the term, however, in the sense to which Matthew Arnold gave vogue, I am a
Philistine in taste, I suppose, for I never can bring myself nowadays to
buy a second-hand book. For dusty old tomes, I go to the public library;
but my own private books must be sweet and clean. There are many who prefer
old copies, who revel in the inscribed names of former owners, and prize
their marginal annotations. If there be some special sentimental
associations connected with these factors, if the books be heirlooms, and
the annotations come from a vanished, but beloved, hand, then the old book
becomes an old love. But in most cases these things seem to me the defects
of youth, not the virtues of age; for they are usually too recent to be
venerable, though they are just old enough to disfigure. Let my books be
young, fresh, and fragrant in their virgin purity, unspotted from the
world. If my copy is to be soiled, I want to do all the soiling myself. It
is very different with a manuscript, which cannot be too old or too dowdy.
These are its graces. Dr. Neubauer once said to me, "I take no interest in
a girl who has seen more than seventeen years, nor in a manuscript that has
seen less than seven hundred." Alonzo of Aragon was wont to say in
commendation of age, that "age appeared to be best in four things: old wood
to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and old authors to read."

This, however, is not my present point, for I have too much consideration
for my readers to attempt to embroil them in the old "battle of the books"
that raged round the silly question whether the ancients or the moderns
wrote better. I am discussing the age, not of the author, but of the copy.
As a critic, as an admirer of old printing, as an archeologist, I feel
regard for the _editio princeps_, but as a lover I prefer the cheap
reprint. Old manuscripts certainly have their charm, but they must have
been written at least before the invention of printing. Otherwise a
manuscript is an anachronism--it recalls too readily the editorial
"declined with thanks." At best, the autograph original of a modern work is