rest, than it
did with the acquirement of literature. Thus, with the delusive idea
that I was to be ushered into some of the secret enjoyments of the
pleasing diversion of book-buying, I presently found myself more
familiar with the habits, vices, and various unimportant matters of the
author's conception--points, in short, having no bearing whatever upon
the subject under consideration--than with the pleasures of a
book-collector. The book was not badly written, nor wholly
uninteresting; but if a man buys a ticket to the opera, he doesn't go
prepared to see a cock-fight.

For literary scoffers and malcontents who find fault with everything
and everybody, who even scold publishers because their own books bring
but meagre royalties, who fuss and fume over the harmless foibles of
the very ones upon whom they depend for their audience, and like an
ungrateful dog fasten their teeth in the charitable hand that offers
them food, there can be but small sympathy. One is tempted to enlarge
upon this familiar type, but here I am digressing from my subject, and
am committing much the same offence as that of which I have elsewhere
accused others.

I have been asked to include within the scope of my article a few
remarks about Book Clubs and Book Societies. In presuming to trespass
upon sacred yet inviting ground of this character, I must be
understood as approaching the subject with due reverence and apology.
It is an indisputable fact that among the agencies that have
contributed to the advancement and ennobling of the bookmaker's art in
the past twenty years, the legitimate Book Club has been one of the
most potential. We have only to refer to _Growell's American Book
Clubs_ in order to learn of the many clubs and societies of this kind
which have arisen in the past few years, with varying degrees of
success and failure,--success, when intelligently conducted upon
honest cooeperative principles, and failure, if irrationally directed,
without regard to the maxims upon which successful clubs are managed.
The province of these worthy accessories in the world of fine
bookmaking has not been free from invasion by sharks and charlatans,
some of whom have succeeded for a time under the guise of honest and
reciprocal motives.

In this country there are private book clubs and societies that have
won places of enviable distinction both here and abroad, and naturally
among the foremost of these are the ones which have been pestered by