The superior and the sceptical are now excluded from the privacy of our imaginary club-house. But a further reservation must be made. Although it were impractical idealism to demand that the collector transcend in his collecting every sordid consideration of market and fluctuating value, it is reasonable to look askance at the mere speculator. From the scope of this word I exclude, of course, the whole fraternity of booksellers. They exist frankly for the marketing of books; and who shall grudge them the profits of their toil? My animadversion is against the private person to whom rare books are mere scrip, to be bought and sold by telephone, their very titles meaningless, their contents utterly unknown. No doubt, if this book is of service at all, it will be of service incidentally to individuals of the kind described. That it should be so is unpreventable. But on the general ethics of collecting the compiler may be allowed the consolation of bearing his trivial testimony. The private collector who buys what he likes to read merits such reward as wise buying may earn for him. He, however, who buys by rote, puts away and resells, is no collector at all, but rather a trespasser on the preserves of the bookseller, taking advantage of a noble trade while sharing none of its burdens. With this dictum I descend from the august to the particular. Collecting, collecting books, collecting first editions of books—all these are postulates. At this point is a parting of the ways. The frontiers of dispute now lie across our path; for within the bounds of the realm of first editions are to be found divergent tastes, conflicting fancies, all the clamour and thrust of an enthusiasm that grows ever more complex. The collecting of first editions is, in its present form, a diversion of recent growth. Fifty years ago amateurs of books were few in number and, necessarily, rich in gold, for only the great books of past literature were regarded as fit material for collection, and great books, though cheaper then than now, were never to be had for love. But the passage of time has transformed, in another way than that of mere numbers, the community of book-collectors. Not only are there nowadays more collectors and a greater variety of books collected, but there has come to its own the great principle of _original condition_. This is not so pale a platitude as to many it will appear. A few book-buyers there have always been to whom original binding, original end-papers, uncut edges, incidental advertisements, errata slips, and half-titles have meant perfection. But they were rare exceptions. To the large majority a first edition was a book of a certain date without “Second” or “New Edition” on its title-page. Buyers of this school were indifferent to the disfigurement of library labels on side or end-paper; gave no thought to errata slips; but shaved their favourites, fore-edge and tail, dressed them in uniform calf gilt, affixed a bookplate, and went their way.