423 / 434
·EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
By ERNEST RHYS
V
ICTOR HUGO said a Library was "an act of iaith,"
and sorne unknown essayist spoke of one so beautiful,
so perfect, so harmonious in all its parts, that he who
made it was smitten with a passion.
In
that faith the promoters
of Everyman's Library planned it out originally on a large
scale; and their idea in so doing was to make it conform as
far as possible to a perfect scheme. However, perfection is a.
thing to be aimed at and not to be achieved in this difficult world ;.
and since the first volumes appeared sorne fifteen yea s ago,.
there have been many interruptions. A great war has come and
gone; and even the City of Books has felt something like
a world commotion. Only in recent years is the series getting
back into its old stride and looking forward to complete its
original scheme of a Thousand Volumes. One of the practica!
expedients in that original plan was to divide the volumes into
sections, as Biography, Fiction, History, Belles Lettres, Poetry,
Romance and so for-th; with a compartment for young people,
and last, and not least, one of Reference Bboks. Beside the
dictionaries and encyclopredias to be expected in that section,
there was a special set of literary and historical atlases. One of
these atlases dealing with Europe, we may recall, was directly
affected by the disturbance of frontiers during the war; and the
maps have been completely revised in consequence, so as to chart
1