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POLITICS AND HISTORY
OF VIOLENCE AND CRIME
IN CENTRAL AMERICA
Edited by Sebastian Huhn
and Hannes Warnecke-Berger
Politics and History of Violence and Crime in
Central America
 Sebastian Huhn • Hannes Warnecke-Berger

Politics and History

of Violence and
Crime in Central
America
Sebastian Huhn Hannes Warnecke-Berger
Department of History Institute of Political Science
Osnabrück University University of Leipzig
Osnabrück, Hamburg, Germany Leipzig, Germany

ISBN 978-1-349-95066-9    ISBN 978-1-349-95067-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-95067-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016962084

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

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 Prologue

Given its high crime rates, Central America is in the unenviable position
today of being known as one of the world’s most violent regions. As this
book shows, this phenomenon calls for analysis that goes beyond terrify-
ing newspaper headlines and simple statistical numbers lacking in context.
The chapters collected here point out that violence and crime in Central
America are not new phenomena and that they have always been highly
multifarious. As a matter of fact, in the history of the isthmus violence has
played an important role in the maintenance and reproduction of labour
relations in agriculture, in the rivalry between those who have sought to
achieve or to maintain political power, in the daily lives of families and
communities in rural and urban areas, in gender relations and in the realm
of daily crime. As we know, the region also experienced a long period of
state terror and revolutionary violence. Last but not least, violence has
also been the object of discourses and representations, as for example in
the context of partial interpretations and memories of conflicts—as at
least two of this book’s chapters will discuss—or as the topic of important
works of literature and art.
As is well known, violence is a universal part of social life. At the same
time, however, it appears in specific forms of expression that are depen-
dent on societies and historical contexts. For that reason it seems appro-
priate to identify some specific elements of Central American history that
are relevant as the structural context for the understanding of violence in
past centuries in the perspective of the longue durée. Here I refer to histor-
ical processes that have had long-term consequences (path dependency)
since the time of independence as well as to the specific modalities of state

v
vi PROLOGUE

building, or nation building, of the establishment of political systems, and

of ethnic and class relations in the different Central American countries.
If we take the epoch of independence and its demarcation from the
colonial experience as an initial starting point, we can observe several par-
ticular characteristics in the region’s history compared to Latin American
history in general. First of all, it is remarkable that independence from
Spain was not the result of a war of independence, as in the case of the
other Latin American colonies of the Spanish empire. Central American
independence was an inevitable consequence of Mexico’s negotiated
independence. The Central Americans did not experience war until after
1821—both in the wars of the Federal Republic and the armed conflicts
within the particular states.
From the 1820s to the mid-nineteenth century, war was a chronic prob-
lem and the region became infamous for being politically unstable and
dominated by political anarchy. During the first decades of independence,
the countries of Central America also began to differ from one another
in terms of their levels of political violence and the recurrence of war.
Nicaragua became a political community that was entangled in civil wars
again and again, for example, while Costa Rica became known as a stable
and pacifist place. The countries of the Northern Triangle—Guatemala,
Honduras and El Salvador—experienced several military conflicts, not
least because of the attempt by the former to maintain regional hegemony.
The war against William Walker’s filibusters was a moment characterised
by severe violence in the region, and at the same time was a turning point,
as its resolution decreased the frequency of armed conflict in the region
itself and the various countries gradually attained the basic attributes of
“stateness”. After 1870, as liberals came to power across the whole region,
the isthmus was largely pacified, even if José Santos Zelaya’s regency in
Nicaragua generated a degree of instability on a regional level until it was
radically resolved by the United States via military intervention in the first
decade of the twentieth century.
If we look at the world of the subaltern classes, we can see that there
were not many indigenous rebellions or peasant uprisings after indepen-
dence and during the nineteenth century in Central America. The only
movement with broad importance was the revolt that brought Rafael
Carrera to power in Guatemala. Rural banditry was also rather rare in
Central American history. Isolated incidents occurred in Guatemala dur-
ing the Carrera regime and in Nicaragua in the mid-nineteenth century
in the context of civil war. The rebellion of Augusto C. Sandino probably
 PROLOGUE vii

