A Passion for Books Read online

  It seems to me that publishers assume sufficient risk, as it is. Many books, I fancy, just about pay their way, showing very little of either profit or loss; there may be a small profit resulting from the average book, and the exceptional book shows either a handsome profit—or a large loss. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the most recent of great successes: edition followed edition in such quick succession that the publishing facilities of New York City were heavily drawn upon to keep up with the demand. On the other hand, many years ago, the publication of Endymion, by Disraeli, then earl of Beacons-field, occasioned an enormous loss. His publishers brought out this novel in the then customary three-volume form for, I think, two guineas. No one read into the middle of the second volume. It was a complete failure. A few months after publication every second-hand bookshop in London was trying to dispose of uncut, and unopened, “library” copies at about the cost of binding. It must be admitted that these are extreme instances: the profit in the one case must have amounted to a small fortune; the losses in the other might have driven the publisher into bankruptcy.

  The publishing business has always been regarded as extra-hazardous—more respectable than the theatrical business and less exciting, but resembling it in that one never knows whether one is embarked upon a success or a failure until it is too late to withdraw. And it has always been so. Sir Walter Scott, whose career as a publisher is not always remembered, said that the booksellers, as publishers were called in his day, were “the only tradesmen in the world who professedly and by choice dealt in what is called ‘a pig in a poke,’ publishing twenty books in hopes of hitting upon one good speculation, as a person buys shares in a lottery in hopes of gaining a prize”; and Sir Walter had reason to know, as had also Mark Twain.

  I remember that, some years ago, a little book, A Publisher’s Confessions, was issued anonymously by Doubleday, Page & Co. It recited the difficulties, financial and other, of a firm of publishers and is now generally understood to have been written by Walter Hines Page, our late ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. The writer’s conclusion was that men of such distinction as those who control the organizations known as Scribner’s, Macmillan, and others of like standing, could earn very much more by devoting their abilities to banking, railroads, or other lines of business; for, he said, “publishing as publishing is the least profitable of all professions, except preaching and teaching, to each of which it is a sort of cousin.” And it is to this harassed person, perplexed, by reason of the nature of his calling, beyond most businessmen, that Mr. Arnold would add the financing of the countless bookstores, in many cases in incompetent hands, all over the country, from Maine to California. His suggestion is interesting, but I doubt if publishers in any large numbers will take kindly to it. They will probably feel that Mr. Arnold, whom I last saw in his own library surrounded by his own priceless books, apparently free from problems of any kind, has suggested a remedy worse than the disease from which they are suffering.

  It is, however, to the bookseller rather than to the publisher that my heart goes out. The publishers of the present day, at least those I know, ride around in limousine cars while the booksellers walk—the floor. When Hogg threatened to knock the brains out of a bookseller, Sir Walter Scott cried, “Knock the brains into him, my dear Hogg, but for God’s sake don’t knock any out.” The difficulties from which he is chiefly suffering are two: first, the unfair competition of certain department stores; and second, that we, the readers, have deserted him. A rich, intelligent, and extravagant people, we know nothing, and seemingly wish to know nothing, of the pleasure of buying and owning books. As I see it, the decay of the bookshop set in years ago with the downfall of the lyceum, the debating society, and the lecture platform. We have none of these things now, and if we had not largely given up reading as one of the consequences, I should not be sorry; but the mental stimulation that comes from personal contact has been lost, and seemingly there is nothing that will take its place. Of course, when I say that we have none of these things, I mean in proportion to our population and wealth.

  When it comes to book-buying, we seem so loath to take a chance. We pay four or six or ten dollars for a pair of tickets for a “show”—how I hate the word!—sit through it for an entire evening, and when asked what we thought of it, answer briefly, “Rotten,” and dismiss the matter from our minds. Now book-buying is, or ought to be, a pleasure. If one comes in contact with a fairly well-informed salesman or saleswoman, it may be a delight. And there are such. To speak of those I know, if you care for illustrated or extra-illustrated books, where can you find a more interesting character than George Rigby in Philadelphia? And there is Mabel Zahn, at Sessler’s—“Dere Mable,” as I sometimes call her: many a time she has shamed me with her knowledge. And there is Leary’s, one of the largest and best second-hand bookshops in the country; you are not importuned to buy, you may browse there by the hour. We in Philadelphia hold its proprietor in such esteem that we made him mayor of our city, and finally governor of our state. He has known me ever since I was a little boy, and it was a proud day for me when I thought I could safely refer to him as my friend Ned Stuart.

  Leary’s is one of the few bookshops in which bargains may still be found. My friend Tinker—dear old Tink—never comes to Philadelphia without spending a few hours at Leary’s; and only yesterday James Shields, that astute bookman, dropping in upon me to ask a question, which, naturally, I was unable to answer, showed me a ten-dollar bill he had just extracted from Lawler, Rosenbach’s manager, for a book he had just “picked up” at Leary’s for fifty cents. These things can still be done, but it takes more exact knowledge than I have been able to acquire. One thing yet remains to be told: the price at which Lawler sold the book. Who knows?

