for me, in my absence, at the Lambert sale, one item which he knew I could not resist. It was a little pen-and-ink drawing by Thackeray, the first sketch, afterwards more fully elaborated, illustrating "Vanity Fair," where, at the end of the first chapter, the immortal Becky, driving away from Miss Pinkerton's school, throws Dr. Johnson's "Dixonary" out of the window of the carriage as it drives off.

I think that all who knew him will agree with me that Luther S. Livingston was too much of a gentleman, too much of a scholar, perhaps I should add, too much of an invalid, -to take high rank as a bookseller.

-

His knowledge was profound. He was an appreciative bibliographer, witness the work he did on Lamb for Mr. J. A. Spoor of Chicago; but I always felt a trifle embarrassed when I asked him the price of anything he had to sell; one could ask him anything else, but to offer money to Livingston seemed rather like offering money to your host after an excellent dinner.

He enjoyed the love and respect of all book-collectors and we all congratulated him when he graduated from the bookshop to the library. For many years in charge of the rare-book department of Dodd, Mead & Company, and subsequently a partner of Robert Dodd, he was the first custodian of the choice collection of books formed by the late Harry Elkins Widener and bequeathed by the latter's mother to Harvard. A more admirable selec

BECKY SHARP THROWING DR. JOHNSON'S "DIXONARY" OUT OF THE CARRIAGE WINDOW, AS SHE LEAVES MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL

From the first pen-and-ink sketch, by Thackeray, afterwards elaborated

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTON LENOX

tion could not have been made. A scholar and a gentleman, he brought to that position just the qualities needed for a post of such distinction, but, unhappily, he lived hardly long enough to take possession of it. He died at Christmas, 1914, after a long and painful illness.

James F. Drake, in New York, specializes in association books and in first editions of nineteenth-century authors. His stock I have frequently laid under contribution. My Surtees and many other coloredplate books came from him, and first editions innumerable of authors now becoming "collected."

I know of no bibliography of George Moore, but my set is, I think, complete. Many are presentation copies. George Moore's many admirers will remember that his volume, " Memoirs of My Dead Life," is much sought in the first English edition. I have the proof sheets of the entire volume, showing many corrections, as in the specimen on page 50. My "Literature at Nurse," - a pamphlet attacking the censorship of the novel established by Mudie,—which was published at threepence, and now commands forty dollars, is inscribed to Willie Wilde; while "Pagan Poems" was a suitable gift "To Oscar Wilde with the author's compliments."

There is no halt in the constantly advancing value of first editions of Oscar Wilde. That interest in the man still continues, is evidenced by the steady stream of books about him. Ransome's "Oscar Wilde," immediately suppressed; "Oscar Wilde Three Times

THE

LOVERS OF
ORELAY

112 MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE

same tone as the sky. And what did I feel? Soft
perfumed airs moving everywhere. And what was
the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous
gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the
edge of a summer wood, the intoxication of the
odour of her breasts.... Why should. I think of
a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood?
Because the morning seemed the very one that
Venus should choose to rise from the sea and come
into one's bedroom. Forgive my sensuousness,
dear reader; remember that it was the first time
I breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I
saw orange trees; remember that I am a poet, a
modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. Is this
the garden of the Hesperides?' I asked myself, for
nothing seemed more unreal than the golden fruit
hanging like balls of yellow worsted among dark and
sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to
see when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-
houses, but I knew, nevertheless, that I was looking
upon orange trees, and that the golden fruit growing
amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to pick
from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which
I ate so much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any
longer; the fruit whose smell we associate with the
pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never grow
weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonder-
ful thing that at last I should see oranges growing
on trees hoppy, so singularly happy, that Fam
merly sure the happiness is, after all, to more then
a faculty for Veing ourprised. Since I was's boy !

and I felt so happy that morning

not but worth at my happeneds, and antlery fora cause for if I stumbled on the reflection that fuchops after all happenens i no mon them family for her yourporised.