emerged from a tradition of banditry in the north of the country. Rural

bandits may have been the most redoubtable delinquents of the region
during the first century of independence.
However, violence in rural areas was not primarily the product of resis-
tance by the dominated classes but rather was a structural part of the social
relations of production. As one of this book’s chapters shows, several
forms of violence were essential for the functioning of coffee production
in countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. During the
liberal era, landowners and states used violence to enforce the transfor-
mation of land ownership conditions and to sustain labour relations that
were based on non-economic force. It was this type of violence that was
responsible for the uprising in El Salvador in 1932.
It is also noteworthy that urban workers and artisans only used vio-
lence sporadically in their protests between the late nineteenth and mid-­
twentieth centuries. The workers of the banana plantations, on the other
hand, were indeed involved in violent labour conflicts. Violence thereby
was less the product of their actions and more the instrument of their
repression by companies and governments. Starting with the urbanisa-
tion of the mid-twentieth century that was experienced in all countries
of the region, forms of delinquency and violence appeared which Central
America still suffers from today. Violence in the rural world obviously did
not disappear. It rather gained another dimension, as it was in the rural
world where the first expressions of revolutionary rebellion appeared, or
where they were intended to be established.
In Central America we can identify historical moments that have to be
considered as indispensable as the context of contemporary violence, such
as patterns of longue durée which have to be seen as the determinants in
the production of violence and crime. The processes of state formation,
the invention of nations, the political regimes, and ethnic and class rela-
tions are the general frame for the role violence has always played in social
life in Central America.
In Central America, the process of political and military centralisa-
tion carved out a territory for the use of violence in which some gained
authority while others were excluded. The process of acquisition of “state”
attributes was very diverse and bumpy in the different states. This is why
we use terms such as “failed” or—from a less ideological point of view—
“fragile” to characterise several of the Central American states. In the
early history of Central American state building we find a single state that
was never built in the end, the Central American Federal Republic. As a
viii PROLOGUE

c­ onsequence of this failure, five micro-states were built, with very weak
attributes of “stateness” in most cases. For good reason, the viability of its
states is a recurring topic in Central American history.
The Central American states differ considerably in their level of suc-
cess in state formation. In the long term, Guatemala, El Salvador and
Costa Rica were more successful in the process of political and military
centralisation. Due to its internal power struggles and US military occu-
pation, Nicaragua was not able to build a modern state until the time of
the Somoza dictatorship. At the same time, Honduras was finally able to
establish a state. Nevertheless, Honduras today remains the most frag-
ile state in Central America. On the other hand, Costa Rica obviously
became the most institutionalised state with the most visible social web
across its entire territory. In sum, the level of political and military cen-
tralisation or, respectively, the success of state formation is a factor that
defines an area for the existence and expression of violence in social and
political life.
The nation, or the sense of national belonging, also constitutes a frame
for the use and the expression of the different forms of violence. When
the “imagined community” creates a strong sense of “us” it also has to
modulate or condemn the use of violence and its levels and dimensions
in social life. When the members of a society instead act separately on the
basis of profound ethnic divisions or because of local or regional territorial
loyalties which hinder the sense of being a “community”, different forms
of violence seem more legitimate and acceptable. Guatemala is an extreme
example of this, where discrimination, subordination and the use of vio-
lence against the indigenous population were naturalised. In Nicaragua,
territorially based loyalties were determining factors in the processes of
state formation and nation building. When the elites set themselves apart,
assuming a position of superiority, and did not allow the subalterns to be
part of an “us”, the nation remained unfinished or incidental, as was the
case in El Salvador.
The question of the efficacy of the invention of the nation is undoubt-
edly connected to the level of state formation that was attained, but it is
also related to the characteristics of the political regime. This relation is
complex, making it impossible to say whether a state with an authoritarian
regime is less capable of successfully inventing a nation than a state with
a democratic regime. In Central America, the Costa Rican state became
the most institutionalised and the most capable of bringing the population
under its control and integrating it into the “imagined community”. This
 PROLOGUE ix

