The Great Debate

Lucius always felt rather possessive about the catalogue room, and it disturbed him as he emerged squinting from the stacks to find it full of foreingers, which after all was the only way to consider the dilettantes who desperately gult the library in January.

Lucius was not the half-way sort of person, and for him it was one thing or the other. You were either a library man or you were not. To anybody who had half an eye for separating the men from the boys, it was clear that these people didn't measure up.

But he couldn't find animosity in his heart during the reading period, and abandoning all caution, he struck out for the periodical room. He always tried to avoid looking at people, but he couldn't help noticing, with the satisfaction of a Neapolitan among the Americans in Naples, the way the strangers searched clumsily in the shelves and catalogues.

The periodical room had a dishonest, semi-academic flavor for Lucius, and he always felt slightly irresponsible there. After a very brief visit, guilt crept over him, and he hurried back to the catalogues. Yet these weren't really satisfying either today, and after skimming through his favorite drawer, he decided that the time had come.

Drawing four book cards from the sweater pocket he usually reserved for filing cards, he dropped them gently at the call desk. Concealing his nervousness, he flipped casually through some titles on the new books shelf, waiting for the familiar call, "Claverly 23." (Lucius didn't like his name called out in public, and he always smudged it.)

Suddenly he heard the words and, swallowing his disappointment, accepted a card from the librarian. But just as he was turning away, she handed him three books.

Quickly, he opened the first. There, on page 317, adjoining some faint underlinings, were written three words in the margin: "Is this sure?" This defacement was Lucius' work, and his only vice. Each week he recorded some provocative comment in a book, returned it, and then withdrew it again to study what replies he had inspired. In this way he found a forum for his views. The only misfortune was that debate was limited, since his book selections were not the most fashionable, and since his original critic never replied to Lucius's rebuttal. This time there was no response whatever.

Turning to the conclusion of the second book, he blushed to find that someone had endorsed his words, "Sound point," with a firm check.

Lucius had been saving the best for the end, and gripping the most popular of the three books, he turned to page 179. He had chosen his subject carefully. Next to the sentence

The European matrix of Comte is in large part Bonald and the French reaction, the effort to challenge the libertarian apriorism of the Enlightenment with a social empiricism that denies the Enlightenment values, and if Holmes worshiped Disraeli, he could, up to a point, worship Comte as well.

he had questioned, "Is this not rash?" Directly across this observation some coarse hand had written, "Read the text, IDIOT!"

Recoiling in horror, Lucius returned all but the second book and hurried to the welcoming stack door. Once inside, he steadied himself, reflecting that this was the harsh price of public expression. Anyway, it was clearly the work of a non-library man.