ould have had this opinion,
had Providence ordained that we should walk together the quiet pathway
of New England life; would Yseult always have retained the exuberance
and sweetness of her youth, had she and I realized what might have
been? Would Fanchonette always have sympathized with the whims and
vagaries of the restless yet loyal soul that hung enraptured on her
singing in the Quartier Latin so long ago that the memory of that song
is like the memory of a ghostly echo now?

Away with such reflections! Bring in the candles, good servitor, and
range them at my bed's head; sweet avocation awaits me, for here I have
a goodly parcel of catalogues with which to commune. They are messages
from Methuen, Sotheran, Libbie, Irvine, Hutt, Davey, Baer, Crawford,
Bangs, McClurg, Matthews, Francis, Bouton, Scribner, Benjamin, and a
score of other friends in every part of Christendom; they deserve and
they shall have my respectful--nay, my enthusiastic attention. Once
more I shall seem to be in the old familiar shops where treasures
abound and where patient delving bringeth rich rewards. Egad, what a
spendthrift I shall be this night; pence, shillings, thalers, marks,
francs, dollars, sovereigns--they are the same to me!

Then, after I have comprehended all the treasures within reach, how
sweet shall be my dreams of shelves overflowing with the wealth of
which my fancy has possessed me!

Then shall my library be devote
To the magic of Niddy-Noddy,
Including the volumes which Nobody wrote
And the works of Everybody.

XVII

THE NAPOLEONIC RENAISSANCE

If I had begun collecting Napoleonana in my youth I should now have on
hand a priceless collection. This reminds me that when I first came to
Chicago suburban property along the North Shore could be bought for
five hundred dollars an acre which now sells for two hundred dollars a
front foot; if I had purchased real estate in that locality when I had
the opportunity forty years ago I should be a millionnaire at the
present time.

I think I am more regretful of having neglected the Napoleonana than of
having missed the real-estate chances, for since my library contains
fewer than two hundred volumes relating to Bonaparte and his times I
feel that I have been strangely remiss in the pursuit of one of the
most interesting and most instructive of bibliomaniac fads. When I
behold the remarkable collections of Napoleonana made by certain
friends of mi