success is known as the “Costa Rican exceptionalism” and it resulted in

the lowest rates of violence of any kind in the long run.
The processes of state formation and the invention of nations are inter-
connected phenomena even in the global context. The Central American
countries are “client states” of the informal US empire that was established
in the region and in the Caribbean at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. The outcomes of this condition have been very contradictory. This
became obvious during the approval process of the Central American Free
Trade Agreement, for example, when the greatest resistance to this impe-
rial move came from Costa Rica, probably the most “pro-gringo” country.
The so-called “war on drugs”, in which the United States decided to make
the Central American states its auxiliary forces, is for its part a decisive fac-
tor in the phenomenon of violence. The “war on drugs” leads to violence
itself and people also perceive and discuss it as an important element of the
overall problem of violence. Likewise, US and Central American migration
policies have an immediate effect on the current violence on the isthmus.
In the light of tattered “imagined communities”, political regimes
with low levels of legitimacy, and states incapable of providing the most
elementary services to the people, it is no surprise that large proportions
of Central American societies opt for the exit and vote with their feet,
and that other segments of society, powerful and fearsome minorities, opt
for the systematic use of violence. Paradoxically, political violence—which
was a constant part of life in most Central American states after indepen-
dence—is less important in the present, while other forms of violence,
“horizontal violence” and crime, prevail. The Central American states are
still not able to establish a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical
force, nor do they enjoy the respect and loyalty of large parts of the popu-
lation. Competition between elites apparently became institutionalised,
but today corruption is a structural element of the political system. Thus,
this depends on and feeds violent crime and “horizontal violence” at the
same time.
There are not many reasons to be optimistic in Central America today.
The reorganisation of the illustrated long-term structural framework seems
nearly impossible to achieve: real states with democratic political regimes,
conclusive “imagined communities” and a redefinition of the condition of
being “client states” of the United States seem like indispensable steps for
finding a way to oppose the violence that prevails. In the face of this chal-
lenge it is much easier and more profitable for politicians and the media,
as well as inevitable for a desperate population, to call for and to praise
x PROLOGUE

punitive populism. It is in this light that it is so urgent and important to do

critical research about violence and crime in Central America in the past
and the present, as is presented in this volume.

Víctor H. Acuña Ortega

 Table of Contents

1 The Enigma of Violent Realities in Central America:

Towards a Historical Perspective 1
Sebastian Huhn and Hannes Warnecke-Berger

2 How to Explain and How Not to Explain Contemporary

Criminal Violence in Central America 23
Heidrun Zinecker

3 Of Pandillas, Pirucas, and Pablo Escobar in the Barrio 65

Dennis Rodgers

4 Memories of Violence in the Salvadoran Civil War 85

Erik Ching

5 Questioning the Crime Wave 113

Sebastian Huhn

6 The Salvadoran Armed Left and Revolutionary Violence

(1970–1980) 147
Alberto Martín Álvarez and Eudald Cortina Orero

xi
xii Table of Contents

7 On Collective Violence in Nineteenth-­Century

Guatemala 183
Michael Riekenberg

8 Borderlands and Public Violence in a Shadow Polity 207

Robert H. Holden

9 Forms of Violence in Past and Present: El Salvador

and Belize in Comparative Perspective 241
Hannes Warnecke-Berger

10 The Violence of Dispossession: Guatemala in the

Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 281
Jim Handy

Index325
 Note on Contributors

Sebastian Huhn is Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of History at

Osnabrück University, Germany. His research focuses on Central American his-
tory, violence and crime in Central America and the Global South, migration,
national identity and youth violence. His publications include several books and
articles in English, Spanish and German.
Hannes Warnecke-Berger is Senior Researcher at the Special Research Council
1199 at the University of Leipzig, Germany. His research touches on the political
economy of development and focuses on violence in the Global South. He has
conducted extensive field research in El Salvador, Belize and Jamaica.
Heidrun Zinecker is Professor of International Relations at the University of
Leipzig, Germany. Her research interests include conflict and development stud-
ies, and she has conducted fieldwork in Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico. Her publications include several
books and articles in English, Spanish and German.
Dennis Rodgers is Professor of International Development Studies at the
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Visiting Professor at the School of
Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK. A social anthropologist
by training, he specialises in the interdisciplinary study of urban development
issues, including those relating to conflict and violence, governance, planning and
the politics of inequality. He has ­conducted extensive participatory research on
these topics in Nicaragua, Argentina and India (Bihar).
Erik Ching is Professor of History at Furman University, USA. He is a specialist
on El Salvador and has authored or co-authored numerous books and articles on
Salvadorian history. His latest research looks at the historical memory of the