  In an effort to escape the blame that should be ours, we sometimes say that Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who scattered public libraries all over the land in an effort, relatively successful, to die poor, is responsible for the plight in which the booksellers find themselves; but I am willing to acquit the libraries of all blame. They do an immense amount of good. I never go to a strange city without visiting its library, and I count many librarians among my friends; but I am, nevertheless, always overwhelmed in the presence of countless thousands of books, as I might be in the presence of crowned heads; indeed, I think that, idle curiosity once gratified, crowned heads would not impress me at all.

  And so it is that, not being a scholar, or altogether indigent, I do not much use any library except my own. I early formed the habit of buying books, and, thank God, I have never lost it. Authors living and dead—dead, for the most part—afford me my greatest enjoyment, and it is my pleasure to buy more books than I can read. Who was it who said, “I hold the buying of more books than one can peradventure read, as nothing less than the soul’s reaching towards infinity; which is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish”? Whoever it was, I agree with him; and the same idea has been less sententiously expressed by Ralph Bergengren in that charming little poem in Jane, Joseph and John, the loveliest book for children and grown-ups since R.L.S. gave us his Child’s Garden of Verses.

  My Pop is always buying books:

  So that Mom says his study looks

  Just like an old bookstore. The bookshelves are so full and tall,

  They hide the paper on the wall,

  And there are books just everywhere,

  On table, window-seat, and chair,

  And books right on the floor.

  And every little while he buys

  More books, and brings them home and tries

  To find a place where they will fit,

  And has an awful time of it.

  Once, when I asked him why he got

  So many books, he said, “Why not?”

  I’ve puzzled over that a lot.

  Too many of us, who are liberal, not to say lavish, in our household expenses seem to regard the purchase of books as an almost not-to-be-permitted extravagance. We buy piano-play
ers and talking machines, and we mortgage our houses to get an automobile, but when it comes to a book, we exhaust every resource before parting with our money. If we cannot borrow a book from a friend, we borrow it from a library; if there is anything I like less than lending a book, it is borrowing one, and I know no greater bore than the man who insists on lending you a book which you do not intend to read. Of course, you can cure him, ultimately, by losing the volume; but the process takes time.

  My philosophy of life is very simple; one doesn’t have to study the accursed German philosophers or any other to discover that the way to happiness is to get a day’s pleasure every day—I am not writing as a preacher—and I know no greater pleasure than taking home a bundle of books which you have deprived yourself of something to buy.

  “I never buy new books,” a man once said to me, looking at a pile on my library table; “I’ve got to economize somewhere, and they are so expensive.”

  “And yet,” I retorted, “you enjoy reading; don’t you feel under any obligation to the authors from whom you derive so much pleasure? Someone has to support them. I confess to the obligation.”

  When I think how much pleasure I get from reading, I feel it my duty to buy as many current books as I can. I “collect” Meredith and Stevenson, the purchase of whose books no longer benefits them. Why should I not also collect George Moore or Locke or Conrad or Hergesheimer? which, by the way, I do. And while you may not be able to get such an inscription in your copy of the first edition of Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln as I have in mine, you should get a copy of the book before it is too late. All these men are engaged in carrying on the glorious tradition of English literature. It is my duty to give them what encouragement I can; to pay tribute to them. I wish I were not singular in this.

  But to return to the bookshop. In addition to having to compete with the many forms of amusement unknown fifty years ago—it would be superfluous for me to do more than mention the latest of them, the “movie”—the bookshop elects to sell a “nationally advertised” article in competition with the department store. The publishers allow what would be a fairly liberal margin of profit, if the bookshops were permitted to keep it; but the department stores cut that margin to the quick. For reasons that are well known, it is profitable for them to do so: with their immense “turnover” and their relatively small “overhead,” they can afford to sell certain popular books at cut prices, for the reason that at the next counter they are selling chocolates, marked “WEEKEND Special, 70¢ Regular Price $1.00,” which do not cost over forty cents, perhaps less; and often they do get a dollar for these boxes. And what is true of chocolates is true of practically everything they sell, except books and a few other specialties, which they use as “leaders.”

  Books are the only “nationally advertised” specialties that anyone pretends to sell in shops almost exclusively devoted to them. Time was, and it was a sad time, when the monthly magazines, Atlantic, Harper’s, Scribner’s, and the rest, which cost $28 per hundred, wholesale, were retailed in a large store in Philadelphia for twenty-five cents each. The highest court to which the question can be carried has ruled that the seller can sell at any price he pleases, provided that he does not misstate the facts, as, for example, that his immense purchasing power enables him to undersell his competitors. In some few cases the publishers provide “specials,” too: they give extra discounts for quantities; and there are always, alas, “remainders,” sold at a loss by the publishers and at quite a tidy little profit by the retailer; but in general the facts are as I have stated.

