One that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!--King Lear.
THE material for this paper on the auto-graph hunter, his ways and his manners, has been drawn chiefly from experiences not my own. My personal relations with him have been comparatively restricted, a circumstance to which I owe the privilege of treating the subject with a freedom that might otherwise not seem becoming.
No author is insensible to the compliment in-volved in a request for his autograph, assuming the request to come from some sincere lover of books and bookmen. It is an affair of different complection when he is importuned to give time and attention to the innumerable unknown who "collect" autographs as they would collect post-age stamps, with no interest in the matter be-yond the desire to accumulate as many as possi-ble. The average autograph hunter, with his purposeless insistence, reminds one of the queen in Stockton's story whose fad was "the button-holes of all nations."
In our population of eighty millions and up-ward there are probably two hundred thousand persons interested more or less in what is termed the literary world. This estimate is absurdly low, but it serves to cast a sufficient side-light upon the situation. Now, any unit of these two hundred thousand is likely at any moment to in-dite a letter to some favorite novelist, historian, poet, or what not. It will be seen, then, that the autograph hunter is no inconsiderable per-son. He has made it embarrassing work for the author fortunate or unfortunate enough to be re-garded as worth while. Every mail adds to his reproachful pile of unanswered letters. If he have a conscience, and no amanuensis, he quickly finds himself tangled in the meshes of endless and futile correspondence. Through policy, good nature, or vanity he is apt to become facile prey.
A certain literary collector once confessed in print that he always studied the idiosyncrasies of his "subject" as carefully as another sort of collector studies the plan of the house to which he meditates a midnight visit. We were as-sured that with skillful preparation and adroit approach an autograph could be extracted from anybody. According to the revelations of the writer, Bismarck, Queen Victoria, and Mr.
Gladstone had their respective point of easy access--their one unfastened door or window, metaphorically speaking. The strongest man has his weak side.
Dr. Holmes's affability in replying to every one who wrote to him was perhaps not a trait characteristic of the elder group. Mr. Lowell, for instance, was harder-hearted and rather diffi-cult to reach. I recall one day in the library at Elmwood. As I was taking down a volume from the shelf a sealed letter escaped from the pages and fluttered to my feet. I handed it to Mr. Lowell, who glanced incuriously at the superscription. "Oh, yes," he said, smiling, "I know 'em by instinct." Relieved of its en-velope, the missive turned out to be eighteen months old, and began with the usual amusing solecism: "As one of the most famous of American authors I would like to possess your autograph."
Each recipient of such requests has of course his own way of responding. Mr. Whittier used to be obliging; Mr. Longfellow politic; Mr.
Emerson, always philosophical, dreamily con-fiscated the postage stamps.