xiii
xiv NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

Salvadorian civil war and will appear as Stories of Civil War in El Salvador in
autumn 2016.
Alberto Martín Álvarez is Researcher at the Instituto Mora, Mexico. His research
interests focus on the study of collective action, social movements and political
violence in Latin America and Europe.
Eudald Cortina Orero is Researcher HISTAMÉRICA at the Universidad de
Santiago de Compostela, Spain. His research focuses on political violence in Latin
America, a field in which he has published several works on guerrilla experiences in
Argentina, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Michael Riekenberg is Professor of Comparative History and Ibero-­American
History at the University of Leipzig, Germany. His research interests include col-
lective political violence and theoretical analyses of violence in historical perspec-
tive. His publications include several books and articles in English, Spanish and
German.
Robert H. Holden is Professor of History at Old Dominion University, USA. His
research interests include state formation, legitimacy and authority, rule of law,
violence, history of Mexico, Central America (Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Honduras, Costa Rica), Cuba, the Caribbean and US relations with Latin America.
His publications include several books and articles in English and Spanish.
Jim Handy is Professor of History at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
His research interests include the history of application of concepts of “progress”
and “development” around the world, justice and community in Guatemala, envi-
ronmental history in Central America, food sovereignty, and cotton cultivation
and environmental destruction. His publications include several books and articles
in English and Spanish.
 List of Abbreviations

ANCR Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica, San José.

ARDE Alianza Revolutionaria Democrática (Democratic
Revolutionary Alliance), Nicaragua.
ARENA Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Nationalist
Republican Alliance), El Salvador.
AVANCSO Asociación para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales
(Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences),
Guatemala.
CEPA Comisión Ejecutiva Portuaria Autónoma (Autonomous
Portuary Executive Commission), El Salvador.
CIA Central Intelligence Agency, USA.
CICIG Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en
Guatemala (International Commission Against
Impunity in Guatemala), Guatemala.
CNCG Confederación Nacional Campesina de Guatemala
(National Peasant League of Guatemala), Guatemala.
CNTG Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores (National
Labour Federation), Guatemala.
CRM Coordinadora Revolucionaria de Masas (Coordinating
Body of Mass Organizations), El Salvador.
CUC Comité de Unidad Campesina (Committee for
Campesino Unity), Guatemala.
DEA Drug Enforcement Agency, USA.
DIS Dirección de Inteligencia y Seguridad (Intelligence and
Security Directorate), Costa Rica.

xv
xvi List of Abbreviations

DOS U.S. Department of State.

EMP Estado Mayor Presidencial (Presidential Guard),
Guatemala.
ERP Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People’s
Revolutionary Army), El Salvador.
FAL Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (Liberation Armed
Forces), El Salvador.
FAR Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (Rebel Armed Forces),
Guatemala.
FARN Fuerzas Armadas de la Resistencia Nacional (Armed
Forces of National Resistance), El Salvador.
FECCAS Federación Cristiana de Campesinos Salvadoreños
(Christian Federation of Salvadoran Peasants), El
Salvador.
FENASTRAS Federación Nacional Sindical de Trabajadores
Salvadoreños (Federation of Salvadoran Workers), El
Salvador.
FMLN Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional
(Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), El
Salvador.
FOIA Released to author via a Freedom of Information Act
request.
FPL Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Farabundo Martí
(Farabundo Martí Popular Liberation Forces), El
Salvador.
FRAP Fuerzas Revolucionarias Armadas del Pueblo (People’s
Armed Revolutionary Forces), El Salvador.
FSLN Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista
National Liberation Front), Nicaragua.
FUR Frente Unido de la Revolución (United Front of the
Revolution), Guatemala.
IBM International Business Machines Corporation.
IBSS International Bibliography of Social Sciences.
IGSS United Front of the Revolution (Guatemalan Institute
for Social Security), Guatemala.
IMF International Monetary Fund.
MCCA Mercado Común Centroamericano (Central American
Common Market).
 List of Abbreviations  xvii

