The Private Library Part 8

'The idea which might first occur to the mind is that of a single s.p.a.cious apartment; but for convenience and in order to preserve the domestic character, it is generally preferable to make use of several smaller apartments as a _Suite of Libraries_. On this plan the arrangement which is perhaps most favourable to considerations of utility, and on the whole most characteristic, is to set out a given width of clear pa.s.sage way along the central line of the rooms, and then to divide the s.p.a.ce on each side into a succession of compartments or bays, by means of transverse bookcases in pairs back to back; such bays being only large enough to accommodate a reading table with sufficient s.p.a.ce around for reaching the books, opening the doors of the cases if any, and so on. If the rooms be lighted from the roof, the lights ought to correspond with the division into compartments, so that none of the fronts of the bookcases shall be placed in shadow. If there be windows in the walls, there ought to be one in each bay along one side of the room or both as may be desired. Bookcases against the walls are obviously most serviceable with the ceiling light; with side windows, even when these are on a high level, there is always a difficulty in reading the back lettering under the light; and when the windows are on a low level, dwarf bookcases under them are practically of little use.

'As for _artistic treatment_, nothing can be more appropriate for the character of a library than those effects which are at the command of the architect in a suite of apartments of this kind, laid out probably with some variety in the general forms as well as in the fittings, and involving perhaps the introduction of sculptures and paintings of a suitable kind. Elaborate effects, however, of whatever sort, and the accommodation of any other works of art than those whose merits are kindred to the character of the more proper contents, ought not to be encouraged.'

A second or alternative plan is a large room with a gallery.

'As regards curiosities and other _artistic or scientific collections_, these may very properly be accommodated, whether in upright cases to correspond with the bookcases, or in cabinets to take the place of the reading tables.

'The arrangements proper for the alternative plan of a large _single library_ are obviously simple. A gallery is probably carried round the apartment; the bookcases extend along the wall below and are reproduced above; the light comes either from the roof or the upper part of the walls; the floor area is generally occupied solely by reading tables and cabinets. Objects of art and curiosity, when of large size, are more prominently displayed by this arrangement, and the whole effect may be made very imposing; but it is doubtful whether convenience and comfort can by any means be so properly provided for as in the other model.

'There are questions of detail which might be further entered upon, but a reference to what has already been advanced under the head of the ordinary library will probably suffice.'

In other parts of his excellent manual, Mr. Kerr goes more into detail, and refers to the various general purposes to which a library, as distinct from a study, is put in a country house, as follows:--

'There is a certain standard room which const.i.tutes the library of an average gentleman's house, and the various gradations by which this may be either diminished in importance or augmented are easily understood.

It is not a library in the sole sense of a depository for books. There is, of course, the family collection, and the bookcases in which this is accommodated form the chief furniture of the apartment. But it would be an error, except in very special circ.u.mstances, to design the library for mere study. It is primarily a sort of morning-room for gentlemen rather than anything else. Their correspondence is done here, their reading, and, in some measure, their lounging; and the billiard-room, for instance, is not unfrequently attached to it. At the same time the ladies are not exactly excluded.

'The _position_ of the room internally ought therefore to be in immediate connexion with the princ.i.p.al dwelling rooms, so as to be equally accessible; whilst, on the other hand, as regards external influences, it ought to be kept sufficiently quiet (although this is very seldom a practical problem), to prevent the interruption of reading or writing. In accordance with these general ideas, and bearing out, moreover, the somewhat sober effect which bookcases always produce, the _style_ of design and decoration ought to be, although not devoid of cheerfulness, certainly subdued in character.'

As regards aspect, Mr. Kerr is at one with the old Vitruvius already referred to.

'It is not often easy to obtain a choice _aspect_ for the library, but whenever this primary pleasantness can be had for it so much the better, and it certainly ought never to be entirely neglected in this respect.

The reasons for preferring the south-east in the case of day rooms generally have already been argued; for a library, perhaps, a rather more eastward aspect is better, so that the sun may be off the windows at least before noon; even due east might be preferred by some persons, the suns.h.i.+ne being thus lost about half-past ten. In any case, however, the morning sun is to be preferred to that of midday or afternoon. If the room be large enough _end windows_ may be used to advantage here as elsewhere. A _bay window_ also is often adopted.

'A difficult question which often arises is how sufficiently to provide for persons engaged in writing a _front light from the left_. It is not that a snug seat by the fireside, with a table conveniently at hand, and a left front light, can by any possibility be provided for many persons at once; but it is very unfortunate when no position whatever will combine these advantages. In a library especially this problem must be well worked out, and not for one writer only, but for several. Ingenuity and perseverance will accomplish wonders, and therefore, with the help of end light, a good library may be expected in this respect to be brought very near perfection.

