book theft

I have never been so compelled to steal a library book as I was this afternoon, opening the 1928 Phoenix Library edition of Tarr, for the following reasons:

1) It is pocket-sized: at 4.5" by 7", this tiny hardcover is possibly the platonic ideal of book shape.

2) It smells like old books (the best non-food smell there is).

3) It is full of underlining and (sometimes illegible) notes in pencil, including "TEDIOUS!" and "nothing is what it is; it is always the possibility of smthg else, or the potential to effect smthg."

4) It is written in the inimitable style of Mr. Wyndham Lewis, who is a master of human nature and who elevates punctuation from the grammatical to the artistic:

Tarr needed a grimacing tumultuous mask for the face he had to cover. He had compared his clowning with Hobson's pierrotesque variety: but Hobson, he considered, was a crowd. You could not say he was an individual, he was in fact a set. He sat there, a cultivated audience, with the aplomb and absence of self-consciousness of numbers, of the herd—of those who know they are not alone.—Tarr was shy and the reverse by turns; he was alone.

5) It is orange, with a phoenix blind debossed onto the front. The text and flourishes on the spine are in gold leaf. You don't get much more flamboyant than that.

Please note that I did not actually steal the book, as I am far too susceptible to guilt.