Confessions of a Book-Lover

Confessions of a Book-Lover by E. Walter Walters

E. Walter Walters opens by objecting to Webster's narrow definition of "confession" as an admission of guilt, arguing for a broader sense drawn from writers like De Quincey, who used the word to mean an intimate baring of the heart to a friend. He explains his purpose: to gather and set down, anonymously, the candid thoughts of book-loving men who would otherwise be too modest to speak publicly of their love of reading. He asks what distinguishes the book-lover from ordinary people, concluding that such a person is rich in spirit but prone to restlessness and a "glorious discontent," too imaginative and sensitive to be simply the happiest of men, as Langford claimed. He cites Gibbon and Aungervyle on the riches of reading, then describes a particular friend who came to his love of books only after passing through poverty, bereavement, and loss, finding in them his chief comfort though not boisterous happiness. Walters confesses his own fascination with book-lovers' varied tastes in bindings and formats, citing Charles Lamb's preference for plain, serviceable covers over showy ones. Turning to content, he admits he cannot name a single list of favorite authors because his taste shifts with mood, but states that the books that please him most are those that "speak to the heart." He favors gentle, genial writers, Lamb, Jefferies, Goldsmith, Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, over quarrelsome or combative ones, quoting Robert Louis Stevenson on the virtue of warmth over mere cleverness. He describes reading outdoors in a garden, torn between a book and nature's own beauty, and contrasts this with Lamb's confessed dislike of reading out of doors, quoting Lamb's essay on the right times and seasons for particular books, the Faerie Queene, Bishop Andrewes' sermons, Milton, and Shakespeare. Walters prefers a garden removed from city noise, with a chosen volume for company. He next confesses a dislike for worn, tattered books despite Lamb's tender defense of shabby old circulating-library volumes beloved by weary readers; Walters prefers his books kept in good condition, though he reveres old calf-bound and mellowed volumes for their dignity, and admits fishing for bargains in penny "lucky-tubs" outside bookshops, once nearly finding a damaged old Paradise Lost. He also confesses delight in dainty modern reprints and ornate bindings, though not in bulky, unwieldy "Edition de Luxe" volumes. Walters defends his curiosity about authors' private lives and home circumstances, quoting Alexander Smith on hero-worship and citing glimpses of Shakespeare, Jonson, Johnson's Club, and Lamb's gatherings with Hunt, Hazlitt, and others. He values biographies for revealing authors' human struggles alongside their genius. Discussing taste in style, he prefers a "mellow style" over the merely startling, favors inexpensive "Remainder" books over costly new ones, and admits enduring fondness for the books that captivated him in youth. In fiction he wants pleasant characters rather than criminals or "black laid upon black." He surveys beloved literary company met in books, Goldsmith's Vicar, Beau Tibbs, childhood favorites like Alice, and romantic heroines, reflecting on how reading needs change across childhood, youth, and maturity, though old favorites always return. He touches on Dickens's wide-ranging, sociable characters and historical figures reimagined by novelists, before confessing he simply reads "for the love of it." Returning to his "book-fishing" in penny tubs, he recounts disappointments (ruined volumes) and delights (a minor poet's slim, earnest volume), affirming love for humble books of all kinds. He then discusses bookplates ("Ex Libris"), their history from Durer, Cranach, and Holbein to Sir Nicholas Bacon's 1574 examples, and laments friends (K—, J—, H—) who never return borrowed volumes, quoting a passionate complaint against habitual book-borrowers. On bedside and morning reading, he recommends Stevenson's prayers for night and lively adventure books like Westward Ho! for morning, quoting Stevenson at length on courage and cheerfulness. He then praises his "everyday" favorite authors, Lamb, Goldsmith, Hazlitt, Hunt, Jefferies, De Quincey, Addison, Stevenson, sketching their human weaknesses and charms: Lamb's boyish nature, Goldsmith's poverty and warmth, Hazlitt's irregular, passionate life. The longest section introduces an unnamed book-loving friend, a small, aging man who wears figurative "rose-coloured spectacles," framing his outlook through quotations from Stevenson's essays and prayers. Walters learns this man suffered devastating losses, business ruin, betrayal, and the deaths of his wife and child, yet maintained a cheerful, faith-sustained spirit through his love of books. They meet again for a country saunter near Hampstead Heath, reading passages from Henry Harland and Thoreau aloud amid nature, and the friend reveals his past prosperity and subsequent misfortunes. Later, through letters quoting A. C. Benson and Epictetus, the friend reflects on faith, beauty, and cheerfulness as a "gift of God" rather than mere circumstance. He dies shortly after their country outing; his last recorded words affirm that faith can make "roses spring out of the midst of thorns." Walters describes annotated books left behind, including the friend's marginal reflection comparing human life to an orchestra needing a "Great Conductor." Walters closes by presenting this friend as the exemplary true book-lover, whose love of reading grew directly out of sorrow, echoing his own path to the same love. He ends with a farewell to the "fellow book-lover," quoting a closing passage likening life's road to a pilgrimage toward "green ways in Paradise and golden streets in the beautiful City of God."

By E. Walter Walters · First published 1913 · Genre: Essay, Literary Criticism, Autobiography · 14 chapters · 21,657 words

First lines

HOW ruthlessly Webster strips the word ‘confession' of the tender associations woven around it by the hand of the gentle essayist! A confession, he informs us, is the acknowledgement of a crime or fault, open declaration of guilt, &c. True, a brighter note is struck in further definitions; but I cannot find in any book at my command a definition of the word as used, for example, by Thomas De Quincey. The fact that De Quincey took opium was, I believe, known long before he wrote his _Confessions_. He personally avers that his object was to emblazon the power of opium, not over bodily disease and pain, but over the grander and more shadowy world of dreams. He desired

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bibliophilia · book-lovers · reading · personal essay · confessional writing · literary taste · book aesthetics · authors and authorship · books as consolation · grief and loss · faith and hope · human nature

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