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^92
CORNELL
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
THIS
BENNO LOEWY
1854-1919
AND BEQUEATHED TO
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
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Le collectionneur.
olin
The
tine
original of
tiiis
book
is in
restrictions in
text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031034923
A Collector's
Portrait
OF THIS BOOK TWELVE COPIES HAVE BEEN PRINTED ON IMPERIAL JAPANESE VELLUM, AND TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE ON ENFIELD PAPER.
LB COLLBCTIONN^UR
Collector's Portrait
Mar^nal
Frank
Illustrations
by
A. Nankivell.
copyrig-ht 1903
Mi^lS
To
My Old Friend
Colonel V
Aegrotans aegrotanti,
caecus unoculo.
My dear Colonel
Your
your
cate this
I risk
sister,
Madame
who knows
terrible temper,
little
it.
book to you.
bleu
CONTENTS
I.
How
One Becomes a
III.
Collector.
IV.
V.
A COLLECTOR'S PORTRAIT
ANTIQUITY OF THE COLLECTING
MANIA
'npHE
first collector
of
whom
is
his-
Noah.
known animals
But no one will mania was
if I
museum.
may say
so,
of the
Egyptians.
Were
dolls of
wax,
like
Rome
Galbam
auriculis
Huraeroque minorem
Corvinuni, et
nasoque carentem;
human
beings
had
who had lived, who had laughed, who w^ept, who had loved. And these
relics,
sacred
properly
varnished,
swaddled and
of
goods and figured very properly in a legal stock-taking. Herodotus affirms that in an urgent
household
case their proprietors did not hesitate
Who
find in the
tomb
of some usurer contemporary with the Pharaohs a papyrus notebook bearing an item of this kind "Lent to surveyor Metmoses one thousand Theban shekels on the
had the
collecting
mania.
It is certain
Roman
left
on the field and filled three Attic medimns with them, these w^ere the dekalitres of the time. The glorious
trophies were buried afterward under
Now
One of
and
make
ear-rings of them.
my
friends,
a Turkish cavalryman,
clever
in
a Jew of Constan-
little
among
the
manifested
itself
with remarkable
furious collector
statues,
intensity.
What a
and
was
Verres!
Pictures,
chalices, tripods
candle-sticks, all
and
all
all
the divine
gold, silver
soldiers
of
Mummius
for
make
crests
these
creations
these
of
genius,
these
treasures,
atrium of his palace, which resembled the Museum of Cluny in the Quartier
des Carines.
This
a-brac.
was
the
first
and
most
bric-
magnificent triumph of
Roman
Even
Augustus,
though he was, would dared to sweep the world as the simple proconsul had done; and yet he, too, had the love of curiosities. He had collected, in his little house on Mount Palatine, a splendid assortment of Corinthian vases but he confined himself to this specialty. The Romans ridiculed him and perpetrated many a joke on the subject. One day a mischievous wag, attacking with one blow the mania of Caesar and the
;
had
left,
All
tastes,
it
is
are to be
found
in
nature.
Augustus
was
LucuUus
thousand cloaks.
by three thousand Cloak-room and harem no doubt contained more than one useless treasure. LucuUus, however, more generous in these things than the sulsay, -was peopled houris.
tan,
what he
finery.
Man-
to
fit
up those "wonderful
scenes which
with bear and panther shows and occupied three or four hours in the entr'actes of a comedy of Rubrenus Lappa, or a tearful drama of Pupius. But do not be too hard on Lucullus with his trumpery. There was a philcellus
made
hundred
!
Neither
more nor
w^hat
tables!
of
prob-
know
all
that
do
cost the very eyes of your head. These tables sold by weight. You put the
pan of the balance, silver by the bushel in the other side -when the scales balanced, the dealer took the money and the buyer the goods. Cicero one day indulged his fancy to the tune of one million sesterces But what, in heaven's name, did these people eat on their wonderful tables ?
table in one
: !
Parrots' brains,
I fancy,
gabalus.
collecting
one more example of the mania among the Romans. It is proved by the testimony of Dion Cassius and Suetonius that Domitian
I will cite
flies.
collected
-^
II
differentiate the
human
self
as
M. Baudrillart
-would say, in
as the jack-ass;
Thinkers,
So there are animal collectors The ant collects seeds The field-mouse, filberts The dog, fleas The magpie, table silver. But the ant, the fieldmouse, the dog, and the magpie are beasts devoid of fi"ee will, and forced to obey their instinct, as a cuckoo, once wound, is
forced to
mark the
hour.
the condition of
Quite different
is
man.
free.
He
thinks,
w^ills,
he cannot exe-
any
most
insigit
nificant,
by
is
Only, for
When you
see
a hole, you never think of asking him the reason of so simpk an action.
in
choly brain.
