number of women
bibliophiles in our country at the present time, the subject would
doubtless furnish him with a congenial theme for another of his
rambling discourses, this time perhaps under the caption of
_Bibliowomania_. He was far in advance of the age in which he lived;
for although he had very little upon which to base the prediction, he
yet prophesied that not many years would lapse before women would
invade the fields of book-collecting and prove themselves valiant
competitors in the market. This, in fact, is now common enough, and I
myself have known of many instances in auction-rooms where a small
army of rampant bibliomaniacs have been obliged to retreat and to
abandon their pursuit of some coveted treasure, on finding it boldly
covered by a _carte-blanche_ order from a feminine competitor. Women
rarely appear in the book auction-room, but leave their orders to be
executed through a trusted broker, and many a collector has found
himself suddenly obliged to soar aloft to dizzy heights in quest of
some prize, on being thus lifted and pursued by one of the
representatives of an unseen and unknown member of the gentler sex.

Many people suppose the term "uncut," characteristic of Dibdin's
second "symptom," to signify that the leaves of such volume as may be
concerned have never been severed, whether for convenience of reading
or otherwise. "Uncut," however, in its technical sense does not imply
that the sheets are folded and bound just as they came from the press.
The leaves may all be cut, and the tops trimmed, and even gilded,
without striking terror to the heart of the bibliomaniac. Dibdin,
indeed, treats this last mentioned symptom in merely a superficial way
and dismisses it with a few cursory remarks, viz: "It may be defined a
passion to possess books of which the edges have never been sheared by
the binder's tools." This definition is vague and unsatisfactory. Mr.
Adrian H. Joline (_Diversions of a Booklover_, Harper & Bros., New
York, 1903,--a charming book that should be read by every
book-fancier) discourses upon the subject more intelligently; he
observes that the word _uncut_ appears to be a stumbling-block to the
unwary, and says: "The casual purchaser is sometimes deceived by it,
for he thinks that it means that the leaves have not been severed by
the paper-knife. I have read with much glee divers indignant letters
in the very interesting 'Saturday Review' of one of our best New York
journals, in