ML Movimiento Libertario (Libertarian Movement), Costa

Rica.
MLN Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (Movement of
National Liberation), Guatemala.
NA National Archives of the United States, Washington.
NYT New York Times.
OPS U.S. Office of Public Safety.
ORDEN Organización Democrática Nacionalista (National
Democratic Organization), El Salvador.
ORT Organización Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores
(Workers Revolutionary Organization), El Salvador.
PAC Partido Accion Ciudadana (Citizens’ Action Party),
Costa Rica.
PAR Partido de Acción Renovadora (Party of Renewing
Action), El Salvador.
PCN Partido de Concertación Nacional (National
Conciliation Party), El Salvador.
PCS Partido Comunista Salvadoreño (Salvadoran Communist
Party), El Salvador.
PDC Partido Demócrata Cristiano (Christian Democratic
Party), El Salvador.
PGT Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Guatemalan Workers
Party), Guatemala.
PLN Partido de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation
Party), Costa Rica.
PN Policía Nacional (National Police), Guatemala.
PNC Policía Nacional Civil (National Civil Police), Guatemala.
PR Partido Revolucionario (Revolutionary Party),
Guatemala.
PRTC Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores
Centroamericanos (Central American Workers
Revolutionary Party), El Salvador.
PTJ Policía Técnica Judicial (Criminal Investigation
Department), Panamá.
PUSC Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (Social Christian Unity
Party), Costa Rica.
REMHI Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (Recovery of the
Historic Memory), Guatemala
RG Record Group.
xviii List of Abbreviations

SICA Sistema de Integración Centroamericana (Central

American Integration System).
SIECA Secretariá de Integración Económica Centroamericana
(Secretary of Economic Integration of Central America).
SP files of the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública, Republic of
Costa Rica.
UCA Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas”
(Central American University “José Simeón Cañas”), El
Salvador.
UES Universidad de El Salvador (University of El Salvador),
El Salvador.
UFCo United Fruit Company.
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
US AID United States Agency for International Development.
USAMHI/Lib Library of the US Army Military History Institute,
Carlisle Barracks, PA.
UTC Unión de Trabajadores del Campo (Union of Field
Workers), El Salvador.
WNRC Washington National Records Center, Suitland, MD.
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Homicide rates in Central America, 2014 24

Fig. 2.2 Change of foreign exchange earnings of El Salvador,
1978 and 2004 39
Fig. 2.3 Annual remittances to El Salvador in billion US dollars,
1980–201040
Fig. 2.4 Remittances per capita in US dollars, 2006 40
Fig. 2.5 Remittances as share of income, 2006 41
Fig. 6.1 Type of Action exerted by ERP, 1972–1976 164
Fig. 6.2 Type of Action exerted by FPL, 1972–1976 164
Fig. 6.3 Revolutionary organizations’ actions in El Salvador,
1971–1980166
Fig. 6.4 Type of Violent Action exerted by FPL, 1977–1980 168
Fig. 6.5 Type of Violent Action exerted by ERP, 1977–1980 170
Fig. 6.6 Type of Action exerted by RN, 1976–1980 171
Fig. 6.7 Type of Action exerted by PRTC, 1978–1980 172
Fig. 9.1 Level of Violence in El Salvador and Belize, 1930–2014 247

xix
 CHAPTER 1

The Enigma of Violent Realities in Central

America: Towards a Historical Perspective

Sebastian Huhn and Hannes Warnecke-Berger

Central America today is considered to be one of the most violent regions

in the world. In terms of homicide, for example, the region outstrips most
other regions.1
Despite Central America’s recently acquired reputation for being par-
ticularly prone to violence, there are also remarkable differences within
the region. The three northern societies (Guatemala, El Salvador, and
Honduras) lead in homicide statistics, while their southern neighbours
experience relatively low levels of violence. Therefore, violence in terms
of homicide is very unevenly distributed. In 2013, for example, Honduras
was the country with the world’s highest homicide rate, with more than
90 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. El Salvador was in fifth place with a
homicide rate of 41, followed by Guatemala with 40 homicides per 100,000
inhabitants. Costa Rica registered a homicide rate of 8.5. Nicaragua’s
rate was roughly just over 11, and Panama’s rate was around 17.2

S. Huhn (*)
Department of History, Osnabrück University, Neuer Graben 19/21,
49074 Osnabrück, Germany

H. Warnecke-Berger
SFB 1199 “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition”,
Leipzig University, Nikolaistrasse 6-10, 4109 Leipzig, Germany

© The Author(s) 2017 1

S. Huhn, H. Warnecke-Berger, Politics and History of Violence and
Crime in Central America, DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-95067-6_1
2 S. HUHN AND H. WARNECKE-BERGER

According to press reports and preliminary statistics, in 2015 El Salvador

took the global lead, likely experiencing more than 100 homicides per
100,000 inhabitants—one out of every 1,000 people died of unnatu-
ral causes that year. Some studies take this puzzle as a starting point for
interpretation.3
But even within the three northern countries, violence does not
occur evenly across the country. While in 2014 the number of reg-
istered homicides was 336 in the municipality of San Salvador, in
Nahuizalco “only” 50 people died of unnatural causes.4 From a micro
perspective it could therefore even be misleading to conceptualise El
Salvador as a violent country without considering very local differences
and fluctuations.

