Books and Bookmen

Books and Bookmen, by Ian Maclaren
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Title: Books and Bookmen Author: Ian Maclaren
Release Date: January 11, 2008 [eBook #3256] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKS AND BOOKMEN***
Transcribed from the 1912 James Nisbet & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BOOKS AND BOOKMEN
BY
IAN MACLAREN London JAMES NISBET & CO. LIMITED 22 BERNERS STREET, W. 1912
BOOKS AND BOOKMEN
They cannot be separated any more than sheep and a shepherd, but I am minded to speak of the bookman rather than of his books, and so it will be best at the outset to define the tribe. It does not follow that one is a bookman because he has many books, for he may be a book huckster or his books may be those without which a gentleman’s library is not complete. And in the present imperfect arrangement of life one may be a bookman and yet have very few books, since he has not the wherewithal to purchase them. It is the foolishness of his kind to desire a loved author in some becoming dress, and his fastidiousness to ignore a friend in a fourpence-halfpenny edition. The bookman, like the poet, and a ...