“Tis the witching hour of night, Or bed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten, Seeming with bright eyes to listen For what listen they?” John Keats
A Precious, Mouldering Pleasure‘Tis
To Meet An Antique Book,
In Just The Dress His Century Wore:
A Privilege, I think,
His Venerable Hand To Take,
And Warming In Our Own,
A Passage Back, Or Two, To Make
To Times When He Was Young.
Old Volumes Shake Their Vellum Heads
And Tantalize, Just So.
_ Emily Dickinson, “In A Library”
I have been tantalized just so……For I have met An Antique Book
That Which My Senses With Pleasure Filled
For Now I Want To Write A Volume or Two!
Of What Past Passage I may Be Inclined To Write
Yet, Still Remains A Mystery To Me… Ha!
Until this past Spring I had never heard of the book nor the author, needless to say I was ill-bred of its existence. “The Anthology Of Melancholy” by Robert Burton written in the year 1621 apparently turned out to be something of a unique book …ooak, turning out to be one of a kind literary work after I taken the liberty to investigate its beginning.
A historic Book with a half torn burgundy cover at the seem printed in 1898 and belonging to an
Ernest Paterson of Balliol , Oxford dated August,1906 was now a part of my library, one to become surely a favorite.
The ink inscription on the preface of the book was very legible and thru time sweat had created a visible x-ray of the writing on the preceding pages of where “Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy “introduced the book, seeping thru the presses title lettering the name of Ernest Paterson once again lay claim to the past owner of the book. It reminded me of “National Treasure’s” opening scene of credits with scrolled signatures fading and then clandestine messages merging thru the layers of script ions. I truly had found a treasure in an old book but also a piece of historic literature I never knew existed and pleased to have the occasion of discovering this day.
What I was well know ledged in and equipped by was my present state of melancholia and well aware of its deteriorating force on my human character. It was natural and quite justifiable why of all the antiquarian books at the local Merrickville United Church Annual book sale that it should pick me to enchant.
Time again, subconsciously our minds will surprise us with clues to the remedies of our ailments; that is if one is cognizant to their surroundings, a human quality in self preservation, or maybe just the way our individual entities psyche works.
But weather you have dreamt it, thought it, read it, wrote it or felt it, things seem to have a way in gravitating to similar poles.
The book was extraordinary in its cover and thou they say one can’t judge a book by its cover on the contrary it proved to be a book unlike any other. It also surprisingly touched on two poets I very much adore….John Keats and Edgar Allan Poe. After reading more about the book I learnt Keats was inspired to write the vampire poem “Lamia” and in turn Poe was influenced in his sonnet “To Science”.
So this book has become something of a rare form of read for me and maybe a kind of stimulus to further distant I from the sad infliction of melancholy by its wealth of literary variety available to its reader. Like Burton’s reasoning for writing “The Anatomy of Melancholy” his way of escaping it’s strangle "I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy”. I have begun to read “The Anatomy of Melancholy” from relief of melancholia thru Burton’s vibrant humor.
A book I will in all likelihood keep by the side of my bed whenever I feel the waning moon turn blue.
