If I, for instance, wish
to know something about Spain, I get one of Martin Hume's books, but
these people take a steamer and go to Spain. I have read everything of
Meredith's and they have read almost nothing, but they saw Meredith in
London and spent a week-end with him at a country-house in Sussex. I
avoid celebrities in the flesh. I don't want to minister to them and I
want still less to patronise them. I am afraid I should be disappointed
in them and I am sure they would be disappointed in me.
"However, that's not the point," says Cooper. "The problem is to make a
man read who won't read of his own accord. I do it by asking such a man
to dinner. I pull out a volume of Marriott's and remark, without
emphasis, that after infinite exertion I have just got it back from
Woolsey, who is wild over the book. The fires of envy and acquisition
flash in my visitor's eye. Might he have the book for a day or two? Yes,
I say after some hesitation, but he must promise to bring it back. He
grows fervent. Of course he will bring it back, by Saturday at the very
latest and in person.
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