matter of contents was, it must be confessed, a
less important consideration. At first it was felt by the publishing
committee that nothing but the finest products of the human mind should
be selected for enshrinement in the beautiful volumes which the
club should issue. The length of the work was an important
consideration,--long things were not compatible with wide margins and
graceful slenderness. For instance, we brought out Coleridge's Ancient
Mariner, an essay by Emerson, and another by Thoreau. Our Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam was Heron-Allen's translation of the original MS in
the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which, though less poetical than
FitzGerald's, was not so common. Several years ago we began to publish
the works of our own members. Bascom's Essay on Pipes was a very
creditable performance. It was published in a limited edition of one
hundred copies, and since it had not previously appeared elsewhere and
was copyrighted by the club, it was sufficiently rare to be valuable
for that reason. The second publication of local origin was Baxter's
Procrustes.

I have omitted to say that once or twice a year, at a meeting of which
notice has been given, an auction is held at the Bodleian. The members
of the club send in their duplicate copies, or books they for any reason
wish to dispose of, which are auctioned off to the highest bidder. At
these sales, which are well attended, the club's publications have of
recent years formed the leading feature. Three years ago, number three
of Bascom's Essay on Pipes sold for fifteen dollars;--the original
cost of publication was one dollar and seventy-five cents. Later in the
evening an uncut copy of the same brought thirty dollars. At the next
auction the price of the cut copy was run up to twenty-five dollars,
while the uncut copy was knocked down at seventy-five dollars. The club
had always appreciated the value of uncut copies, but this financial
indorsement enhanced their desirability immensely. This rise in the
Essay on Pipes was not without a sympathetic effect upon all the club
publications. The Emerson essay rose from three dollars to seventeen,
and the Thoreau, being by an author less widely read, and, by his own
confession commercially unsuccessful, brought a somewhat higher figure.
The prices, thus inflated, were not permitted to come down appreciably.
Since every member of the club possessed one or more of these valuable
editions, they were all manifestly intereste