on,
And the craft of divination,
And Scripture revelation,
And the secret of salvation.

He must know the population
Of every separate nation,
The amount of immigration,
And be wise in arbitration,
And the art of navigation,
And colonial annexation,
And problems Australasian.

He must take his daily ration
Of catalogue vexation,
And endless botheration
With ceaseless complication
Of decimal notation,
Or Cutter combination.

To complete his education,
He must know the valuation
Of all the publications
Of many generations,
With their endless variations,
And true interpretations.

When he's spent a life in learning,
If his lamp continues burning,
When he's mastered all philosophy,
And the science of theosophy,
Grown as learned as Mezzofanti,
As poetical as Dante,
As wise as Magliabecchi,
As profound as Mr. Lecky--
Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge
Than are found in any college;
He may take his full degree
Of Ph. or LL. D.
And prepare to pass the portal
That leads to life immortal.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Mostly from the Library Journal, New York.

CHAPTER 26.

RARE BOOKS.

There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature in which so
large an amount of actual mis-information or of ignorance exists as that
of the rarity of many books. The makers of second-hand catalogues are
responsible for much of this, in describing the books which they wish to
sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds from
absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world. I have had
multitudes of volumes offered for sale whose commercial value was hardly
as many cents as was demanded in dollars by their ill-informed owners,
who fancied the commonest book valuable because they "had never seen
another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of any book are worth
anything, unless he has had long experimental knowledge of the market for
books both in America and in Europe.

What constitutes rarity in books is a question that involves many
particulars. Thus, a given book may be rare in the United States which is
abundant in London; or rare in London, when common enough in Germany. So
books may be rare in one age which were easily found in another: and
again, books on certain subjects may be so absorbed by public demand when
events excite interest in th