But
if
you should
sur-
some act which cannot be explained by any physical or mental necessity like thrumming a guitar before the knave of diamondsyouw^ould torture your soul to divine the cause of what would seem to you a mental aberration. Well, this musical pastime to which a
prise one in the perpetration of
is not
more
ex-
traordinary in
sight of a
in
my
wthout
being condemned to
ing mania.
A wag
series
of metamorphoses
a human being
me for a
discovered
on ten
collec-
love
train
You
see
mania
is
always some
As
expected.
in
TONTAIGNE,
following Valerius
named
Cippus,
on him by the stirring spectacle of a bull-fight, w^as much surprised on awaking, to discover on his brow a triumphant pair of horns.
sion
left
natural;
what
is less
so
is
to find a
Montaigne
It is
not
faculties,
and, in
the material
envelope
here not a
them as
cage.
it is
And
question of the
the soul, as
it
that mirror of
of the genall in-
deluge. No, I
eral
am speaking
also,
the
interpreters of
our passions.
on our bodies.
a very
; :
skillful
observer to recognize at a
glance
tailor,
by the convexity of
his
tibias
of his shoulders
A fire
of his head.
frequent repetition
tudes.
But the attitudes of the soul, who has ever seen them? And_ hoAV can habits peculiar to it model our body
in hollows or in
relief,
when
their im-
material essence
depression nor
further,
admits of neither
protrusion?
soul,
How,
whether
you assign
a residence
in the brain,
know not who, how can modify in any way the form of a
tibia or of
And
yet
it is
the
and from the heels to the is a book very legible and head, sometimes very indiscreet. I know^ a man, not a physician or a philosopher, as you might think, but an optician, a modest manufacturer
pince-nez
leisure
study
obscure
is
matters.
able to
of the
first
this
mon-
example,
his
arm,
the
a drunkard
Ask him by what index he forms his opinion and he will say, How^ do I know ? an impercepcarat or bezique.
tible swelling
of the shoulder-blade, a
microscopic
ankle.
Starting from
explain
he will
readily
a stingy man is very different from that of an ambitious one, and that
betw^een the calf of an entomologist
is
may
I
seem rather
consider
irrelevant,
mj'-
as
shall
present
to you.
The
original of
my
portrait
was commubarometer-
nicated to
me by my
ters
than axioms.
So I begin The collecting-mania is not a bed of Procrustus. The collector is then indifferently tall, medium, or small of
stature.
his
body, the
and
He has a
turned
outward,
an
honest,
con-
templative foot.
His neck
is like his
hands.
His brow
shiny.
is
bald,
smooth and
As to moral
the
collector
the slave,
himself
distinguishes
by negative
qualities.
To
speak frankly, he has neither vices nor virtues, but simply properties,
like
inanimate objects.
heard of one
secreted
a function of the
flabby brain
madrepore.
Yet this
it.
dull, sluggish,
has an irritable
fibre
running through
it will
Irritate that
and
start
up
with such
shrill,
marmots.
This fibre
is
the jealous,
it is
the fairy
the idea
monomania
transformed.
tic
the
collector
becomes
a moment ago, you see an enthusiast, a visionary, a demoniac. Let his passion rise to a paroxysm, as it has been known to and the collector becomes capable of
creature of
fanatic,
all
heroisms as well as
all
crimes.
row
Rene Cardillac
complete.
assassinated
cus-
Levaillant
the
passion
for
and Rene Cardillac the hobby of humming-birds and each would no doubt do what the other did.
Conclusion:
Do not
cast stones at
lY
divided into
Pacotilleurs, or trash-collectors.
The philosopher Damasippus also was a pacotilleur; he turned his house into a store-room for bric-a-brac and bartered his last
mentioned.
gold-piece for the
foot-bath
of the
The type of Yerres and Damasippus we now know by the hundred. They collect, they pile up w^ithout choice, without preference,
robber Sisyphus.
By
this sentimental
all
term they
designate
have at some time belonged to some historic personage or have figured as accessories in some romantic adventure.
known
curiosity-col-
There
is
nothing so freakish,
so
as the
museum
of a pacotilleur.
It is
hair, carved in
cast in bronze,
the
inventions,
all
dreams, nightmares, of
all reigns, all
societies,
jostle,
each other.
zac's
Have you ever read Bal"Peau de Chagrin?'' Have you ever penetrated with Raphael into the gloomy shop of Job ? Well, in the
cabinet of the pacotilleur, as in the den
of the old antiquary,
side
you
will find,
by
side,
the charming
and the
the
beautiful
and
the
Nile,
misshapen;
faiences
crocodiles
of the
of
bones,
laces,
bludgeons,
moccasins,
If
reliquaries,
and
frigates in ivory.
your
friend
suppose a pacotilleur
might have a
friend
makes
is
pretences
in historical science, he
capable of
showing you the pole-ax of Charles Martel, the tooth-pick of the Abbe Sugar, and the gorget of Corbulon. The class of pacotilleurs is relatively small in number. The reason for this
is
all objects
the
fill.
The
by taste or by
a
single
interested in
category of objects.
