It’s too hot for me to think up anything, so I’m glad a reader sent me this wonderful quote I can pass along:
Sooner or later, every nook and corner will be filled with books, every window will be more or less darkened, and added shelves must be devised. He may find it hard to achieve just the arrangement he wants, but he will find it hardest of all to meet squarely that inevitable inquiry of the puzzled carpenter, as he looks about him, “Have you really read all these books?” The expected answer is, “To be sure, how can you doubt it?” Yet if you asked him in turn, “Have you actually used every tool in your tool-chest?” you would very likely be told, “Not one half as yet, at least this season ; I have the others by me, to use as I need them.” Now if this reply can be fairly made in a simple, well-defined, distinctly limited occupation like that of a joiner, how much more inevitable it is in a pursuit which covers the whole range of thought and all the facts in the universe. The library is the author’s tool-chest. He must at least learn, as he grows older, to take what he wants and to leave the rest.
It’s from the opening paragraph of “Books Unread,” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson; you can read the rest of it here, and I wouldn’t discourage you from doing so—it’s full of tidbits like the exchange with the custodian of the library at Blenheim. Thanks, Rick!
Does anyone know where the original of Anatole France’s reply to a similar criticism, quoted in “Unpacking My Library,” was? All that I find looks to be translating Benjamin.
Ummm, all I get from the link is the cover of the Atlantic Monthly Vol 93 and some bibliographical information and links to similar works. So where is this essay?
Google Books seems to have geographic limits on some content. Accessing this link from China gives a cover page, but when I go through a US-based VPN, I can read the whole article (and what a delightful article it is).
A widely-quoted passage from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan (one example) makes a somewhat similar observation about the value of an unread library in reference to Umberto Eco.
MMcM, according to fr.wikisource it may be
from the short story La chemise in Les sept femmes de la Barbe-Bleue et autres contes merveilleux.
A most rewarding essay. I also enjoyed the little story by Lafcadio Hearn that preceded it.
Stepping back a little further (p. 337), we have an article that concludes:
The discussion of accents starting at p. 863 is not without interest.
Roger Depledge, thanks. Though I actually meant the
one, not the “only exact knowledge” one.
Another copy of Higginson’s essay, without Google’s restrictions, here.
maidhc, here is the Alice Meynell piece on accents to which that evidently refers.
Thank you for those, M. I couldn’t find the right Higginson piece even using a proxy US server.
I found it eventually on Questia. A great read.
Third Anatole France quote then:
from Le Jardin d’Épicure.
Does anyone know who “That Frenchman” is?
That Frenchman and Mr. Barnes of New York are novels by Archibald Clavering Gunter.
The “man of 83,” whose reading list that was, is John Bartlett, he of the quotations.
It’s worth reading Umberto Eco’s little satirical article that Taleb refers to: How to Justify a Private Library, here in Italian, or as a Google Books preview in English.
His suggested answers:
Not strictly relevant, but a very nice toolchest:
http://wins.failblog.org/2011/07/11/epic-win-photos-home-library-win/
Very nice indeed! Here‘s the direct link.
Apparently Benjamin, Eco and Higginson are in A Passion for Books: A Book Lover’s Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore, and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books. Which suggests there are other similar gems there too.
All just excuses for wasteful consumption.