Vol. 2 No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

i 9
BOOKSHOPS AND BOOKMEN
Refutation of Deism, and of Arnold's Empedocles on Etna,
for a few shillings, and goes on piously and properly,
* Providence has been very good to me !' Most bookhunters
who keep at it steadily can say that, even if not in
regard to quite such rarities. You never know when you
are going to light on something.
Many years ago, for instance, I was hurrying down St.
Martin's Lane, about 7.55, making for the Garrick Theatre.
Passing Thorp's shop, I saw that he had one of his sales on.
His shop went back 30 to 40 feet into one of the courts
opening off the Lane, occupied by windows which slid up,
and periodically these would be opened up, and the shelves
packed with books at is. and 6d. each. I said to myself
* I must come down to-morrow at dinner time,' and then
I decided to turn back and give it the once over. The crowd
was three deep at the shelves and I walked along trying to
see the titles. And I did see something, in one of the shilling
sections, what looked to me as if it might be The Wanderings
of Oisin, of 1889. I took my stand and waited while
those in front thinned out. It would have been fatal to
push in or display any special eagerness. When I got
near enough to see, I saw I was right, and whenever I
saw a hand hovering about that shelf I cursed. But finally
I got within striking distance, and I grabbed the book.
And quite recently, here in Dublin, I walked into a wellknown
shop and picked up a '98 pamphlet which is so
rare that its existence at all has been doubted. So there is
always hope.
Book-buyers, apart from students who buy books
because they must, may be roughly divided into two
classes. First, the collectors, poisonous people who,
however, have their uses. These are the people who collect
books as one would collect china, and put them in a glasscase,
who hardly read them, whose interest is merely that
they are rare and supposed to be valuable. They send up
the prices of books sometimes, but they are the joy of the
unscrupulous dealer—who sends up values artificially