It
may
be subdivided
into
two
groups
The The
ture
routiniers, or imitators.
fantaisistes, or vagarians.
it is
One might say of most of these unfortunates what Horace said of his contemporary Iccius, a mad lover of Chinese curios and old books
done them.
Pollicitus meliora
routinier always trudges along path beaten by his predecessors, and his ambition is satisfied in collectin the
The
by
others.
There
is
a
in
famed
books,
shells.
fear that
a routinier
explored regions.
seen
them condemn themselves to little comer, an acre, a perch, even a fathom, forever turning about in this narrow circle like a squirrel in his wheel ? I knew one collector who, in the
nosing about one
matter of
en-Vexin.
canvases of painters born at MagnyAnother, a conchologist, has a passion only for the edible snail.
As
of curio-hunting.
It
is
almost
unbelievable
what
monomaniac can indulge in when his mania has no other guide than caprice.
product of nature or of
humap
have a relative
in one of
And
cooks,
you, Catherine,
my
pearl
of
was
it
before me,
who
inspired you
Flat
stamped with a simple number, with two cannon crossed, with an anchor, with a hunting horn, with a star or a grenade, what have I not found in that little chamois bag, which passed, I don't know how, from my loto box to the bottom of your trunk! And each one of these treasures calls up some memory for you, I suppose,
Catherine
Despite
?
of, or, if
and routiniers, worthy of the name. Pacotilleurs have really not the true manners and habits of the class. Because their mania is directed toward everything it is in reality directed toward nothing. No object
that
is
fantaisistes
is
ever lacking in
their
collection
of
in
who
is
expectation, always in some tantalizing specimen, some image of Brutus or Cassius w^hich shines only by its absence from
always
search of
But
this
is in
fixed idea,
indispensable
the
raison
d'etre, in short, of
the collector.
It is said
him from his vows so that he might marry Laura, but the poet refused because he still had a
offered to release
great
many
sonnets to write.
The
of Petrarch.
For
one, love
;
was
only a pretext
for sonnets
ting passion
tions.
When
has spun
its
and stupid
sect
in idleness
and
ennui.
man it man to a
;
THE COLLECTOR OF OLD BOOKS TDERMIT me now to leave genand to complete this monograph by sketching, in broad lines, an individual of the genus.
eralities
I shall select
my
individual
among
a
He
shall be
thermore,
if you please, and fura particular kind of a bibliomaniac, a lover of old books,
a bouquineur.
The bouquineur
is
distinquished
from others of
traits.
his
genus by pecuHar
Thus,
will
while
their
other
bibUomaniacs
hunt
sometimes in the
friends,
of their
you w^ill never find a bouquineur rummaging anywhere except in some little comer display, in the dusty
that
bridges,
in the
boxes
sold
by the Auvergnats, in the w^aste paper under some butcher's or tobacconist's counter.
the bou-
are
more
dealer's
of
money that
book
lovers
Not in the least I know one who is a lavish millionaire. You do not understand? Listen, then, for now w^e come to the point of
;
the matter.
The bouquineur has a peculiarity in common w^ith the w^oman enceinte. Both have strange cravings, and in
both cases these cravings can be satisfied only under certain conditions. Thus, the w^oman has an intense
a bite of rabbit, but this rabbit must be one with a white foot it must have been killed in this certain field and not in another in the morning and not in the evening; in fair w^eather and not in fog. The bouquineur is equally definite
desire for
;
and exacting in
for
his desires.
He
longs
is
not so
much the
It is
old
book
it.
itself
as the man-
ner of acquiring
no great
article,
pay
quays
for
explore, to ransack
Nota Renard is the term applied to a rare and curious book unearthed by a collector in the display of a second-hand dealer, who does
:
not
of the book.
dirty boxes
thrilling
little
under your
some
typographical
it,
that
what may be
called
a streak
of fortune, a triumph.
It is
name
braves
all
public opinion
and exposes
the
men
as well as to
I
have seen
hour under shelter of a carriage-w^ay, a murderous draught, waiting for ray of sun to come out and permit a a neighboring second-hand man to
in
oil-
the rain.
most
their
most
baptism of their
first
bom,
tell
unto death,
who profited by
the
momentary absence
the
of his nurse to
and rush to
Quay Voltaire. Would you like to know, now^, w^hat books are so madly pursued by
bouquineurs ?
Some
collectors,
the
dilettanti of
the genus,
seek
Mam-
Manual of
Glow-Worms.
Others again buy up indiscriminately all kinds of works of
subjects
which the
which
the
The Inffuence of Military Music on Moral Sense of Wool-Bearing AniComparative Study ofIdioms of the
mals.
the Dialect of
From
neur
all
the foregoing
it
would be
natural to conclude that the bouquiis a profound student, given to scholarly research in the specialty to
in ignor-
He
than be condemned to
one of his books.
Why,
up these
mountains of paper?
No one has
out.