.. I
see a wide and golden vista.
WHISTLER'S WRITING
No book-lover, I. Give me an uninterrupted view of my fellow-
creatures. The most tedious of them pleases me better than the best
book. You see, I admit that some of them are tedious. I do not deem
alien from myself nothing that is human: I discriminate my fellow-
creatures according to their contents. And in that respect I am not
more different in my way from the true humanitarian than from the true
bibliophile in his. To him the content of a book matters not at all.
He loves books because they are books, and discriminates them only by
the irrelevant standard of their rarity. A rare book is not less dear
to him because it is unreadable, even as to the snob a dull duke is as
good as a bright one. Indeed, why should he bother about readableness?
He doesn't want to read. `Uncut edges' for him, when he can get them;
and, even when he can't, the notion of reading a rare edition would
seem to him quite uncouth and preposterous The aforesaid snob would as
soon question His Grace about the state of His Grace's soul. I, on the
other hand, whenever human company is denied me, have often a desire
to read. Reading, I prefer cut edges, because a paper-knife is one of
the things that have the gift of invisibility whenever they are
wanted; and because one's thumb, in prising open the pages, so often
affects the text.
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