[BOOKS]: Pt. 6

   One of the most eloquent statements of all on the collecting of con-
temporary material is to be found in a largley forgotten memoir writ-
ten in 1894 by Mrs. James T. Fields, widow of a Boston publisher
acclaimed for the consistently high quality of work issued under his
imprint, Ticknor & Fields. Mrs. Fields' A Shelf of Old Books
walks readers through the couple's library of particularly loved posses-
sions, pausing along the way at some of the most valued items. "There
is a sacredness about the belongings of good and great men which is
quite apart from the value and significance of the things themselves," she
pointed out. "Their books become especially endeared to us; as we
turn the pages they have loved, we can see another hand point along the
lines, another head bending over the open volume."
   In a corner were several shelves filled with material James Fields
acquired from Leigh Hunt during a visit to England thirty-five years
earlier, the same material, perhaps, that had heartened John Keats
when the young poet was an overnight guest in Hunt's home and slept
in the library. "Sleep and Poetry" was written as a result:

          It was a poet's home who keeps the keys
          Of pleasure's temple--round about were hung
          The glorious features of the bards who sung
          In other ages--cold and sacred gusts
          Smiled at each other.

   "As I quote these lines," Mrs. Fields wrote,

   fearful of some slip of a treacherous memory, I take a small vol-
   ume of Keats from the shelf of old books. It is a battered little
   copy in green cloth, with the comfortable aspect of having been
   abroad with some loving companion in a summer shower. It is
   the copy long used by Tennyson, and evidently worn in his
   pocket on many an excursion. He once handed it to Mr. Fields
   at parting, and it was always cherished by the latter with rev-
   erence and affection. Here, in its quiet corner, the little book
   now awaits the day when some new singer shall be moved to
   song in memory of the great poet who loved and treasured it.

   Appropriately, the frontispice to A Shelf of Old Books is a wood
engraving of the library in the Back Bay townhouse where James T.
and Annie Adams Fields shared so many precious hours. Pictured on
the right are paintings and a piano. On the left are books and a fire-
place, and at the far end are two tall windows that look out on the
Charles River. It is here, in this space, that Mrs. Fields concluded her
meditation.

   There is no Leigh Hunt now to enchant, and no Keats to be
   enchanted among the old books; but as we stand silent in the
   corner where the volumes rest together, watching the inter-
   changing lights thrown through green branches from the shin-
   ing river beyond, we remember that these causes of inspiration
   still abide with us, and that other book-lovers are yet to pore
   over these shelves and gather fresh life from the venerable vol-
   umes which stand upon them.

A Gentle Madness, pp.41, 42
--Nicholas A. Basbanes