How foolish they will look standing side by side. Perhaps
you don't know Beattie, but I assure you that he was a poet. He
wrote those majestic lines:--
"The shepherd-swain of whom I mention made
On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock;
The sickle, scythe or plough he never swayed--
An honest heart was almost all his stock."
Of course, one would hardly expect a shepherd to sway a plough in
the ordinary way, but Beattie was quite right to remind us that
Edwin didn't either. Edwin was the name of the shepherd- swain.
"And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy," we are told a little
further on in a line that should live. Well, having satisfied you
that Beattie was really a poet, I can now return to my argument
that an eleven-inch Byron cannot stand next to a four-inch
Beattie, and be followed by an eight-inch Cowper, without making
the shelf look silly. Yet how can I discard Beattie-- Beattie who
wrote:--
"And now the downy cheek and deepened voice
Gave dignity to Edwin's blooming prime."
You see the difficulty. If you arrange your books according to
their contents you are sure to get an untidy shelf. If you
arrange your books according to their size and colour you get an
effective wall, but the poetically inclined visitor may lose
sight of Beattie altogether. Before, then, we decide what to do
about it, we must ask ourselves that very awkward question, "Why
do we have books on our shelves at all?" It is a most
embarrassing question to answer.
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