[Greek text] {3}


Mr. William Blades, in his pleasant volume, "The Enemies of Books"
(Trubner), makes no account of the book-thief or biblioklept. "If
they injure the owners," says Mr. Blades, with real tolerance, "they
do no harm to the books themselves, by merely transferring them from
one set of book-shelves to another." This sentence has naturally
caused us to reflect on the ethical character of the biblioklept.
He is not always a bad man. In old times, when language had its
delicacies, and moralists were not devoid of sensibility, the French
did not say "un voleur de livres," but "un chipeur de livres;" as
the papers call lady shoplifters "kleptomaniacs." There are
distinctions. M. Jules Janin mentions a great Parisian bookseller
who had an amiable weakness. He was a bibliokleptomaniac. His
first motion when he saw a book within reach was to put it in his
pocket. Every one knew his habit, and when a volume was lost at a
sale the auctioneer duly announced it, and knocked it down to the
enthusiast, who regularly paid the price. When he went to a private
view of books about to be sold, the officials at the door would ask
him, as he was going out, if he did not happen to have an Elzevir
Horace or an Aldine Ovid in his pocket. Then he would search those
receptacles and exclaim, "Yes, yes, here it is; so much obliged to
you; I am so absent." M. Janin mentions an English noble, a "Sir
Fitzgerald," who had the same tastes, but who unluckily fell into
the hands of the police. Yet M. Janin has a tenderness for the
book-stealer, who, after all, is a lover of books. The moral
position of the malefactor is so delicate and difficult that we