THE DEATHLESS BOOK

I.

THE WORLD'S BOOK.

Books, like men, are mortal. Great libraries resemble cities: alcoves of the latest volumes are thronged, like crowded streets, while those of generations gone are silent as the sepulchres of their writers' dust; visits to the one almost as rare as to the other. The old catalogues are monumental inscriptions of departed glory. We speak of the rule, not of the exceptions.

It is probable that not more than one per cent of all literature is called worthy of being reprinted five years after its issue. The average edition of books issued in Great Britain is seven hundred and fifty copies.

But what are these among the libraries, public and private, demanding all that is valuable? During the discussion of the English statute of copy

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right it was stated that not more than one book in every eight reaches the second edition. In a certain sense it is the demand that marks the value of a book, although such a demand may come late, as in the works of Milton and of Shakespeare. More than one critic has deemed some now immortal gem of thought well-nigh worthless; as blind to its real value as was the original owner of the since famous Comstock lode, who sold the mountain of gold for a pony and some whiskey.

The statement of that prince among publishers, Charles Knight, will stand undisputed. "Nearly all that is glorious and enduring in our literature," he says in "Shadows of the Old Booksellers," "has been built upon the demands of the people."

By two tests, the insufficiency of the numbers of volumes to meet even the ordinary demands of libraries, and the lack of a popular demand, — the general value or worthlessness of books must be determined, leaving a few exceptional cases. A careful estimate has resulted in the following well-authenticated statement: "out of every thousand volumes published, six hundred and fifty do not see the end of their first year, one hundred and fifty do not see the end of the third, and only fifty survive seven years' publicity." This esti

mate covers, of course, all publications, including the most superficial.

There may be somewhat of a grim satisfaction in the assurance that not all books demand our study. Mr. Emerson, assuming one's ability, under most favorable circumstances, to read for sixty years, every day, from dawn till dark, in the Imperial Library at Paris, convinced himself that the reader would die in the first alcoves. It was neither egotism nor travesty when, in comparison with the rich Cambridge Library, the Concord sage could say of his own: "I seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home. The crowds and centuries of books are only commentary and elucidation, echoes and weakeners of these few great voices of Time."

The biographies of books, if written, would doubtless sustain the assertion of the quiet scholar. There was a shadow of truth in De Quincey's extravagant statement that every year buries its own literature. Lest there may seem an undervaluation of what authors have written, we recall the words of the essayist, Whipple, that "one may be a maker of books, without being a maker of thought."

That even the books of highest aims are supplemented by others is no logic against their power. "A book," says Disraeli, "may be as great a thing as a battle," but none the less must there come a history after the battle, and that history must be written. To a certain extent, however, as the echoes of the battle shall roll over the pages, the earlier records will be laid upon the shelf.

The later scientific treatises are sure to supplant those of an earlier day. The progress of discovery gives prominence to the latest thought in all avenues of scientific research. Without the earlier treatises the later would have no existence; but the forms of the first are neglected while their contents make others rich. There is no disrespect to Newton's memory when his great discoveries are adopted by the whole modern world, and are so well known that his "Principia" serves only as a work for occasional reference. The value of the book is not always to be measured by its life. No man contributed more to the intellectualism of the day than did John Calvin, yet this does not require the yearly reproduction of his "Institutes." The book, like the seed of spring time, may die because it can do no more. The form of the seed may be utterly forgotten in the great harvest.

To the incompleteness of all works of science, must be added also the meagreness of history. Alexander, vain in exploit, had wisdom to see that in the distant future a single page would cover all that the world might care to read concerning him. Present events seem larger than they will a generation hence. No generation can write its own true history; its volumes will be valuable for reference, but for little besides. The standard works come late, and these are covered by the law of the "survival of the fittest."

For illustration of such a statement we have only to refer to the act of Parliament protecting the ten great universities and colleges of England, Scotland and Ireland against the decision of the House of Lords in 1772, as to copyright. It must be remembered that some of these institutions were publishers, holding for their own profits whatever gains should accrue to the trade. These universities and colleges applied for and obtained an act แ "giving them a perpetual copyright of all books belonging to them, or which might afterwards be bequeathed to or acquired by them." Among the valuable works of the English-speaking tongue those of these chief literary centres could scarcely have been called inferior; but the results of all