Cobwebs from a Library Corner, John Kendrick Bangs [autobiographies to read txt] 📗

and Thackeray;

Of Horace, Edison, and Lamb;
Of Keats and Washington,
Gérôme and blest Omar Khayyám,
And R. L. Stevenson;

Of Kipling and the Bard of Thrums,
And Bonaparte the great—
If I were these, I’d snap my thumbs
Derisively at Fate.


A COMMON FAVORITE


CHARLES LAMB is good, and so is Thackeray,
And so’s Jane Austen in her pretty way;
Charles Dickens, too, has pleased me quite a lot,
As also have both Stevenson and Scott.
I like Dumas and Balzac, and I think
Lord Byron quite a dab at spreading ink;
But on the whole, at home, across the sea,
The author I like best is Mr. Me.

A “first” of Elia filled my soul with joy.
A Meredith de luxe held no alloy.
And when I found _Pendennis_ in the parts
A throb of gladness stirred my heart of hearts.
A richly pictured set of Avon’s bard
Upon my liking bounded pretty hard;
But none brought out that cloying sense of glee
That came from that first book by Mr. Me.

And so I beg you join me in the toast
To him that I confess I love the most.
He does not always do his level best,
But no one lives who can survive that test.
His work is queer, and some folks call it bad,
And some aver ’tis but a passing fad;
But I don’t care, the fact remains that he
Has won my admiration—dear old Me.



THEIR PENS


THE poet pens his odes and sonnets spruce
With quills plucked from the ordinary goose,
While critics write their sharp incisive lines
With quills snatched from the fretful porcupines.



AN UNSOLVED PROBLEM


IF Bacon wrote those grand inspiring lines
At which alternately man weeps and laughs,
Who was it penned those chirographic vines
We know these times as Shakespeare’s autographs?



THE BIBLIOPHILE’S THREAT


IF some one does not speedily indite
A volume that is worthy of my shelf,
I’ll have to buy materials and write
A novel and some poetry myself.


MY TREASURES


MY library o’erflows with treasures rare:
Of “Dickens’ firsts,” a full, unbroken set;
And in a little nooklet off the stair
The whole edition of my novelette.



A POET’S FAD


HE writes bad verse on principle,
E’en though it does not sell.
He thinks the plan original—
So many folk write well.


THE POET UNDONE


HE was a poet born, but unkind Fate
Once doomed him for his verses to be paid,
Whereon he left the poet-born’s estate
And wrote like one who’d happened to be made.



A WANING MUSE


“WHY art thou sad, Poeticus?” said I.
So blue was he I feared he would not speak.
“Alas! I’ve lost my grip,” was his reply—
“I’ve writ but forty poems, sir, this week.”



MODESTY


“WHAT hundred books are best, think you?” I said,
Addressing one devoted to the pen.
He thought a moment, then he raised his head:
“I hardly know—I’ve written only ten.”



MY LORD THE BOOK


A BOOK is an aristocrat:
’Tis pampered—lives in state;
Stands on a shelf, with naught whereat
To worry—lovely fate!

Enjoys the best of company;
And often—ay, ’tis so—
Like much in aristocracy,
Its title makes it go.



THE BIBLIOMISER


HE does not read at all, yet he doth hoard
Rich books. In exile on his shelves they’re stored;
And many a volume, sweet and good and true,
Fails in the work that it was made to do.
Why, e’en the dust they’ve caught since he began
Would quite suffice to make a decent man!



THE “COLLECTOR”


I GOT a tome to-day, and I was glad to strike it,
Because no other man can ever get one like it.
’Tis poor, and badly print; its meaning’s Greek;
But what of that? ’Tis mine, and it’s unique.
So Bah! to others,
Men and brothers—
Bah! and likewise Pooh!
I’ve got the best of you.
Go sicken, die, and eke repine.
That book you wanted—Gad! that’s mine!



A READER


DAUDET to him is e’er Dodett;
Dumas he calls Dumass;
But prithee do not you forget
He’s not at all an ass;

Because the books that he doth buy,
That on his shelf do stand,
Hold not one page his eagle eye
Hath not completely scanned.

And while this man’s orthoepy
May not be what it should,
He knows what books contain, and he
“Can quote ’em pretty good.”


FATE!


I FEEL that I am quite as smart
As Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart.

I’m also every bit as bright
As Walter Scott, the Scottish knight;

And in my own peculiar way
I’m just as good as Thackeray.

But, woe is me that it should be,
They got here years ahead of me,

And all the tales I would unfold
By them already have been told.


A PLEASING THOUGHT


THEY speak most truly who do say
We have no writing-folk to-day
Like those whose names, in days gone by,
Upon the scroll of fame stood high.
And when I think of Smollett’s tales,
Of waspish Pope’s ill-natured rails,
Of Fielding dull, of Sterne too free,
Of Swift’s uncurbed indecency,
Of Dr. Johnson’s bludgeon-wit,
I must confess I’m glad of it!


BOOKS vs. “BOOKS”

BY A BIBLIOMANIAC


A VOLUME’S just received on vellum print.
The book is worth the vellum—no more in’t.
But, as I search my head for thoughts, I find
One fact embedded firmly in my mind.

That’s this, in short: while it no doubt may be
Most pleasant for an author small to see
A fine edition of his work put out,
No man who’s sane can ever really doubt

That products of his brain and pen can live
Alone for that which they may haply give!
And though on vellum stiff the work appears,
It cannot live throughout the after-years,

Unless it has within its leaves some hint
Of something further than the style of print
And paper—give me Omar on mere waste,
I’ll choose it rather than some “bookish taste,”

Expended on a flimsy, whimsey tale,
Put out to catch a whimsey, flimsy sale.
I’d choose my Omar print on grocer’s wraps
Before the vellum books of “bookish” chaps.



A CONFESSION


MY epic verse, my pet production, which I deemed
Sufficient to advance me to the highest peak
Of difficult Parnassus, goal of which I’ve dreamed
For many a weary year, came back to me last week.
The Editor I cursed, that he should stand between
My dear ambition and my scarcely dearer self;
Whose unappreciation forced to blush unseen
My one dear book, to gather dust upon my shelf.
That night in sleep an Angel fair came to my side,
And in her hand she held a scroll; in lines of flame
The name of him I’d cursed was writ; and when I cried,
“What portent this?” the rare celestial dame
Replied:
“Read here, O Ingrate base, the name of him thou’st cursed.
The very man of all men who should be the first
Thy love and lasting gratitude to know, since he
Still leaves the path Parnassian open unto thee—
A path which thou with halting rhyme, most ill composed,
Against thyself hast sought to keep forever closed.
_Read thou thy lines again!_”
Ah! bitter was the cup.
I read, withdrew the curse—and tore the epic up.



THE EDITION DE LOOKS


How very close to truth these bookish men
Can be when in their catalogues they pen

The words descriptive of the wares they hold
To tempt the book-man with his purse of gold!

For instance, they have Dryden—splendid set—
Which some poor wight would part with wealth to get.

’Tis richly bound, its edges gilded—but—
Hard fate—as Dryden well deserves—_uncut_!

For who these days would think to buy the screed
Of dull old dusty Dryden just to read?

In faith if his editions had been kept
Amongst the rarities he’d ne’er have crept!

And then those pompous, overwhelming tomes
You find so oft in overwhelming homes,

No substance on a Whatman surface placed,
In polished leather and in tooling cased,

The gilded edges dazzling to the eye
And flaunting all their charms so wantonly.

These book-men, when they catalogue their books,
Call them in truth _édition de luxe_.

That’s