奧古斯丁·比勒爾/Augustine Birrell
奧古斯丁·比勒爾（1850—1933），英國政治家、散文家。曾任教育大臣、愛爾蘭事務大臣。因出版兩部題為《餘論》的散文集而享譽英國文壇。《買書》一文以平和的口吻談及書、藏書，心懷喜悅而又無可奈何地回憶起過去書的物美價廉，其愛書藏書的癡情發人深思。
The most distinguished of living Englishmen,who,great as he is in many directions,is perhaps inherently more a man of letters than anythi ng else,has been overheard mournfully to declare that there were more b ooksellers'shops in his native town sixty years ago,when he was a boy in it,than are today to be found within its boundaries.And yet the pla ce "all unabashed" now boasts its bookless self a city!
Mr.Gladstone was,of course,referring to second-hand bookshops.Ne ither he nor any other sensible man puts himself out about new books.Wh en a new book is published,read an old one,was the advice of a sound t hough surly critic.
It is one of the boasts of letters to have glorified the term "secon d-hand",which other crafts have "soiled to all ignoble use".But why it has been able to do this is obvious.All the best books are necessarily second-hand.The writers of today need not grumble.Let them "bide a wee." If their books are worth anything,they,too,one day will be secondhand.If their books are not worth anything there are ancient trades sti ll in full operation amongst us--the pastry cooks and the trunk-makers--who must have paper.
But is there any substance in the plaint that nobody now buys books,meaning thereby second-hand books?The late Mark Pattison,who had 16000 volumes,and whose lightest word has therefore weight,once stated tha t he had been informed,and verily believed,that there were men of his own University of Oxford who,being in uncontrolled possession of annual incomes of not less than￡500,thought they were doing the thing handsom ely if they expended￡50 a year upon their libraries.But we are not bou nd to believe this unless we like.There was a touch of moroseness about the late rector of Lincoln which led him to take gloomy views of men,pa rticularly Oxford men.