Amenities of Bookselling
To readers of Mr. Newton’s alluring portrayal of the ‘Amenities of BookCollecting’ it would seem very daring to assert that, on the other hand, there are amenities in bookselling other than those of the baser sort presumably associated with any profitable financial transaction. Yet, were there not such counterbalancing amenities, my work as a book-clerk would, indeed, have been barren of its most pleasurable experiences. Moments of depression, too, for that matter, there were, as no doubt also to Mr. Newton himself; but, in listing the amenities of life, it is wiser to follow his example and make no attempt to strike a credit balance.
The almost envious exclamations of customers, on the joy it must be to live in such intimate contact with books, are of such frequent occurrence that I could not, if I had not already realized it, be unaware that the mere opportunity of working in a bookstore might he regarded, in itself, as a privilege. If there is pleasure in possession, it will be admitted that that pleasure, even if but a transitory one, has been mine — possession of many books; of books with an aristocratic lineage both of authorship and binding. Then, too, the joy of discovery I have had in feeling, for some unaccountable reason, a personal response in some book of no known reputation, whose praises have been sung by no blatant critic! It has awaited modestly the recognition of its idiosyncrasies by some temperamental customer with tastes equally bizarre.
The pangs of parting with some of my transitory treasures assume the character of an actual pleasure if, in selling them, I can feel, as sometimes one instinctively does, that this transfer of possession assures them permanently the fond care and appreciation that I feel they deserve, removed from the soiled hands and meticulous gaze of the merely idle curious. One soon has favorites, and is fearful lest some other salesman, unappreciative of their peculiarly appealing virtues, may dispose of them to some customer whose only interest is to spend a goodly sum of money in the purchase of an obligatory present.
Not to be overlooked, either, is the charm of the chance acquaintance that, growing into quick, even if brief, blossom, at times accompanies some peculiarly personal transfer of ownership: a momentary sympathetic recognition of similar tastes. Springing out of that desire, common to all, to share our appreciation, there develops an exhilarating sense of intimacy. It is as if a newly made acquaintance had passed the test of introduction to older friends.
In recommending books to customers unaccustomed to selecting books, timidly aware of their own limitations, but with an instinctive desire for things worth while, my pleasure is like that of a Socrates in opening the eyes of his pupils to a perception of the good and beautiful. The assumption that I must be an undisputed authority, fitted to guide and advise because I live surrounded by such evidences of knowledge, though naïve, gives to my words an almost sacrosanct character. I forget that I am only a clerk, whose sole purpose in life is to sell books for the profit of another. I rise to higher levels; I am no longer merely a worker for hire; I become, to myself, a factor in the great advance of civilization. I have the feeling that, through my efforts, I may be able, perhaps, to add something to the life-happiness of another. Moreover, if I suggest wisely, I may put a straw in the way of the selfish exploitation now practised by the purveyors of ideas and amusements. I shall then have an extra reason for self-congratulation, and be spurred on to continue my private warfare against those profaners of the standards of good taste.
Incidentally, I learn much of the inward character and hopes, and even of the mode of living, of my quasi-pupils. Through chance spontaneous outbursts of confidence, to which even the most reserved are at times forced to yield, I find myself suddenly transferred to the position of financial, as well as moral, adviser. Will the continued possession of a ten-dollar bill, or even a Liberty bond, be of more value to the children than the acquisition of the book under consideration? Questions of school-advancement, staying at home evenings, and similar weighty problems, are involved. In the solution, my advice is sought as that of one who has been through it all and so must know.
Since so evidently to be accounted the chiefest of the amenities of a bookclerk’s life, it is almost superfluous to allude to those less frequent occasions when my work brings me in mental touch with a genuine book-lover, a connoisseur of all that is included in the word book. Instead of being the position of imparting, mine becomes the reverse one. What a wealth of information I seem to myself to be absorbing! I feel my own horizon of appreciation bursting its narrow storelimitations, under the kindly stimulus of inciting talks about books. Impelled by his own enthusiastic love of them, my quondam customer now becomes transformed into my preceptor. With pitying regret for my incomprehensible inability to feel and appreciate as he does, he insists on elevating me to his plane. He will not be content until I too share his peculiar delight in some special feature of a book. In running critical comments on the characteristics of its author, his comparative points of excellence or inferiority will be so illustrated and magnified, that one must, for the time being, at least, both feel and realize them. In addition, moreover, one needs but listen, to acquire, willy-nilly, not only a glimmering understanding of the intricacies of special or rare editions, but, incidentally, a properly chastened taste in respect to book-bindings, as well as a knowledge of the names of noted binders. There is, however, as an offset to such pleasurable experiences, the drawback of an underlying fear of my ability to remember and fully assimilate, when so much more has been intimated than actually said. If one could but read what will never be written!