'The _fireplace_ ought to be placed so as to make a good winter fireside, because this is in a measure a sitting-room.

'_Intercommunication_ is frequently made with the drawing-room, and sometimes intimately, and this carries with it, no doubt, a certain sort of convenience, because the two rooms can be thrown together occasionally; but it is a question whether, in a good house, and looking at such a question broadly, it is not, on the whole, a serious loss to both rooms as regards their more proper purposes. A door to the dining-room is not formally advisable, nor even one to the gentleman's room, although both these arrangements are to be met with, and are occasionally convenient. A communication with the billiard-room, sometimes made, may give the library too completely the character of a lounge, so as to render it somewhat unfit for its better purposes. When the library of a small house is used as a study, by a clergyman, for instance, or as the business room, a door to the dining-room may be so useful as to be specially admissible, the dining-room being thus brought to serve as a waiting-room for the occasion. The interposition, if possible, of a lobby or small ante-room will, however, be an aid to propriety in almost all these cases.

'It is to be observed that we have been hitherto dealing with the ordinary library of an average house and no more; but when the owner is a man of learning we must either add a _study_ or const.i.tute the library itself one. In the latter case, in order to prevent disturbance, the door will be more conveniently placed, not in the main corridor, but indirectly connected therewith. No door of intercommunication ought to connect it with any other room (except possibly the gentleman's room), and the position externally ought to be more than ordinarily secluded.

Double doors also may be required. In short, the library, which has. .h.i.therto been a public room and somewhat of a lounge, becomes now essentially a private retreat.

'When the books form a _large collection_, and strangers, perhaps, are occasionally admitted for reading or reference, the library necessarily a.s.sumes more extensive proportions, and its arrangements become more complicated. For example, heating apparatus becomes very possibly indispensable; the question comes up of ceiling lights; the apartments are probably carried up to the height of two storeys, and galleries formed around. Seclusion becomes again still more a point to be considered.

'The library of the house should also be as comfortable as possible, with broad easy chairs, low centre table for books and periodicals, a large pedestal desk with circular revolving top, to shut up all papers and keep them free from dust. This kind of desk I consider invaluable to any man who really uses his library as a work-room, whether it be for real literary work and study, or for the ordinary examination and arrangement of household accounts; for it is quite impossible, on an ordinary writing table, to keep papers clean or tidy, and this circular-headed desk shuts down at once papers as they lie, which then cannot be "tidied" by the housemaid, who would seem to take a pleasure in putting away papers and notes in all kinds of out-of-the-way corners; the desk should have plenty of drawers and pigeon-holes; these latter, not as many of them are, an inch too narrow or two inches too wide for ordinary letters, but all made for the objects for which they are intended. It may seem absurd to say--think carefully of the use to which the drawers are to be put--but how often are they practically useless or wasteful of precious room, by being made shallower or deeper than is required. The room should be surrounded with bookcases, the lower portion made to take large books, and with some part of it covered in with cupboard fronts, with shelving inside to file away periodicals and papers; the shelf which this lower projection forms will do admirably for the arrangement of ornaments, small busts, or other personal things, with which a man crowds the room he really lives in; of course, I am speaking to those who make a den or working-room of their library, and not to those who fit a back room up with various tiers of shelving, on which are arranged a library of books which are seldom looked at, and where the room is only occasionally used, and that only for the purpose of a cloak-room on grand occasions. Above this lower nest of cupboards and shelving should be shelving arranged for various sizes of books, part carried up all round the room, so as to be within easy reach; the top of these will be found useful for china or busts, or other objects of art, while the centre portions may be carried up to the ceiling to give greater accommodation; all these breaks will take away from the stiffness of the room, and, if properly arranged, will all a.s.sist in making the library a room pleasant to work or play in. All this kind of work can be made of plain deal, stained and polished, and is infinitely cheaper than the elaborate movable cases of wainscot or walnut, in which the aim of the designer seems often to make the frame-work as expensive as possible, whereas, in truth, the books within are really what should be thought of and cared for.

'The floor should be painted or stained and varnished all over, so as to be easily cleaned and dusted, and everything that is likely to permanently hold dust should be avoided. On the floor, thus painted, a few cheap Indian or other rugs may be laid about in places where most necessary and useful.

'Too much trouble cannot be taken to make the library a pleasant room to live in; it should have everything arranged and adapted for use and comfort, and not be stiff and dreary with any set arrangement. The panels of the cupboard doors may be filled in with j.a.panese lacquer-work or painted decoration, and here and there, in the recesses, nests of shelves may be fitted with projecting brackets, designed as part of them, for pieces of china, vases of flowers, or busts, and not looking like bats stuck on to a barn door.

