Having written as far as this, I had to get up and see where
Shelley really was. It is worse than I thought. He is between
Geometrical Optics and Studies in New Zealand Scenery. Ella
Wheeler Wilcox, whom I find myself to be entertaining unawares,
sits beside Anarchy or Order, which was apparently "sent in the
hope that you will become a member of the Duty and Discipline
Movement"--a vain hope, it would seem, for I have not yet paid my
subscription. What I Found Out, by an English Governess, shares a
corner with The Recreations of a Country Parson; they are
followed by Villette and Baedeker's Switzerland. Something will
have to be done about it.
But I am wondering what is to be done. If I gave you the
impression that my books were precisely arranged in their old
shelves, I misled you. They were arranged in the order known as
"all anyhow." Possibly they were a little less "anyhow" than they
are now, in that the volumes of any particular work were at least
together, but that is all that can be claimed for them. For years
I put off the business of tidying them up, just as I am putting
it off now. It is not laziness; it is simply that I don't know
how to begin.
Let us suppose that we decide to have all the poetry together. It
sounds reasonable. But then Byron is eleven inches high (my
tallest poet), and Beattie (my shortest) is just over four
inches.
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