Then, too, the subtle process by which the man convinces himself that he can afford to buy.  No subtle manager or broker ever saw through a maze of financial embarrassments half so quick as a poor book-buyer sees his way clear to pay for what he must have.  He promises himself marvels of retrenchment; he will eat less, or less costly viands, that he may buy more food for the mind.  He will take an extra patch, and go on with his raiment another year, and buy books instead of coats.  Yea, he will write books, that he may buy books!  The appetite is insatiable.  Feeding does not satisfy it.  It rages by the fuel which is put upon it.  As a hungry man eats first and pays afterward, so the book-buyer purchases and then works at the debt afterward.  This paying is rather medicinal.  It cures for a time.  But a relapse takes place.  The same longing, the same promises of self-denial.  He promises himself to put spurs on both heels of his industry; and then, besides all this, he will somehow get along when the time for payment comes!  Ah! this SOMEHOW!  That word is as big as a whole world, and is stuffed with all the vagaries and fantasies that Fancy ever bred upon Hope.  And yet, is there not some comfort in buying books, to be paid for?  We have heard of a sot who wished his neck as long as the worm of a still, that he might so much the longer enjoy the flavor of the draught!  Thus, it is a prolonged excitement of purchase, if you feel for six months in a slight doubt whether the book is honestly your own or not.  Had you paid down, that would have been the end of it.  There would have been no affectionate and beseeching look of your books at you, every time you saw them, saying, as plain as a book’s eyes can say, “Do not let me be taken from you.”

Moreover, buying books before you can pay for them promotes caution.  You do not feel quite at liberty to take them home.  You are married.  Your wife keeps an account-book.  She knows to a penny what you can and what you cannot afford.  She has no “speculation” in her eyes.  Plain figures make desperate work with airy “somehows.”  It is a matter of no small skill and experience to get your books home, and into their proper places, undiscovered.  Perhaps the blundering express brings them to the door just at evening.  “What is it, my dear?” she says to you.  “Oh! nothing—­a few books that I cannot do without.”  That smile!  A true housewife that loves her husband can smile a whole arithmetic at him at one look!  Of course she insists, in the kindest way, in sympathizing with you in your literary acquisition.  She cuts the strings of the bundle (and of your heart), and out comes the whole story.  You have bought a complete set of costly English books, full bound in calf, extra gilt!  You are caught, and feel very much as if bound in calf yourself, and admirably lettered.