the notes on Keats,
Gautier, and Stevenson's _St. Ives_--are reprinted from the _Atlantic
Monthly_ by the kind permission of the editor.

I am also indebted to the literary editor of the _Springfield
Republican_ and to the editors of _Poet-Lore_, respectively, for
allowing me to reprint the paper on _Thomas Hardy_ and the lecture on
_An Elizabethan Novelist_.

CONTENTS

THE BIBLIOTAPH: A PORTRAIT NOT WHOLLY IMAGINARY
THE BIBLIOTAPH: HIS FRIENDS, SCRAP-BOOKS, AND 'BINS'
LAST WORDS ON THE BIBLIOTAPH
THOMAS HARDY
A READING IN THE LETTERS OF JOHN KEATS
AN ELIZABETHAN NOVELIST
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FAIR-MINDED MAN
CONCERNING A RED WAISTCOAT
STEVENSON: THE VAGABOND AND THE PHILOSOPHER
STEVENSON'S ST. IVES

THE BIBLIOTAPH AND OTHER PEOPLE

THE BIBLIOTAPH: A PORTRAIT NOT WHOLLY IMAGINARY

A popular and fairly orthodox opinion concerning
book-collectors is that their vices are many, their virtues of a
negative sort, and their ways altogether past finding out. Yet the
most hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity of
bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If their doings are
inscrutable, they are also romantic; if their vices are numerous, the
heinousness of those vices is mitigated by the fact that it is
possible to sin humorously. Regard him how you will, the sayings and
doings of the collector give life and color to the pages of th