About my favorite copy of the ``Pilgrim's Progress'' many a pleasant reminiscence lingers, for it was one of the books my grandmother gave my father when he left home to engage in the great battle of life; when my father died this thick, dumpy little volume, with its rude cuts and poorly printed pages, came into my possession. I do not know what part this book played in my father's life, but I can say for myself that it has brought me solace and cheer a many times.
The only occasion upon which I felt bitterly toward Dr. O'Rell was when that personage observed in my hearing one day that Bunyan was a dyspeptic, and that had he not been one he would doubtless never have written the ``Pilgrim's Progress.''
I took issue with the doctor on this point; whereupon he cited those visions and dreams, which, according to the light of science as it now shines, demonstrate that Bunyan's digestion must have been morbid. And, forthwith, he overwhelmed me with learned instances from Galen and Hippocrates, from Spurzheim and Binns, from Locke and Beattie, from Malebranche and Bertholini, from Darwin and Descartes, from Charlevoix and Berkeley, from Heraclitus and Blumenbach, from Priestley and Abercrombie; in fact, forsooth, he quoted me so many authorities that it verily seemed to me as though the whole world were against me!
I did not know until then that Dr. O'Rell had made a special study of dreams, of their causes and of their signification. Ihad always supposed that astrology was his particular hobby, in which science I will concede him to be deeply learned, even though he has never yet proved to my entire satisfaction that the reason why my copy of Justinian has faded from a royal purple to a pale blue is, first, because the binding was renewed at the wane of the moon and when Sirius was in the ascendant, and, secondly, because (as Dr. O'Rell has discovered) my binder was born at a moment fifty-six years ago when Mercury was in the fourth house and Herschel and Saturn were aspected in conjunction, with Sol at his northern declination.
Dr. O'Rell has frequently expressed surprise that I have never wearied of and drifted away from the book-friendships of my earlier years. Other people, he says, find, as time elapses, that they no longer discover those charms in certain books which attracted them so powerfully in youth. ``We have in our earlier days,'' argues the doctor, ``friendships so dear to us that we would repel with horror the suggestion that we could ever become heedless or forgetful of them; yet, alas, as we grow older we gradually become indifferent to these first friends, and we are weaned from them by other friendships; there even comes a time when we actually wonder how it were possible for us to be on terms of intimacy with such or such a person. We grow away from people, and in like manner and for similar reasons we grow away from books.''
Is it indeed possible for one to become indifferent to an object he has once loved? I can hardly believe so. At least it is not so with me, and, even though the time may come when I shall no longer be able to enjoy the uses of these dear old friends with the old-time enthusiasm, I should still regard them with that tender reverence which in his age the poet Longfellow expressed when looking round upon his beloved books:
Sadly as some old mediaeval knight Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield--The sword two-handed and the shining shield Suspended in the hall and full in sight, While secret longings for the lost delight Of tourney or adventure in the field Came over him, and tears but half concealed Trembled and fell upon his beard of white;So I behold these books upon their shelf My ornaments and arms of other days;Not wholly useless, though no longer used, For they remind me of my other self Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways In which I walked, now clouded and confused.
If my friend O'Rell's theory be true, how barren would be Age!
Lord Bacon tells us in his ``Apothegms'' that Alonzo of Aragon was wont to say, in commendation of Age, that Age appeared to be best in four things: Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink;old friends to trust; and old authors to read. Sir John Davys recalls that ``a French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of companions: Men, women and books,'' and my revered and beloved poet-friend, Richard Henry Stoddard, has wrought out this sentiment in a poem of exceeding beauty, of which the concluding stanza runs in this wise:
Better than men and women, friend, That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, Are the books their cunning hands have penned, For they depart, but the books remain;Through these they speak to us what was best In the loving heart and the noble mind;All their royal souls possessed Belongs forever to all mankind!
When others fail him, the wise man looks To the sure companionship of books.
If ever, O honest friends of mine, I should forget you or weary of your companionship, whither would depart the memories and the associations with which each of you is hallowed! Would ever the modest flowers of spring-time, budding in pathways where I no longer wander, recall to my failing sight the vernal beauty of the Puritan maid, Captivity? In what reverie of summer-time should I feel again the graciousness of thy presence, Yseult?
And Fanchonette--sweet, timid little Fanchonette! would ever thy ghost come back from out those years away off yonder ? Be hushed, my Beranger, for a moment; another song hath awakened softly responsive echoes in my heart! It is a song of Fanchonette:
In vain, in vain; we meet no more, Nor dream what fates befall;And long upon the stranger's shore My voice on thee may call, When years have clothed the line in moss That tells thy name and days, And withered, on thy simple cross, The wreaths of Pere la Chaise!
