to stay more than two minutes, and knew indeed, as the
father of a family, that he ought not to be there at all. He often drops
in, for this is not one of those stores where a tradesman hurries forward
to ask what you want and offers you the last novel which has captivated
the juicy British palate; the bookman regards such a place with the same
feeling that a physician has to a patent drug-store. The dealer in this
place so loved his books that he almost preferred a customer who knew
them above one who bought them, and honestly felt a pang when a choice
book was sold. Never can I forget what the great Quaritch said to me
when he was showing me the inner shrine of his treasure-house, and I felt
it honest to explain that I could only look, lest he should think me an
impostor. "I would sooner show such books to a man that loved them
though he couldn't buy them, than a man who gave me my price and didn't
know what he had got." With this slight anecdote I would in passing pay
the tribute of bookmen to the chief hunter of big game in our day.

When the bookman is a family man, and I have sometimes doubts whether he
ought not to be a celibate like missionaries of religion and other
persons called to special devotion, he has of course to battle against
his temptation, and his struggles are very pathetic. The parallel
between dipsomania and bibliomania is very close and suggestive, and I
have often thought that more should be made of it. It is the wife who in
both cases is usually the sufferer and good angel, and under her happy
influence the bookman will sometimes take the pledge, and for him, it is
needless to say, there is only one cure. He cannot be a moderate
drinker, for there is no possibility of moderation, and if he is to be
saved he must become a total abstainer. He must sign the pledge, and the
pledge must be made of a solemn character with witnesses, say his poor
afflicted wife and some intelligent self-made Philistine. Perhaps it
might run like this: "I, A. B., do hereby promise that I will never buy a
classical book in any tongue, or any book in a rare edition; that I will
never spend money on books in tree-calf or tooled morocco; that I shall
never enter a real old bookshop, but should it be necessary shall
purchase my books at a dry goods store, and there shall never buy
anything but the cheapest religious literature, or occasionally a popular
story for my wife, and to this promise I solemnly set my hand.