The seventh picture is a series of dissolving views that suggest
the portrait of a lady standing with her back to the onlooker and
gazing at her own face reflected in a mirror opposite. A few months
after the book was published, its author, attracted by the title of
an article, purchased a new review to while away a railway journey.
She read the article--and pondered. It seemed strangely familiar and
soon she realized that it was in effect one of the chapters in her
own book. It had not even suffered “a sea-change into something rich
and strange,” for the illustrations used were the same that the first
author had collected from the experiences of her personal friends,
and to every one she could have attached a name, as presumably the
second author could not do. The second in the series of dissolving
views is of a correspondence with a gentleman who had given a course
of lectures on domestic service in a remote city. The author of the
book had expressed a desire to sit at the feet of Gamaliel and at
length secured the loan of the manuscript from which the lectures
were given. Probably a sea-change was not to be looked for in an
interior city, and the author of the book rejoiced to find so much
community of interest with the author of the lectures. The third in
the series of dissolving views was of a certain bibliography. It had
appeared in the first number of a new report on household affairs
and the author was interested in it as a probable illustration of
thought transference. Here was the title of a book she had consulted
in the Bibliothèque Nationale and that presumably was not to be found
in American libraries. Here was the title of a curious book she had
picked up when “bouquinering” on the Quai Voltaire and had added
to her private library. This was the title of another curious book
found in a great university library,--interesting, but of little
value. This was the line-long title of a collection of technical
German laws found in Saxony. Here was the title of an old book that
had been valued as a family heritage, but of no special importance
to any one else. The compiler of the so-called “books of reference”
had overlooked the sub-title in the book--“full titles of works
referred to in the text”--and had not realized that the use of the
word “bibliography” had been demanded by the exigencies of type. To
recommend for use as a working bibliography a list of “full titles of
works referred to in the text,”--was it perhaps donning an evening
dress when starting for the golf-links?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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