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"Smith's"

I sing to the praise of Smith's, revered, time-honoured institution of Wellington life. Whitcombe's or Osborne's may charm one temporarily with their spaciousness and air of respectable prosperity, other upstart dealers may lure one away for a time, but the true Wellington book-worm returns, inevitably, to his old love, Smith's. What matter that the shop is crowded, the books in bewildering profusion, that one has often to bend or stretch excrutiatingly to find one's books, it is always with relief, particularly after some defection, that one returns to its doors, savouring appreciatively the musty, distinctive odour that emanates from its stock.

What delight to touch the books with sympathetic fingers—passing quickly over theology, history, science, to find a slight volume of Alice Meynell, one of Eileen Duggan's treasured first booklets of verse, an old volume of Maning or a long-sought-for Brooke! With what elation does one at length track down an early volume of Katherine Mansfield, eagerly paying over the price, and grasping the book with acquisitive clutch, lest even in this hour of possession, one should be deprived of the treasure.

And the personnel of Smith's! Mr. Smith, himself, with immemorial stove-pipe collar, and complexion sere as one of his most ancient tomes; Mr. Smith, with his crackling, nasal voice and Olympian indifference; Mr. Smith, with appraising eye, at once the foe and the friend of every penurious book-lover. But even Mr. Smith's claims to renown must give way before the superior claims of his nameless first-assistant, who is, in truth, the pivot, the mainstay, the presiding genius of the institution. Nameless she is, yet what name is needed by a priestess, what Vestal was famed for nomen and cognomen? We have dubbed her "The Priestess"; "The Priestess "let her remain in this chronicle. Happy that day when the book-lover is first greeted with a smile from the lady. He may now deem himself—subject to his paying regular devotions at the shrine—on the outer circles of the Elect. He will, in future, be greeted by a dazzling smile, remarks about the weather, a critical remark regarding the book he wishes to purchase.

Hapless the newcomer who approaches the Priestess, imagining that he will take advantage of feminine weakness and gain his nefarious ends. Not Mr. Smith himself drives a harder bargain, knows to a penny the price of a volume, is more widely aware of the sinister ways of the confirmed book-worm.

No portrait of the Priestess could claim to be complete without some mention of the catholicity of her taste. She is equally appreciative of the "loveliness" of Bertha Ruck or of the fine flavour of E. V. Lucas; she can converse with equal charm to the shopgirl reader of novelettes or to the hoary-headed delver into the remotest abstractions of theology. One would give much to know her private opinions of her wares, or the more piquant opinions regarding the customers she greets with so comprehensive a courtesy. Truly, Mr. Smith, in your first assistant, you have a pearl of infinite price.

Despite the charm of its personnel, Smith's greatest interest lies naturally in its stock. Oh that those leaves had lips to conjure up a page 20 thousand varied tales of owners and their lives! What sordid little dramas, what shabby, pitiful romances, what arid aeons of commonplaceness have they not beheld, and experienced, passively though it was. Sometimes, by an inscription or a scribbled word or two, one is given a clue to the experiences of these voiceless people—"J. N. Barker, a little present to herself, Xmas, 1918"—are those words not enough to conjure up for even the dourest realist a pathetic picture of lonely spinsterhood, friendless, dejected, yet retaining some of the spirit of youth that is the gift of books to all those who read and truly understand them. Even the markings on old books tell us something of their history; one sees with compassionate eye traces of the vandal—clog-ears, obscene traces of food, pencil scorings—and one pities the book that has experienced owners so uncharitable, so ignorant of the true nature of books.

And so one could go on, pointing out the remarkable way in which a book becomes imbued with the personality of its owner, how books of theology retain some of the ponderous manner and sombre garb of former, long-deceased Victorian vestry-men, how an underlined, classical text-book tells of the feverish, examination interest of its owner or how some reeking volume of Thackeray conjures up long vistas of a past age. But our task has sufficed if we can lead you, reader, to a fuller realisation of the romantic charm of an odorous second-hand-book-shop—rare haven of repose in this age of progress, new ideas and American "pep."

—E.H.M.