'I must not omit to say that in the lower portion of the bookcase should be arranged drawers--not carried down to the floor, for these are inconvenient--for use for prints and valuable photographs and sketches.

'The library should be essentially home-like, with the wall-s.p.a.ce fitted up as conveniently as possible; on the top of the bookcases or nests of shelves, spring roller-blinds might be easily arranged in the cornices to draw down at night or other times, and fasten with clips to protect and preserve the books, &c., within them.

'I might offer many other suggestions for the decoration and furniture of the rooms I have specially referred to. I trust those I have made will be of some practical use, and that, above all, you will believe that my aim throughout has been to avoid all dogmatic and set rules of fas.h.i.+on or design, and to insist only that truth and beauty of form and colour, combined with fitness and common sense, are the main elements of all true artistic treatment in decoration and furniture of modern houses.'[58]

FOOTNOTES:

[57] Willis and Clark, _History of Cambridge University_, vol. iii., p.

416.

[58] Edis, _Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses_, pp. 188-191.

_Munificent Book-buying._

Nordau has estimated that, in England alone, there are from eight hundred to a thousand millionaires, and in Europe altogether, there are at least a hundred thousand persons with fortunes of a million and even more. One could hope that it might be considered a kindness now and then to remind some of these millionaires of certain openings for their money which do not, so far, seem to have occurred to them. Mr. Bernard Shaw not long since pointed out in the _Contemporary Review_ an opening whereby an Economic Library might be established, and do great lasting honour to a possible founder. Rich men can always be found to vie with one another in lavish expenditure over a ball or a wedding. Thousands of pounds go for a racehorse and for stable management generally, and the amount we spend upon sports annually is 38,000,000_l._, or about a pound per head of the population. One hardly likes to say that any sum spent upon sport and outdoor life is too much, but yet this sum is out of proportion. One is jealous of horses and sport, not so much perhaps for the amount spent upon them as much as because one sees that the man who hunts and has racehorses, cares and knows about these things to the extermination of all other interests. Life becomes ill balanced, whereas it is necessary to touch life at many points. 'The strenuous scholar pure and simple,' is becoming more rare, though the type of which the late Mark Pattison was one will never quite die out. But it is not the strenuous _scholar_ that one is so anxious to perpetuate, as it is the strenuous and scholarly man of affairs and men of trained ability who have mental muscle for parliamentary work and social problems. Such a cla.s.s ought to have many recruits from among the wealthier families.

It would a.s.sist very much towards this end if men of apt.i.tude were properly trained to act as custodians of books in private houses. The art of knowing how to use books is one which must be learnt, and when properly learnt there is very little indeed that may not be readily found to hand in a library of but small dimensions.

There are, I believe, in England twenty-two packs of staghounds, and 182 packs of foxhounds. As every one of the masters of these packs must be a rich man, I should like to know that he at any rate had a sound copy of the _History_ of the county where he hunts; that he had in his smoking room a good Encyclopaedia, with fifty other good reference books, and a hundred good novels.

The rich men of old combined patronage of learning with the pomp and splendour of their lives. Lucullus distinguished himself by his vast collection of books, and the liberal access he allowed to lovers of books. 'It was a library,' says Plutarch, 'whose walls, galleries and cabinets were open to all visitors; and the ingenious youths, when at leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses, to hold literary conversations, in which Lucullus himself loved to join.' The Emperor Augustus was himself an author and a book lover, and called one of his libraries by the name of his sister, Octavia, and the other the temple of Apollo. Tiberius had a library, and Trajan also, and these spent constantly upon their books and the housing of them.

I have taken from Renaissance history pictures of several men who might be taken as types which should exist in every highly civilised country.

They have been vividly and admirably pictured by biographers, and one can only hope that the rich men of to-day may in five hundred years'

time have as lasting reputations as that of Cosimo, the princely patron of learning, and Niccolo, the man of scholars.h.i.+p and refinement of life.

_Pa.s.sAGES ILl.u.s.tRATIVE OF THE FOREGOING._

_The Medici and their Friends._

'The chief benefit conferred by Cosimo de' Medici on learning was the acc.u.mulation and the housing of large libraries. During his exile he built the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, and after his return to Florence he formed three separate collections of MSS. While the hall of the Library of S. Marco was in process of construction, Niccolo de'

Niccoli died, in 1437, bequeathing his 800 MSS., valued at 6000 golden florins, to sixteen trustees. Among these were Cosimo and Lorenzo de'