The Puzzle of Violence

A quantitative assessment based on statistics reveals little about today’s
violence beyond death counts. The violence itself remains obscure, par-
ticularly in its historical dimension.
Although the quantitative approach to violence is a necessary and use-
ful tool of analysis, not least in posing further research questions that
eventually focus on the very level of agency where violence occurs, these
approaches may run the risk of obscuring the fact that violence creates or
even fabricates its own reality which cannot be represented by numbers
alone. Furthermore, quantitative studies based on statistics rather neglect
the embeddedness of violence in (historical) life worlds and the corre-
sponding discourses, narratives, and collective memories about the legiti-
macy and illegitimacy of violence in different historical moments. Finally,
quantitative studies are often based on the unquestioned presumption that
a rise or decline in statistical figures implies a certain social meaning or
perception. While there is little doubt that violence generally has an influ-
ence on people and their perceptions and positions, statistical indicators
are sometimes the least suitable source for reflecting on those meanings.
It is remarkable, for example, that fear of crime at times seems to be more
widespread in countries with lower crime rates than in those with higher
rates.5 It is also sometimes the case that people living in places with rela-
tively high crime rates do not consider their barrios extraordinarily danger-
ous places, while people living in statistically safer places perceive a high
risk of violence and crime.6 In a rather polemical way we could also pro-
claim that fear of global warming should be more significant than fear of
 THE ENIGMA OF VIOLENT REALITIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA 3

crime in many countries, as scientific statistics indicate that climate change

will have negative effects on more people in the near future. Nevertheless,
climate change is often not among the top fears and anxieties of people, in
contrast to fear of crime.
Violence itself does not create its own reality. That reality is far more
often fabricated by an entire set of social actors, each of whom builds on
their own history and experience to improve their position in an ongoing
social struggle of positionality in the contemporary field of social forces.
At the same time, social groups create histories, narratives, and collec-
tive memories about violence and its respective meaning. While an act
of ­violence may be condemned in terms of a certain historical moment,
a similar act may be justified or even glorified for another historical
moment. Finally, collectives often rather ignore certain acts of violence or
do not even consider them as violence in specific historical moments and
contexts. Revolutionary movements most often refer back to a history of
resistance instead of violence in their own narratives, for example.7
Moreover, sensationalism and fear of crime are commonly part of the
political agenda, a crucial point for understanding violence and its mean-
ing. Instead of exposing a neutral effect of violence, however, this negative
reputation goes hand in hand, leads to, and/or justifies increased social
and geographical segregation, private security, the re-militarisation of law
enforcement, political populism, tightening of laws, and mano dura poli-
cies, all of which intervene in a struggle for power and social recognition,
thereby privileging some social groups while excluding others.
Again, both sensationalism and fear of crime may construct a more
or less hegemonic image of the monstrous other which is applied to
the predominant violent actors that appear on the scene. Youth gangs,
maras, and pandillas play this pivotal role in Central America. However,
it is hard to determine the “objective” weight of these violent actors in
terms of their violent output as well as their capacity to dominate entire
areas within specific urban or rural settings.8 As soon as it was discov-
ered that gangs might hardly be culpable for all kinds and extends of
violence in the region, for instance as discussion of the gang truces in
Central America showed, the discourse switched to treating organ-
ised crime as a newly emerging principal violent actor in the region.
As with youth gangs, however, essential questions still remain unan-
swered: violence still happens “apart” from these predominant violent
actors, and other social actors engage in a violent game which eventu-
ally entails strategies of escalation, blaming, and manipulation of violence.
4 S. HUHN AND H. WARNECKE-BERGER

