Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/410

 340 NOTES AND QUERIES. p» s. VL OCT. 27. THE STORY OF AN OCCASION. THAT^ second thoughts are better is an opinion at least as old as Euripides, and certainly we all make the most of their superior intrinsic value when they come, as they have a (( t tendency to come, too late, and the occasion is over. No piece of statistics DO not in connexion with the Paris Exhibition would be so interesting as the total Watch number of persons who meant to go. The expert who could discover this Ton Lonff " num^er might also be asked to calculate the percentage that had no reason ' **" whatever for not going. Here one might find cases enough to illustrate Bacon's adage, " If a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep." But there is another way of losing occasions—we were going to say a better way, because it is the way affected by some of the most attractive persons in the world—the way of mere vagueness. Even in these days of far-reaching announcements and of facili- tated communication by means of newspapers, it is quite possible for a man to pass an occasion by day after day until a friend touches him upon the shoulder and personally claims his attention for the matter. Indeed, exactly in these days of extended display and the raised voice in advertisement, many a wise man who studies his peace of mind wraps himself in a protective armour of incuriosity. To this man particularly we are here addressing the story of an occasion which, even if he do not move so far as to take it, should touch him as illustrating a curious and a successful venture in the history of book- selling. It would be hard to find a book that has cost so much to produce, it would be hard to find a book that has been so much coveted, as the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' and this book, exactly as it was published, in the same twenty-five volumes, by Messrs. A. & C. Black, who still remain the publishers, is now put within the reach of everybody who buys books at all. This innovation, the most considerable among all the efforts that have recently been made to cheapen good literature, is the outcome of an arrangement with The Times by which the Daily Mail has secured a limited set of The Times Reprint of the Ninth, and latest, Edition to offer upon special terms. The cheapening of good books has in many cases gone with a regrettable, if necessary, cheapening of type and material. It is not so in this case. The twenty-five volumes offered by the Daily Mail are not distinguishable in any respect from the volumes as they were sold at more than double the price. To cut the price to less than half, The without permitting any corresponding change in the quality of the book, that was the first move made in this novel venture. The second point in the offer Plan. is this—that the price, the " less than half price," if the locution be permitted, need not be paid at once ; it may be paid in small monthly instalments of 12s. each. But there is a third, and most important, point in the bargain. It is this. Although the subscriber need not pay the price all at once, he gets all the twenty-five volumes at once, for they are sent entire upon receipt of a preliminary payment of 5s. Is this not a unique thing in bookselling ? It was in the conviction that a large public, to whom the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica' appealed, or was calculated to appeal, w;is deprived of its services only by consideration of price, that the proprietors of the Daily Mail made every arrangement that ingenuity can contrive to facilitate the acquisition of the desirable book. The conviction has been proved correct, the venture is meeting with success beyond calculation. But success has its draw- backs. The time during which this offer can remain open is, by arrangement, limited ; and now it seems clear that the limited number of sets of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica' at our disposal will all be taken up before that limit of time is reached. When the last set at our disposal is subscribed for, the offer ceases ij)so facto, and it can never be renewed. In order that those who do not know the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica' should have eveiy opportunity of judging for themselves, a number of places have been opened, in