In the matter of selecting presents, a sympathetic interest requires that I should understand the difficulties of making a proper selection, while, at the same time, I must be able to feel, in anticipation, the surprised pleasure of the recipient. The number of Rubaiyats I have helped on their way, in the first gush of a giver’s desire to give something, looms overwhelmingly in my conscience, hardened as it has become by many similar transactions.
When a specific request for a book is made, my position is merely that of a receiver of cash and wrapper of parcels. Although it may be that I know the book is not the one for the special purposes desired, it is of course my business to supply it. My pride in the responsibility of my position is somewhat hurt if I feel instinctively that this particular book, although otherwise commendable, is not the right book at this particular time, for this particular person: a feeling, however, that by its poignancy serves only to accentuate my awareness that this transaction of selling has lost something of its sordid character of merely enhancing the sumtotal of my day’s sales.
But in the majority of cases, the selection of a book is more or less in the hands of the seller. To so great an extent is this true, that I have always claimed that, if booksellers would, they could materially lessen the sale of such books as those of Messrs.—and—, now seemingly so popular; and this, too, in spite of the customary advertising propaganda. In my experience, the demand is not for a definite title but for ‘a good book.’ By this is meant, I soon discover from the reply to my interested questioning, perhaps a detective story, or ‘any good book not a warbook,’ or, perhaps, a ‘ funny book.’ But in any case, when the book is not distinctly specified, it is always easy, while satisfying the purchaser, to avoid suggesting books of the exaggerated type. I do not refer to books of questionable morality, but to those whose bad taste would be condemned by all whose sense of discrimination had not been vitiated by too much reading of only that sort, or by the financial profit of their sale. The standard of taste of one conscious of a lack of critical ability, is, at bottom, based on what he has been led to believe has the approval of those who, he thinks, are in a position to know.
In bookstores where extra bonuses or commissions are given for getting rid of dead stock at reduced rates, a clerk may still exercise his discretion. When, as is often the case, the unsaleability of a work is not due to bad quality of its contents, a clerk may not only enrich himself but have the satisfaction of benefiting a customer, by persuading him to take the chance thus offered to acquire a good book at a reduced price.
With incidents interesting from the side-lights they afford on the comédie humaine, a book-clerk is abundantly supplied: husbands whose fondness for books has to be curbed by a wife’s watchfulness; the circumventing ruses employed; the whispered hint, the confiding glance, — or, shall I say, wink, — sufficient to suggest to one the desire that the book be laid aside until the fates should be more kind. Often, when the wife is not present, without a spoken word that might savor even of an implication of disloyalty to the marital bond, I am directed to send the books to the office, with the superadded nervous caution to be sure that the bill is similarly addressed. This direction is natural enough, and would arouse no suspicion, were it not for that nervous caution and the furtive look of daring that accompanies it. A determination to commit a crime would scarcely require more courage. How the books are finally smuggled from office to home, I can only guess. Perhaps when the wife is conveniently away for a day or so; or it may be along with the business papers that the ‘poor dear’ has to toil over in the lonely hours of night — ‘he is so overworked.’
Sometimes these inner glimpses call up a pitying feeling of revolt against the limitations that an early lack of education imposes on one struggling for mental growth: the hard, crusted soil that the growing seed has to break before reaching the light. A request for a copy of the ‘Sanskrit’ made me hesitate long, fearing that my own perfunctory acquaintance with the titles of books was at fault. Finally, however, it came out that a statement in a footnote, to the effect that a puzzling passage was different in the Sanskrit, had aroused the praiseworthy desire to possess the book with that supposed title.
The pathos, occasionally, of the motive for a purchase checks a too curious speculative interest in life’s history and converts it into a real active sympathy. This was particularly so in war-time — the hesitating purchase of a book for an errant beloved one, in the doubting hope that it would be read and would implant the seed of a desire for better living. The overmastering urge felt by some natures to confide their joys and sorrows may not always be withstood, nor may the clerk, whose best asset must be his quality of sympathetic responsiveness, repel such confidences, even if he have neither the time nor the inclination to receive them.
Such incidents of daily occurrence furnish material for speculative thought to a book-clerk who feels that acquaintance with life as it is, is its chief amenity. Probably any clerk whose work brings him into direct personal contact with his customers has similar opportunities for becoming acquainted with life in its varying shades and aspects: but the questions and conversations about books tend necessarily to reveal modes of thought and ideas, thus putting a book-clerk more peculiarly into direct touch with the real inner personality of his customers.
The desire to find in my own life something that would, if only in imagination, lift it out of its merely moneymaking, bread-and-butter aspect has possibly tinged my mental vision with an unwarranted roseate hue. Still, if the amenities I recount would not be such to others; if I have fooled myself, and have not been so helpful an influence on the lives of my customers as I like to think I may have been, I have, at least, succeeded in glossing over the humdrum, monotonously depressing moments incident to a life of otherwise limited responsibility.