: The Fur Bringers: A Story of the Canadian Northwest by Footner Hulbert - Northwest Canadian Fiction

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CHAP. PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE FOR THE EDITION OF 1905 3

INTRODUCTION 9

POSTSCRIPT FOR THE EDITION OF 1905 245

BIBLIOGRAPHY 250

INDEX 255

FINE PRINTS

INTRODUCTION

In the collecting of Prints--of prints which must be fine and may most probably be rare--there is an ample recompense for the labour of the diligent, and room for the exercise of the most various tastes. Certain of the objects on which the modern collector sets his hands have, it may be, hardly any other virtue than the doubtful one of scarcity; but fine prints, whatever School they may belong to, and whatever may be the money value that happens to be affixed to them by the fashion of the time, have always the fascination of beauty and the interest of historical association. Then, considered as collections of works of art, there is the practical convenience of their compactness. The print-collector carries a museum in a portfolio, or packs away a picture gallery, neatly, within the compass of one solander-box.

Again, the print-collector, if he will but occupy himself with intelligent industry, may, even to-day, have a collection of fine things without paying overmuch, or even very much, for them. All will depend upon the School or master that he particularly affects. Has he at his disposal only a few bank-notes, or only a few sovereigns even, every year?--he may yet surround himself with excellent possessions, of which he will not speedily exhaust the charm. Has he the fortune of an Astor or a Vanderbilt?--he may instruct the greatest dealers in the trade to struggle in the auction-room, on his behalf, with the representatives of the Berlin Museum. And it may be his triumph, then, to have paid the princely ransom of the very rarest "state" of the rarest Rembrandt. And, all the time, whether he be rich man or poor--but especially, I think, if he be poor--he will have been educating himself to the finer perception of a masculine yet lovely art, and, over and above indulging the "fad" of the collector, he will find that his possessions rouse within him an especial interest in some period of Art History, teach him a real and delicate discrimination of an artist's qualities, and so, indeed, enlarge his vista that his enjoyment of life itself, and his appreciation of it, is quickened and sustained. For great Art of any kind, whether it be the painter's, the engraver's, the sculptor's, or the writer's, is not--it cannot be too often insisted--a mere craft or sleight-of-hand, to be practised from the wrist downwards. It is the expression of the man himself. It is, therefore, with great and new personalities that the study of an art, the contemplation of it--not the mere bungling amateur performance of it;--brings you into contact. And there is no way of studying an art that is so complete and satisfactory as the collecting of examples of it.

And then again, to go back to the material part of the business, how economical it is to be a collector, if only you are wise and prudent! Of pleasant vices this is surely the least costly. Nay, more; the bank-note cast upon the waters may come back after many days.

The study of engravings, ancient and modern--of woodcuts, line engravings, etchings, mezzotints--has become by this time extremely elaborate and immensely complicated. Most people know nothing of it, and do not even realise that behind all their ignorance there is a world of learning and of pleasure, some part of which at least might be theirs if they would but enter on the land and seek to possess it. Few men, even of those who address themselves to the task, acquire swiftly any substantial knowledge of more than one or two departments of the study; though the ideal collector, and I would even say the reasonable one, whatever he may actually own, is able, sooner or later, to take a survey of the larger ground--his eye may range intelligently over fields he has no thought of annexing.

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