LIBRARY COMPANIONS. As a rule I do not care for any constant human companion in my library, but I do not object to a cat or a small dog That picture of Montaigne, drawn by himself, amusing his cat with a garter, or that other one of Doctor Johnson feeding oysters to his cat Hodge, is a very pleasing one. In my library hangs Durer’s picture of St. Jerome in his cell, busy with his writing, and a dog and a lion quietly dozing together in the foreground. As I am no saint I have never been able to keep a lion in my library for any great length of time, but I have maintained a dog there Lamb even contended that his books were the better for being dog’s-eared, but I do not go so far as that. Nor do I pretend that his presence will prevent the books from becoming foxed. Here is a portrait of MY DOG. He is a trifling, homely beast,
Of no use, or the very least;
To shake imaginary rat
Or bark for hours at china cat;
To lie at head of stairs and start,
Like animated, woolly dart,
Upon a non-existent foe;
Or on hind legs like monkey go,
To beg for sugar or for bone;
Never content to be alone;
To bask for hours in the sun.
Rolled up till head and tail are one;
Usurping all the softest places
And keeping them with doggish graces;
To sneak between the housemaid’s feet
And scour unnoticed on the street;
Wag indefatigable tail;
Cajole with piteous human wail;
To dance with dainty dandy air
When nicely parted is his hair,
And look most ancient and dejected
When it has been too long neglected;
To sleep upon my book-den rug
And dream of battle with a pug;
To growl with counterfeited rabies;
To be more trouble than twin babies;—
These are the qualities and tricks
That in my heart his image fix;
And so in cursory, doggerel rhyme
I celebrate him in his time,
Nor wait his virtues to rehearse
In cold obituary verse. There is one other speaking companion that I would tolerate in my library, and that is a clock. I have a number of clocks in mine, and if it were not for their unanimous and warning voice I might forget to go to bed. Perhaps my reader would like to hear an account of MY CLOCKS. Five clocks adorn my domicile
And give me occupation,
For moments else inane I fill
With their due regulation.
Four of these clocks, on each Lord’s Day,
As regular as preaching,
I wind and set, so that they may
The flight of time be teaching.
My grandfather’s old clock is chief,
With foolish moon-faced dial;
Procrastination is a thief
It always brings to trial.
Its height is as the tallest men,
Its pendulum beats slow,
And when its awful bell booms ten,
Young men get up and go.
Another clock is bronze and gilt,
Penelope sits on it,
And in her fingers holds a quilt—
How strange ’tis not a bonnet!
Memorial of those weary years
When she the web unravelled,
While Ithacus choked down his fears
And slow from Ilium travelled.
Ceres upon the third, with spray
Of grain, in classic gown,
Seems sadly to recall the day
Proserpine sank down,
With scarcely time to say good-bye,
Unto the world of Dis;
And keeps account, with many a sigh,
Of harvest time in this.
Another clock is rococo,
Of Louis Sept or Seize,
With many a dreadful furbelow
An artist’s hair to raise,
Suggestions of a giddy court,
With fan and boufflant bustle,
When silken trains made gallant sport
And o’er the floor did rustle.
The fourth was brought, in foolish trust
From Alpland far away,
A baby clock, and so it must
Be tended every day.
Importunate and trivial thing!
Thou katydid of clocks!
Defying all my skill to bring
Right time from out thy box.
With works of wood and face of brass
On which queer cherubs play,
The tedious hours thou well dost pass,
And none thy chirp gainsay. Among the silent companions in my study are the effigies of the four greatest geniuses of modern times in the realms of literature, art, music and war—a print of Shakespeare; one of Michael Angelo’s corrugated face with its broken nose; a bust of Beethoven, resembling a pouting lion; and a print of Napoleon at St. Helena, representing him dressed in a white duck suit, with a broad-brimmed straw hat, and sitting looking seaward, with those unfathomable eyes, a newspaper lying in his lap Unhappy faces all except the first—his cheerful, probably because he has effected an arrangement with an otherwise idle person, named Bacon, to do all his work for him. But there is another portrait, at which I look oftener, the original of which probably takes more interest in me, but is unknown to every visitor to my study. I myself have not seen her in half a century I call it simply A PORTRAIT. A gentle face is ever in my room,
With features fine and melancholy eyes,
Though young, a little past life’s freshest bloom,
And always with air of sad surmise.
A great white cap almost conceals her hair,
A collar broad falls o’er her shoulders slender;
The fashion of a bygone age an air
Of quaintness to her simple garb doth render.
Those hazel eyes pursue me as I move
And seem to watch my busy toiling pen;
They hold me with an anxious yearning love,
As if she dwelt upon the earth again.
My mother’s portrait! fifty years ago,
When I was but a heedless happy boy,
The influence of her being ceased to flow,
And she laid down life’s burden and its joy.
