So I brought him back to
the point by asking him the question in so many words.
Yes,--he said,--I have a kind of notion of the way in which a library
ought to be put together--no, I don't mean that, I mean ought to grow. I
don't pretend to say that mine is a model, but it serves my turn well
enough, and it represents me pretty accurately. A scholar must shape his
own shell, secrete it one might almost say, for secretion is only
separation, you know, of certain elements derived from the materials of
the world about us. And a scholar's study, with the books lining its
walls, is his shell. It is n't a mollusk's shell, either; it 's a
caddice-worm's shell. You know about the caddice-worm?
--More or less; less rather than more,--was my humble reply.
Well, sir, the caddice-worm is the larva of a fly, and he makes a case
for himself out of all sorts of bits of everything that happen to suit
his particular fancy, dead or alive, sticks and stones and small shells
with their owners in 'em, living as comfortable as ever. Every one of
these caddice-worms has his special fancy as to what he will pick up and
glue together, with a kind of natural cement he provides himself, to make
his case out of. In it he lives, sticking his head and shoulders out
once in a while, that is all. Don't you see that a student in his
library is a caddice-worm in his case? I've told you that I take an
interest in pretty much everything, and don't mean to fence out any human
interests from the private grounds of my intelligence.
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