Medici, Ambrogio Traversari, Lionardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, Poggio Bracciolini, Giannozzo Manetti, and Franco Sachetti. At the same time the estate of Niccolo was compromised by heavy debts. These debts Cosimo cancelled, obtaining in exchange the right to dispose of the library. In 1441 the hall of the convent was finished. Four hundred of Niccolo's MSS. were placed there, with this inscription upon each: _Ex hereditate doctissimi viri Nicola de Nicolis de Florentia_. Tomma.s.so Parentucelli made a catalogue at Cosimo's request, in which he not only noted the t.i.tles of Niccoli's books, but also marked the names of others wanting to complete the collection. This catalogue afterwards served as a guide to the founders of the libraries of Fiesole, Urbino, and Pesaro, and was, says Vespasiano, indispensable to book-collectors. Of the remaining 400 volumes Cosimo kept some for his own (the Medicean) library, and some he gave to his friends. At the same time he spared no pains to buy codices, while Vespasiano and Fra Giuliano Lapaccini were employed in copying rare MSS. As soon as Cosimo had finished building the Abbey of Fiesole, he set about providing this also with a library suited to the wants of learned ecclesiastics. Of the method he pursued, Vespasiano, who acted as his agent, has transmitted the following account:--"One day when I was in his room, he said to me, 'What plan can you recommend for the formation of this library?' I answered that to buy the books would be impossible, since they could not be purchased. 'What, then, do you propose?' he added. I told him that they must be copied. He then asked if I would undertake the business. I replied that I was willing. He bade me begin at my leisure, saying that he left all to me; and for the monies wanted day by day, he ordered that Don Arcangelo, at that time prior of the monastery, should draw cheques upon his bank, which should be honoured. After beginning the collection, since it was his will that it should be finished with all speed possible, and money was not lacking, I soon engaged forty-five copyists, and in twenty-two months provided two hundred volumes, following the admirable list furnished by Pope Nicholas V."'[59]

'Cosimo's zeal for learning was not confined to the building of libraries or to book collecting. His palace formed the centre of a literary and philosophical Society, which united all the wits of Florence and the visitors who crowded to the capital of culture.

Vespasiano states that "he was always the father and benefactor of those who showed any excellence." Distinguished by versatility of tastes and comprehensive intellect, he formed his own opinion of the men of eminence with whom he came in contact, and conversed with each upon his special subject. When giving audience to the scholars, he discoursed concerning letters; in the company of theologians he showed his acquaintance with theology, a branch of learning always studied by him with delight. So also with regard to philosophy. Astrologers found him well versed in their science, for he somewhat lent faith to astrology, and employed it on certain private occasions. Musicians in like manner perceived his mastery of music, wherein he much delighted. The same was true about sculpture and painting: both of these arts he understood completely, and showed great favour to all worthy craftsmen. In architecture he was a consummate judge, for without his opinion and advice no building was begun or carried to completion.'[60]

'Never was there a time in the world's history when money was spent more freely upon the collection and preservation of MSS. and when a more complete machinery was put in motion for the sake of securing literary treasures. Prince vied with prince, and eminent burgher with burgher, in buying books. The commercial correspondents of the Medici and other great Florentine houses, whose banks and discount offices extended over Europe and the Levant, were instructed to purchase relics of antiquity without regard for cost, and to forward them to Florence. The most acceptable present that could be sent to a king was a copy of a Roman Historian.'[61]

'Among the friends of Cosimo, to whose personal influences at Florence the Revival of Learning owed a vigorous impulse, Niccolo de' Niccoli claims our attention. . . . . His judgment in matters of style was so highly valued that it was usual for scholars to submit their essays to his eyes before they ventured upon publication. . . . . Notwithstanding his fine sense of language, Niccolo never appeared before the world of letters as an author. . . . Certainly his reserve in an age noteworthy for display has tended to confer on him distinction. The position he occupied at Florence was that of a literary dictator. All who needed his a.s.sistance and advice were received with urbanity. He threw his house open to young men of parts, engaged in disputations with the curious, and provided the ill-educated with teachers. Foreigners from all parts of Europe paid him visits. The strangers who came to Florence at that time, if they missed the opportunity of seeing him at home, thought they had not been in Florence. The house where he lived was worthy of his refined taste and cultivated judgment, for he had formed a museum of antiquities--inscriptions, marbles, coins, vases, and engraved gems.

There he not only received students and strangers, but conversed with sculptors and painters, discussing their inventions as freely as he criticised the essays of the scholars. . . . . Vespasiano's account of his personal habits presents so vivid a picture that I cannot refrain from translating it at length:--"First of all, he was of a most fair presence; lively, for a smile was ever on his lips, and very pleasant in his talk. He wore clothes of the fairest crimson cloth, down to the ground. He never married, in order that he might not be impeded in his studies. A housekeeper provided for his daily needs. He was, above all men, the most cleanly in eating, as also in all other things. When he sat at table, he ate from fair antique vases, and, in like manner, all his table was covered with porcelain and other vessels of great beauty.