DOES BOOK COLLECTING PAY.

We now come to the sordid but serious consideration whether books are a “good investment” in the financial sense The mind of every true Book-Worm should revolt from this question, for none except a bookseller is pardonable for buying books with the design of selling them. Booksellers are a necessary evil, as purveyors for the Book-Worm I regard them as the old woman regarded the thirty-nine articles of faith; when inquired of by her bishop what she thought of them, she said, “I don’t know as I’ve anything against them.” So I don’t know that I have anything against booksellers, although I must concede that they generally have something against me. As no well regulated man ever grudges expense on the house that forms his home, or on its adornment, and rarely cares or even reflects whether he can get his money back, so it is with the true bibliomaniac He never intends to part with his books any more than with his homestead. Then again the use and enjoyment of books ought to count for something like interest on the capital invested. Many times, directly or indirectly, the use of a library is worth even more than the interest on the outlay. It is singular how expenditure in books is regarded as an extravagance by the business world. One may spend the price of a fine library in fast or showy horses, or in travel, or in gluttony, or in stock speculations eventuating on the wrong side of his ledger, and the money-grubbing community think none the worse of him But let him expend annually a few thousands in books, and these sons of Mammon pull long faces, wag their shallow heads, and sneeringly observe, “screw loose somewhere,” “never get half what he has paid for them,” “too much of a Book-Worm to be a sharp business man.” A man who boldly bets on stocks in Wall Street is a gallant fellow, forsooth, and excites the admiration of the business community (especially of those who thrive on his losses) even when he “comes out at the little end of the horn.” As Ruskin observes, we frequently hear of a bibliomaniac, never of a horse-maniac It is said there is a private stable in Syracuse, New York, which has cost several hundred thousand dollars. The owner is regarded as perfectly sane and the building is viewed with great pride by the public, but if the owner had expended as much on a private library his neighbors would have thought him a lunatic. If a man in business wants to excite the suspicion of the sleek gentlemen who sit around the discount board with him, or yell like lunatics at the stock exchange with him, or talk with him about the tariff or free silver, or any other subject on which no two men ever agree unless it is for their interest, let it leak out that he has put a few thousand dollars into a Mazarine Bible, or a Caxton, or a first folio Shakespeare or some other rare book No matter if he can afford it, most of his associates regard him as they do a Bedlamite who goes about collecting straws. Fortunate is he if his wife does not privately call on the family attorney and advise with him about putting a committee over the poor man.

But if we must regard book-buying in a money sense, and were to admit that books never sell for as much as they cost, it is no worse in respect to books than in respect to any other species of personal property. What chattel is there for which the buyer can get as much as he paid, even the next day? When it is proposed to transform the seller himself into the buyer of the same article, we find that the bull of yesterday is converted into the bear of to-day. Circumstances alter cases. I have bought a good many books and “objects of bigotry and virtue,” and have sold some, and the nearest I ever came to getting as much as I paid was in the case of a rare print, the seller of which, after the lapse of several years, solicited me to let him have it again, at exactly what I paid for it, in order that he might sell it to some one else at an advance. I declined his offer with profuse thanks, and keep the picture as a curiosity

So I should say, as a rule, that books are not a good financial investment in the business sense, and speaking of most books and most buyers Give a man the same experience in buying books that renders him expert in buying other personal property, the mere gross objects of trade, and let him set out with the purpose of accumulating a library that shall be a remunerative financial investment, and he may succeed, indeed, has often succeeded, certainly to the extent of getting back his outlay with interest, and sometimes making a handsome profit. But this needs experience Just as one must build at least two houses before he can exactly suit himself, so he must collect two libraries before he can get one that will prove a fair investment in the vulgar sense of trade.

I dare say that one will frequently pay more for a fine microscope or telescope than he can ever obtain for it if he desires or is pressed to sell it, but who would or should stop to think of that? The power of prying into the mysteries of the earth and the wonders of the heavens should raise one’s thoughts above such petty considerations. So it should be in buying that which enables one to converse with Shakespeare or Milton or scan the works of Raphael or Durer. When the pioneer on the western plains purchases an expensive rifle he does not inquire whether he can sell it for what it costs; his purpose is to defend his house against Indians and other wild beasts. So the true book-buyer buys books to fight weariness, disgust, sorrow and despair; to loose himself from the world and forget time and all its limitations and besetments. In this view they never cost too much. And so when asked if book-collecting pays, I retort by asking, does piety pay? “Honesty is the best policy” is the meanest of maxims. Honesty ought to be a principle and not a policy; and book-collecting ought to be a means of education, refinement and enjoyment, and not a mode of financial investment.