Books: Works, V3

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But I am talking nonsense. The cause of your bibliomania is clear
enough; I must have been dozing, or I should have seen it long ago.
This is your idea of strategy: you know the Emperor's scholarly
tastes, and his respect for culture, and you think it will be worth
something to you if he hears of your literary pursuits. Once let
your name be mentioned to him as a great buyer and collector of
books, and you reckon that your fortune is made. Vile creature! and
is the Emperor drugged with mandragora that he should hear of this
and never know the rest, your daylight iniquities, your tipplings,
your monstrous nightly debauches? Know you not that an Emperor has
many eyes and many ears? Yet _your_ deeds are such as cannot
be concealed from the blind or the deaf. I may tell you at once, as
you seem not to know it, that a man's hopes of the Imperial favour
depend not on his book-bills, but on his character and daily life.
Are you counting upon Atticus and Callinus, the copyists, to put in
a good word for you? Then you are deceived: those relentless
gentlemen propose, with the Gods' good leave, to grind you down and
reduce you to utter destitution. Come to your senses while there is
yet time: sell your library to some scholar, and whilst you are
about it sell your new house too, and wipe off part of your debt to
the slave-dealers.

You see, you will ride both these hobbies at once; there is the
trouble: besides your expensive books you must have your
superannuated minions; you are insatiable in these pursuits, and
you cannot follow both without money. Now observe how precious a
thing is counsel. I recommend you to dispense with the superfluous,
and confine your attention to your other foible; in other words,
keep your money for the slave-dealers, or your private supplies
will run short, and you will be reduced to calling in the services
of freemen, who will want every penny you possess; otherwise there
is nothing to prevent them from telling how your time is spent when
you are in liquor. Only the other day I heard some very ugly
stories about you--backed, too, by ocular evidence: the bystanders
on that occasion are my witnesses how angry I was on your account;
I was in two minds about giving the fellow a thrashing; and the
annoying part of it was that he appealed to more than one witness
who had had the same experience and told just the same tale. Let
this be a warning to you to economize, so that you may be able to
have your enjoyments at home in all security. I do not suggest that
you should give up these practices: that is quite hopeless; the dog
that has gnawed leather once will gnaw leather always.

On the other hand, you can easily do without books. Your education
is complete; you have nothing more to learn; you have the ancients
as it were on the tip of your tongue; all history is known to you;
you are a master of the choice and management of words, you have
got the true Attic vocabulary; the multitude of your books has made
a ripe scholar of you. (You love flattery, and there is no reason
why I should not indulge you as well as another.)

But I am rather curious on one point: what are your favourite books
among so many? Plato? Antisthenes? Archilochus? Hipponax? Or are
they passed over in favour of the orators? Do you ever read the
speech of Aeschines against Timarchus? All that sort of thing I
suppose you have by heart. And have you grappled with Aristophanes
and Eupolis? Did you ever go through the _Baptae_ [Footnote:
See Cotytto in Notes.]? Well then, you must surely have come on
some embarrassing home-truths in that play? It is difficult to
imagine that mind of yours bent upon literary studies, and those
hands turning over the pages. When do you do your reading? In the
daytime, or at night? If the former, you must do it when no one is
looking: and if the latter, is it done in the midst of more
engrossing pursuits, or do you work it in before your rhetorical
outpourings? As you reverence Cotytto, venture not again into the
paths of literature; have done with books, and keep to your own
peculiar business. If you had any sense of shame, to be sure, you
would abandon that too: think of Phaedra's indignant protest
against her sex:

Darkness is their accomplice, yet they fear not,
Fear not the chamber-walls, their confidants.

But no: you are determined not to be cured. Very well: buy book
upon book, shut them safely up, and reap the glory that comes of
possession: only, let that be enough; presume not to touch nor
read; pollute not with that tongue the poetry and eloquence of the
ancients; what harm have they ever done to you?

All this advice is thrown away, I know that. Shall an Ethiopian
change his skin? You will go on buying books that you cannot use--
to the amusement of educated men, who derive profit not from the
price of a book, nor from its handsome appearance, but from the
sense and sound of its contents. You think by the multitude of
books to supply the deficiencies of your education, and to throw
dust in our eyes. Did you but know it, you are exactly like the
quack doctors, who provide themselves with silver cupping-glasses,
gold-handled lancets, and ivory cases for their instruments; they
are quite incapable of using them when the time comes, and have to
give place to some properly qualified surgeon, who produces a
lancet with a keen edge and a rusty handle, and affords immediate
relief to the sufferer. Or here is a better parallel: take the case
of the barbers: you will find that the skilled practitioners have
just the razor, scissors, and mirror that their work requires: the
impostors' razors are numerous, and their mirrors magnificent.
However, that does not serve to conceal their incompetence, and the
result is most amusing: the average man gets his hair cut by one of
their more capable neighbours, and then goes and arranges it before
_their_ glasses. That is just what your books are good for--to
lend to other people; you are quite incapable of using them
yourself. Not that you ever have lent any one a single volume; true
to your dog-in-the-manger principles, you neither eat the corn
yourself, nor give the horse a chance.

There you have my candid opinion about your books: I shall find
other opportunities of dealing with your disreputable conduct in
general.

Pages:
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