![]() ![]() Thus it is, in the highest sense, the attitude of an heir, and the most distinguished trait of a collection will always be its transmissibility. For a collector’s attitude toward his possessions stems from an owner’s feeling of responsibility toward his property. “The only exact knowledge there is,” said Anatole France, “is the knowledge of the date of publication and the format of books.” And indeed, if there is a counterpart to the confusion of a library, it is the order of its catalogue.ĪctualIy, inheritance is the soundest way of acquiring a collection. These are the very areas in which any order is a balancing act of extreme precariousness. For what else is this collection but a disorder to which habit has accommodated itself to such an extent that it can appear as order? You have all heard of people whom the loss of their books has turned into invalids, or of those who in order to acquire them became criminals. More than that: the chance, the fate, that suffuse the past before my eyes are conspicuously present in the accustomed confusion of these books. Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories. ![]() This or any other procedure is merely a dam against the spring tide of memories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his possessions. If I do this by elaborating on the various ways of acquiring books, this is something entirely arbitrary. Would it not be presumptuous of me if, in order to appear convincingly objective and down-to-earth, I enumerated for you the main sections or prize pieces of a library, if I presented you with their history or even their usefulness to a writer? I, for one, have in mind something less obscure, something more palpable than that what I am really concerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection. For such a man is speaking to you, and on closer scrutiny he proves to be speaking only about himself. Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing davlight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood – it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation – which these books arouse in a genuine collector. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books! Collectors are people with a tactical instinct their experience teaches them that when they capture a strange city, the smallest antique shop can be a fortress, the most remote stationery store a key position. ![]() Property and possession belong to the tactical sphere. I have made my most memorable purchases on trips, as a transient. ![]()
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