LITTERATEUR AND BOOK-HUNTER
to sacrifice himself, if need be—and generally he has to—and who selects and sets aside the ostensible heads with a view to the welfare of the cause. The vestryman of the church never becomes a bishop and the boss of the party never reaches the presidency.
An insignificant looking little man named John Jordan, Jr., retired from business, with dark eyes, weighing about one hundred and twenty pounds, with a low voice, wearing a wig, and possessing a will, who could not make a speech and never wrote a book, guided the fortunes of the Society. What he said was done. If money was needed he gave it. If he saw a description of a rare book in a catalogue it was bought. He belonged to the Moravian Church and hence it happens that our shelves smile with the richness of the collections of the literature of the followers of John Huss and Ludwig, Count Zinzendorff. At every dinner of the Society his memory is toasted. After him came Frederick D. Stone, ruddy, stout and sandy. He had failed in business, but he had capacity, nevertheless. He had no pecuniary resources, but he had a keen scent, was specially well informed with regard to events of the Revolutionary War and was ever alert in watching for opportunities to aid the institution. He selected the members of the council and the officials, and men who were loud in their denunciations of Quay and Hanna submitted quietly to the domination of Stone.
A more striking figure than either was Charles R. Hildeburn. He came out of a drug store and was substantially without education. He was young, thin and had no stomach which could digest. He was ever on the wire edge of nervous overthrow. He did not chew tobacco, but he ate it. He could not bear stimulants and used them to excess. Violent and domineering, he quarreled with everybody. He worked until four o'clock in the morning and slept with difficulty. But he had unbounded energy and appreciation of imprints, typography and the importance of a
