lend the aid of
your more practiced eye, and superior knowledge of how to search; or
else, let the reader look for it in some more copious anthology, which
you may put before him. There are multitudes of inquiries for the authors
of poems, which are in no sense "familiar quotations," nor even select
quotations, but which are merely common-place sentiments expressed in
language quite unpoetic,--and not the work of any notable writer at all.
They are either the production of some utterly obscure author of a volume
of verse, quite unknown to fame, or, still more probably, the
half-remembered verses of some anonymous contributor to the poet's corner
of the newspaper or magazine. In such cases, where you see no poetic
beauty or imaginative power in the lines, it is well to inform the
inquirer at once that you do not think them the production of any noted
writer, and thus end the fruitless search for memorizing what is not at
all memorable. What may strike uncultivated readers as beautiful, may be
set down as trash, by a mind that has been fed upon the masterpieces of
poetry. Not that the librarian is to assume the air of an oracle or a
censor, (something to be in all circumstances avoided) or to pronounce
positive judgment upon what is submitted: he should inform any admiring
reader of a passage not referred to in any of the anthologies, and not
possessing apparent poetic merit, that he believes the author is unknown
to fame. That should be sufficient for any reasonably disposed reader,
who, after search duly completed, will go away answered, if not
satisfied.

I gave some instances of the singular variety of questions asked of a
librarian. Let me add one, reported by Mr. Robert Harrison, of the London
Library, as asked of him by William M. Thackeray. The distinguished
author of Esmond and The Virginians wanted a book that would tell of
General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. "I don't want to know about his
battles", said the novelist. "I can get all that from the histories. I
want something that will tell me the color of the breeches he wore."
After due search, the librarian was obliged to confess that there was no
such book.

A librarian is likely to be constantly in a position to aid the
uninformed reader how to use the books of reference which every public
library contains. The young person who is new to the habit of
investigation, or the adult who has never learned the method of finding
things, needs to be shown how to us