  It must be admitted that the department store helps the publisher by selling hundreds of thousands of copies of books like Dere Mable and the Four Horsemen. The Young Visitors, too, whether it be by Barrie or another, sold enormously; but just so large as is the sale of books like these, just so small is the sale of books of enduring merit. Perhaps I am wrong, but I fancy that men prefer to buy what I may call good books, while women buy novels and the lighter forms of literature.

  Now, fancy a man going into a certain department store that I have in mind and asking for a copy of Tom Jones. He is met by a young lady in a low-cut dress, standing in high-heeled slippers, with her hair gathered up in large puffs which entirely conceal her ears; her nose has been recently powdered, and she looks as if she might be going to a party. “Tom Jones!

  ” she says, “is it a boy’s book? Juveniles, second to the right.” “No, it’s a novel,” you say; and she replies, “Fiction, second to the left.”

  You move on, avoiding a table on which is a sign, “The Newest Books Are on This Table,” and you meet another young lady, also ready for a party, and repeat your question. “Is it a new book?” she says. “No,” you explain; and she conducts you to a case containing hundreds of volumes of the Everyman’s Series—and an excellent series it is. But the books have been skillfully shuffled, and what you seek is hard to find. While you and she are looking, someone “cuts in” and inquires for a copy of Java Head, to which she promptly replies, “One sixty-nine,” and conducts her customer to a large pile, behind which she disappears and is seen, by you, no more.

  You keep on looking until someone comes to your rescue and asks if she can do anything for you. You say, “Tom Jones,” and she, being an intelligent person, says, “Fielding,” and conducts you to the fine-book department, where you are finally shown a set of Fielding flashily bound in what appears to be morocco, marked $40. You demur at the price and explain that you want Tom Jones to read, not a set to put upon your shelves; finally, thanking the “saleslady” for her trouble, you go out empty-handed, having wasted half an hour.

  If this paper should be read by the proprietor of a retail store, or by his intelligent clerk, I can hear him cry, “You are quite right, but we know all this. Have you any remedy?” Certainly I have nothing to suggest which will prove a royal road to fortune; but I do suggest the selling of good second-hand books along with current publications, and I would stress the second-hand, and call it the rare-book department, for the profits of that department will be found to be surprisingly large. I would say to the proprietor of the bookshop, “Bring some imagination to bear on your business.” Imagination is as necessary to a successful tradesman as to the poet. He is, indeed, only a day laborer without it. I am reminded of one of the clever bits in Pinero’s play Iris. A tan, distinguished-looking man enters; his appearance instantly challenges attention, and the ingenue inquires who he is and is told, “That is Mr. Maldonado, the great financier.” Then comes the question, “What is a financier?” and the telling reply, “A financier, my dear, is a pawnbroker—with imagination.”

  The point is well made. What quality was it in Charles M. Schwab which, while most of the great businessmen in America were wringing their hands over what appeared to be their impending ruin, when the war broke out, sent him off to England, to return quickly with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of orders in his pocket? Imagination! It was this same quality, working in conjunction with the imagination of the late J. P. Morgan, which led to the formation of the great Steel Corporation.

  There may be little room for the display of this supreme qualification in the retail book business, but there is room for some. Be enterprising. Get good people about you. Make your shop windows and your shops attractive. The fact that so many young men and women enter the teaching profession shows that there are still some people willing to scrape along on comparatively little money for the pleasure of following an occupation in which they delight. It is as true to-day as it was in Chaucer’s time that there is a class of men who “gladly learn and gladly teach,” and our college trustees and overseers and rich alumni take advantage of this and expect them to live on wages which an expert chauffeur would regard as insufficient. Any bookshop worthy of survival can offer inducements at least as great as the average school or college. Under pleasant conditions you will meet pleasant people, for the most part, whom you can teach and from whom you may learn something. We used to hear much of t
he elevation of the stage; apparently that has been given over; let us elevate the bookshop. It can be done. My friend, Christopher Morley—in his delightful Parnassus on Wheels, shows that there may be plenty of “uplift” and a world of romance in a traveling man well stocked with books. Indeed, a pleasant holiday could be planned along the lines of Roger Mifflin’s novel venture in bookselling. I prophesy for this book, some day, such fame as is now enjoyed by Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey. It is, in fact, just such a book, although admittedly the plump white horse, Pegasus, lacks somewhat the temperamental charm of R.L.S.’s best-drawn female character, Modestine.

  . . . Phoebus! what a name

  To fill the speaking-trump of future fame!

  I was in a college town recently, and passing a shop, I noticed some books in the window and at once entered, as is my habit, to look around. But I stayed only a moment, for in the rear of the shop I saw a large sign reading, “Laundry Received before 9 A.M. Returned the Same Day”—enterprise, without a doubt, but misdirected. If the bookshop is to survive, it must be made more attractive. The buying of books must be made a pleasure, just as the reading of them is; so that an intellectual man or woman with a leisure hour may spend it pleasantly and profitably increasing his or her store.