X.
Reading edition
THE BOOK-AUCTIONEER.
here is one figure that stands in a very unpleasant relation to books
If anybody has any curiosity to know what I consider the most undesirable occupation of mankind, I will answer candidly—that of an auctioneer of private libraries. It does not seem to have fallen into disrepute like that of the headsman or hangman, and perhaps it is as unpleasantly essential as that of the undertaker. But it generally thrives on the unhappiness of those who are compelled to part with their books, on the rivalries of the rich, and the strifes of the trade It was urged against Mr. Cleveland, on his first canvass for the Presidency, that when he was sheriff he had hanged a murderer. For my own part, I admired him for performing that solemn office himself rather than hiring an underling to do it. But if he had been a book-auctioneer, I might have been prejudiced against him
Not so ignoble and inhuman perhaps as that of the slave-seller, still the business must breed a sort of callousness which is abhorrent to the genial Book-Worm. How I hate the glib rattle of his tongue, the mouldiness of his jests and the transparency of his puffery! I should think he would hate himself. It must be worse than acting Hamlet or Humpty Dumpty a hundred consecutive nights Dante had no punishment for the Book-Worm in hell, if I remember right, but if he deserved any pitiless reprobation, it would be found in compelling him to cry off books to all eternity Grant that the auctioneer is a person of sensibility and acquainted with good books, then his calling must give him many a pang as he observes the ignorance and carelessness of his audience. It is better and more fitting that he should know little of his wares. He ought to be well paid for his work, and he is—no man gets so much for mere talk except the lawyer, and perhaps not even he. I do not so much complain of his favoritism. When there is something especially desirable going, I frequently fail to catch his eye, and my rival gets the prize But in this he is no worse than the Speaker. On the other hand he sometimes loads me up with a thing that I do not want, and in possession of which I would be unwilling to be found dead, pretending that I winked at him—a species of imposition which it is impolitic to resent for fear of being entirely ignored. These discretionary favors are regarded as a practical joke and must not be declined But what I do complain of is his commercial stolidity, surpassing that of Charles Surface when he sold the portraits of his ancestors. The “bete noir” of the book trade is
THE STOLID AUCTIONEER. et not a sad ghost From the scribbling host Revisit this workaday sphere; He’ll find in the sequel All talents are equal When they come to the auctioneer. Not a whit cares he What the book may be, Whether missal with glorious show, A folio Shakespeare, Or an Elzevir, Or a Tupper, or E. P. Roe. Without any qualms He knocks down the Psalms, Or the chaste Imitatio, And takes the same pains To enhance his gains With a ribald Boccaccio. He rattles them off, Not stopping to cough, He shows no distinction of person; One minute’s enough For similar stuff Like Shelley and Ossian Macpherson. A Paradise Lost Is had for less cost Than a bulky “fifteener” in Greek, And Addison’s prose Quite frequently goes For a tenth of a worthless “unique.” This formula stale Of his will avail For an epitaph meet for his rank, When dropping his gavel He falls in the gravel, “Do I hear nothing more?—gone—to—?
I speak feelingly, but I think it is pardonable. I once went through an auction sale of my own books, and while I lost money on volumes on which I had bestowed much thought, labor and expense, I made a profit on Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall” in tree-calf. I do not complain of the loss; what I was mortified by was the profit. But the auctioneer was not at all abashed; in fact he seemed rather pleased, and apparently regarded it as a feather in his cap. I have always suspected that the shameless purchaser was Silas Wegg.
