s, a taste held by scholars and collectors, and quite beyond
the popular comprehension. The respect for a book is essential to the
dignity and consideration of the place of literature in the world, and
when books are treated with no more regard than the newspaper, it is a
sign that literature is losing its power. Even the collector, who may
read little and care more for the externals than for the soul of his
favorites, by the honor he pays them, by the solicitude he expends upon
their preservation without spot, by the lavishness of expense upon
binding, contributes much to the dignity of that art which preserves for
the race the continuity of its thought and development. If Henderson
loved books merely as a collector whose taste for luxury and expense
takes this direction, his indulgence could not but have a certain
refining influence. I could not see that he cultivated any decided
specialty, but he had many rare copies which had cost fabulous prices,
the possession of which gives a reputation to any owner. "My shelves of
Americana," he said, "are nothing like Goodloe's, who has a lot of scarce
things that I am hoping to get hold of some day. But there's a little
thing" (it was a small coffee-colored tract of six leaves, upon which the
binder of the city had exercised his utmost skill) "which Goodloe offered
me five hundred dollars for the other day. I picked it up in a New
Hampshire garret." Not the least interesting part of the collection was
first editions of American authors--a person's value to a collector is
often in proportion to his obscurity--and what most delighted him among
them were certain thin volumes of poetry, which the authors since
becoming famous had gone to a good deal of time and expense to suppress.
The world seems to experience a lively pleasure in holding a man to his
early follies. There were many examples of superb binding, especially of
exquisite tooling on hog-skin covers--the appreciation of which has
lately greatly revived. The recent rage for bindings has been a sore
trouble to students and collectors in special lines, raising the prices
of books far beyond their intrinsic value. I had a charming afternoon in
Henderson's library, an enjoyment not much lessened at the time by
experiencing in it, with him, rather a sense of luxury than of learning.
It is true, one might pass an hour altogether different in the garret of
a student, and come away with quite other impressions of the pageant of
li