And now as I sit pondering o’er my books,
So vainly seeking a receding rest,
I read the wonder in her steadfast looks:
“Is this my son who lay upon my breast?”
And when for me there is an end of time,
And this unsatisfying work is done,
If I shall meet thee in thy peaceful clime,
Young mother, wilt thou know thy gray-haired son? There is one other work of art which adorns my library—a medallion by a dear friend of mine, an eminent sculptor, the story of which I will put into his mouth. He calls the face MY SCHOOLMATE. The snows have settled on my head
But not upon my heart,
And incidents of years long fled
From out my memory start.
My hand is cunning to contrive
The shapes my brain invents,
And keep in marble forms alive
That which my soul contents;
And I have wife, and children tall,
Grandchildren cluster near,
And sweet the applause of men doth fall
On my undeafened ear.
But still my mind will backward turn
For half a century,
And without reasoning will yearn
For sight or news of thee,
Thou playmate of my boyhood days,
When life was all aglow,
When the sweetest thing was thy girlish praise,
As I drew thee o’er the snow
To the old red school-house by the road,
Where we learned to spell and read,
When thou wert all my fairy load
And I was thy prancing steed.
Oh! thou wert simple then and fair.
Artless and unconstrained,
With quaintly knotted auburn hair
From which the wind refrained,
And from thine earnest steady eyes
Shone out a nature pure,
Formed by kind Heaven, a man’s best prize,
To love and to endure.
Oh! art thou still in life and time,
Or hast thou gone before?
And hath thy lot been like to mine,
Or pinched and bare and sore?
And didst thou marry, or art thou
Still of the spinster tribe?
Perchance thou art a widow now,
Steeled against second bribe?
Do grandsons round thy hearthstone play,
Or dost thou end thy race?
And could that auburn hair grow gray,
And wrinkles line thy face?
I cannot make thee old and plain—
I would not if I could—
And I recall thee without stain,
Simply and sweetly good;
And I have carved thy pretty head
And hung it on my wall,
And to all men let it be said,
I like it best of all;
For on a far-off snowy road,
Before I had learned to read,
Thou wert all my fairy load
And I was thy prancing steed! I have reserved my queerest library companion till the last. It is not a book, although it is good for nothing but to read. It is not an autograph, although it is simply the name of an individual It is my office sign which I have cherished, as a memento of busier days. Some singular reflections are roused when I gaze at MY SHINGLE. My shingle is battered and old,
No longer deciphered with ease,
So I’ve taken it in from the cold,
And fastened it up on a frieze.
A long generation ago,
With feelings of singular pride
I regarded its glittering show,
And pointed it out to my bride.
Companions of youth have grown few,
Its loves and aversions are faint;
No spirit to make friends anew—
An old enemy seems like a saint.
My clients have paid the last fee
For passage in Charon’s sad boat,
Imposing no duty on me
Save to utter this querelous note;
And still as I toil in life’s mills,
In loneliness growing profound,
To attend on the proof of their wills
And swear that their wits were quite sound!
So I work with the scissors and pen,
And to show of old courage a spark,
I must utter a jest now and then,
Like whistling of boys in the dark.
I tack my old friend on the wall,
So that infantile grandson of mine
May not think, if my life he recall,
That I died without making a sign.
When at court on the great judgment day
With penitent suitors I mingle,
May my guilt be washed cleanly away,
Like that on my faded old shingle! Of course my chief occupation in my library is reading and writing. To be sure, I do a good deal of thinking there. But there is another occupation which I practice to a great extent, which does not involve reading or writing at all, nor thinking to any considerable degree. That is playing solitaire. I play only one kind of this and that I have played for many years It requires two packs of cards, and requires building on the aces and kings, and so I have them tacked down on a lap-board to save picking out and laying down every time This particular game is called “St. Elba,” probably because Napoleon did not play it, and it can be “won” once in about sixty trials. I do not care for card-playing with others, but I have certain reasons for liking SOLITAIRE. I like to play cards with a man of sense,
And allow him to play with me,
And so it has grown a delight intense
To play solitaire on my knee.
I love the quaint form of the sceptered king,
The simplicity of the ace,
The stolid knave like a wooden thing,
And her majesty’s smirking face.
Diamonds, aces, and clubs and spades—
Their garb of respectable black
A moiety brilliant of red invades,
As they mingle in motley pack.
Independent of anyone’s signal or leave,
Relieved from the bluffing of poker,
I’ve no apprehension of ace up a sleeve,
And fear no superfluous joker.
I build up and down; all the cards I hold,
And the game is always fair,
For I am honest, and so is my old
Companion at solitaire.
Let kings condescend to the lower grades,
Queens glitter with diamonds rare,
Knaves flourish their clubs, and peasants wield spades,
But give me my solitaire.
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