Cheap Knowledge

When at times it happens to me that I ’gin to be aweary of the sun, and to find the fair apple of life dust and ashes at the core —­ just because, perhaps, I can’t afford Melampus Brown’s last volume of poems in large paper, but must perforce condescend upon the two-and-sixpenny edition for the million —­ then I bring myself to a right temper by recalling to memory a sight which now and again in old days would touch the heart of me to a happier pulsation.  In the long, dark winter evenings, outside some shop window whose gaslight flared brightest into the chilly street, I would see some lad —­ sometimes even a girl —­ book in hand, heedless of cold and wet, of aching limbs and straining eyes, careless of jostling passers-by, of rattle and turmoil behind them and about, their happy spirits far in an enchanted world:  till the ruthless shopman turned out the gas and brought them rudely back to the bitter reality of cramped legs and numbed fingers. ``My brother!’’ or ``My sister!’’ I would cry inwardly, feeling the link that bound us together.  They possessed, for the hour, the two gifts most precious to the student —­ light and solitude:  the true solitude of the roaring street.

Somehow this vision rarely greets me now.  Probably the Free Libraries have supplanted the flickering shop lights; and every lad and lass can enter and call for Miss Braddon and batten thereon ``in luxury’s sofa-lap of leather’’; and of course this boon is appreciated and profited by, and we shall see the divine results in a year or two.  And yet sometimes, like the dear old Baron in the ``Red Lamp,’’ ``I wonder?’’

For myself, public libraries possess a special horror, as of lonely wastes and dragon-haunted fens.  The stillness and the heavy air, the feeling of restriction and surveillance, the mute presence of these other readers, ``all silent and all damned,’’ combine to set up a nervous irritation fatal to quiet study.  Had I to choose, I would prefer the windy street.  And possibly others have found that the removal of checks and obstacles makes the path which leads to the divine mountain-tops less tempting, now that it is less rugged.  So full of human nature are we all —­ still —­ despite the Radical missionaries that labour in the vineyard.  Before the National Gallery was extended and rearranged, there was a little ``St Catherine’’ by Pinturicchio that possessed my undivided affections.  In those days she hung near the floor, so that those who would worship must grovel; and little I grudged it.  Whenever I found myself near Trafalgar Square with five minutes to spare I used to turn in and sit on the floor before the object of my love, till gently but firmly replaced on my legs by the attendant.  She hangs on the line now, in the grand new room; but I never go to see her.  Somehow she is not my ``St Catherine’’ of old.  Doubtless Free Libraries affect many students in the same way:  on the same principle as that now generally accepted —­ that it is the restrictions placed on vice by our social code which make its pursuit so peculiarly agreeable.