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Show LITERARY RECLUSES. Mr. Ryan, librarian of the Kilkenny library society, made books his idols, denying himself every luxury and not a few necessaries in order to add to his collection; the well furnished library of which he was custodian being insufficient to satisfy his literary cravings. He lived in the upper part of the society's premises, but admitted no one to enter his rooms for any purpose whatever. On his sudden death, in 1800, their privacy was perforce invaded. His bedroom, or what passed for such, was found to contain nothing in the way of furniture save an old sofa, which had served him for a bed upon which lay a pair of old blankets, his sole nightly covering. Piles of books were heaped up promiscuously in every direction. So in his sitting-room, there was scarcely space to move for dust-covered volumes, of which the owner had apparently made very little use, contended, like many another collector, with merely having acquired them. A wealthy eccentric living in a French provincial town was not open to that reproach. He dwelt alone in a secluded house, admitting no one but a charwoman, who prepared his meals, and a news agent who brought him thirty or forty journals at a time. One day even they could not obtain admission, and the police were called upon to intervene. Upon entering the solitary bedroom in the house - a room as squalid as it well could be - the recluse was found dead on the bed, which could only be reached by passing through a ravine, the sides of which were composed of thousands of newspapers and novels, whose perusal had been the sole delight and occupation of his wasted life. -Chamber's Journal. |