Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1910 — BOOKS AND AFFINITIES. [ARTICLE]

BOOKS AND AFFINITIES.

Woe Caused by First Editions Almost Equals Soul-Mate Havoc. Not long ago a woman sued her husband for separation and alimony because he paid too much attention to an aeroplane he was building, and

ly the latest thing in the marital unhappiness line. It may be the latest thing, but It Is by no means the strangest. First editions —the erase for the first copies tg books written by famous authors —have caused more downright unhappiness in families than anything outside of drunkenness and affinities. Most of the wives of first-edition fiends do not sympathize with the search for high-priced volumes, says the Washington Post. They do not see why they should be denied a $25 hat, while the head of the family hands over $32 for a first edition of Walter Pater. Who was Pater, anyhow? And what’s the use of having lan old book like that around when nobody, not even Mr. Bibliophile himself,- reads It or ever expects to read It? Few of the first-edition fiends read the books that they pay such fancy prices for. They will pay $14.50 for a first copy of the “Ballad of Reading Gaol,” and If they find that they really want to read the poem they will buy another copy. A man who had three complete of Dickens recently paid $1,400 for a first edition of the “Pickwick Papers,” but he wouldn’t dream of actually reading that precious copy. Ask them what joy they derive from buying the books and they will answer: “Oh, not until you get the fever can you ever know the pleasure of the thing. It’s almost as satisfactory to put a cross alongside the name of a precious book in the seller’s list as It is to own the book.” Some of the worst fiends will spend their last dollar on a first edition, and then carry it home under their coat so as to conceal the purchase from Mrs. Bibliophile. Others will glibly explain that It was a book they borrowed from a friend. Sometimes the wife is filled with a sense of the injustice of the thing; sometimes when the husband can afford the price paid for the books without depriving the wife it is a mere matter of jealousy on her part. The husband seems to love the books more than his wife, wherefore she feels aggrieved. The wise fiend buys his books secretly, treats them with Indifference and his wife with even greater consideration than before, knowing that the dear books will understand and not feel hurt.