Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/189

Rh saw a stretch of twenty miles of water. On revisiting Haarlem in 1862, we saw a wide-extended series of green fields dotted with farmhouses, and possessing all the indications of rural prosperity. The expulsion of the Zuider Zee would, however, be a much more serious undertaking; but it would not surprise us to learn that steps at least were taken to greatly circumscribe its dimensions.

 

 From Blackwood's Magazine.

kinds of wise sayings have been uttered and recorded about books — how they are the means by which we make the great minds of other generations our personal friends, and so forth. But these grand reflections, with all their undeniable truth, are meant of course to apply to the contents of books, and then only in a limited degree: for a good deal of print and paper was employed by the small minds as well as great minds, in ancient times as in modern. But books themselves, after long companionship, come to have an actual personality, for many of us. They are to me "a substantial world," in more senses than Wordsworth's. The material tangible volume becomes a personal friend, — like the familiar walking-stick, or well-accustomed pipe. The very leather and lettering form themselves into a countenance — sometimes quite as expressive as some of those which belong to our human flesh-and-blood companions. Such distinctive physiognomy is not patent to any one except the owner. The casual bachelor finds an embarrassing family likeness in all babies: but to the mother's eye there lies a world of individual expression in the winking and staring eyes, and the pimple which represents a nose, in the face of her own particular offspring. I could pick out any one of my own books, which has any claim to old acquaintance, from the bottom of a pile of strangers, almost at a glance. The very stains upon their backs and sides are known to me, and in some cases have a history of their own — scars which tell of more or less honourable warfare. There are many such volumes whose loss would be out of all proportion to their actual value in the book-market; and the idea of their being replaced by a smart new edition would be an outrage to their owner's feelings the same in kind, if not in degree, as an offer to make up to a mother the loss of a pet child by the importation of a bran-new baby.

Few modern books are of a character thus to take rank as personal friends. Many are pleasant enough companions for the hour: but, for the most part, we go our way and forget them. Being a respectable household, and feeling our literary duties and responsibilities accordingly, we subscribe to "Mudie's." Down comes by rail the monthly box, and the red and blue volumes strew the tables in the women's quarters, and frequently find their way, it must be admitted, to the study of this present writer. Well, here and there, no doubt, a very pleasant volume comes to hand, which makes a perceptible addition to our stock of ideas, and shows us something either of the world without us or the world within us in new and interesting aspect. But how unfortunately rare are such books, now as ever! and how much more difficult it is, in the present inundation of printed paper, to pick out of the heap of rubbish the one or two — rari nantes in gurgite vasto — which it is really worth while to sit down and read! As to being guided in such selection by reviews, in the first place, tastes in literature, as in other things, honestly differ; and it is by no means certain that the book which interests the reviewer will interest you; and in the second place, everybody knows how a good deal of this reviewing is done. It is not that a favourable notice of any volume is matter of bribery and corruption, — our periodical literature is far too respectable for that; nor yet that a truculent critique is often the mere indulgence of a personal grudge. Such unwarrantable abuses of what ought to be considered a public trust are not unknown in literature, but they are of rare occurrence. But the converse practice is common enough, and notorious enough, and threatens to degrade professional criticism to the level of an auctioneer's advertisement. An author's book finds its way mysteriously into the hands of a personal friend for review, and the critical notice becomes a mere laudatory congratulation. "On arrive quand on a des camarades." The obligation is possibly repaid in kind: and it would be amusing, if it were not irritating, to trace in some patent cases the working of this "cameraderie."

In these days, when everybody reads, or at least thinks it becoming to have books lying on the table, it is not wonderful that books of all kinds should be manufactured; and therefore not at all 