Processes such as sensationalism, fear, scaremongering, over- or under-

estimation, or scapegoating, however, are based on a deadly uncertainty,
and questions such as how did it happen, who did it, why did it happen,
when did it happen, and last but not least what does this mean for society
or the individual, trail away in the wake of endless rumours and constant
talk of crime.
This is the starting point of the present book. We contend that vio-
lence is neither entirely new nor an ahistorical social fact that emerges
arbitrarily. Instead, we argue that history arguments plays and impor-
tant role. These historical arguments need to be taken into closer
consideration in order to examine the embeddedness of today’s “new
violence”9 in a broader flow of history. Those historical processes may
be very time and space dependent, but they may also reflect a rather
global zeitgeist. In Central America we can see that Thatcherism and
Reaganism changed the conception of violence and crime, casting
them as specific social and political problems, for example.10 Likewise,
revolutionary movements challenged and, in the case of Nicaragua,
even overcame despotic and repressive authoritarian regimes, and their
social practice thus reflects the enduring possibilities of taking alter-
native paths of social development, including revolutionary change.
Uncovering the historical processes by which violence has evolved into
a powerful tool today for individuals and groups to engage in social
action entails different challenges.

Continuities and Changes in Violence

Firstly, certainly one of the most persuasive challenges consists in high-
lighting the continuities of violence, thereby risking to leave aside the
changes, ruptures, and junctures. This is not only an empirical question
since it touches on much broader questions, such as structuralism and post-­
structuralism, focusing on the “how” or the “why” of violence and, last
but not least, the method chosen and the respective appropriate body of
sources. However, this problem can be controlled for if durations of time
are taken into closer consideration. While the chapters by Robert Holden,
Jim Handy, Sebastian Huhn, and Hannes Warnecke-Berger intend to
describe the larger picture of violence in the region, thereby following the
longue durée, Heidrun Zinecker, Dennis Rodgers, Michael Riekenberg,
Alberto Martín and Eudald Cortina Orero, and Erik Ching concentrate on
in-depth analysis of particular crucial events and time frames. Considering
both levels of time—a view of the longer histories, processes, and path
 THE ENIGMA OF VIOLENT REALITIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA 5

dependencies of violence as well as the concrete events—instead of privi-

leging structures over social action and practice, or exclusively focusing
on practice and thereby ignoring the structural setting, reveals a powerful
option for relativising both structural depths as well as singular events.
The present book recognises both: the importance of focusing on par-
ticular events, as well as the need to zoom out, to leave the moment in
which violence occurs and look at the broader picture of historical flows
and structures.

The Question of History

Secondly, historical arguments about violence can themselves often be
highly questionable. Expressed in terms of “everything used to be better”
and based on crime rates displaying ostensibly neutral facts on historical
timelines, the social, political, as well as historical context in which vio-
lence occurs either as a phenomenon or as an object of discourses, percep-
tions, and narratives becomes excluded and thus remains obscure. Two
brief examples from two newspaper articles in El Salvador and Costa Rica
may help illustrate this challenge.

The first day of the year—we can take, however, every other day as an exam-
ple—was a bloody date for El Salvador (…) resulting in 21 killed and 21
serious injured persons. And there was no revolution, and no uprising of any
political character (…) Only there have been some spontaneous eruptions
of a bad population which is spreading how we can observe it every day in
the press.11

The second example is from an article in the Costa Rican newspaper La

Nación. In an article titled “The Crime Problem: Not One Step Forward”
the author wrote about a series of fatal muggings during the week:

the country has been experiencing a very worrisome and grave increase in its
crime problem for quite some time … the wave of crime is abnormally grave.
…The inhabitants of the metropolitan area cannot sleep quietly; they cannot
leave their houses alone; and they cannot abandon the bars to protect their
windows, nor the alarms, nor weapons.12

Such statements as the ones above are common in almost every national
newspaper in Central America today. Crime and violence—and its most
visible form, homicides—are part of “daily business”. Television is
crowded with bloody but realist stories about what has happened in recent
6 S. HUHN AND H. WARNECKE-BERGER

hours and days, and newspaper reports want to get as close as possible.
Numbers of homicides are shown as they increase, decrease, and increase
again—and all without any political message, without revolution or civil
war. Peace time in Central America is shadowed by violence. One might
think that society only responds with a perverse style of shrugging, and
watches in shocked amazement and bewilderment as violence “happens”.
Society is unable to give a reason for this violence, to identify its cause—it
seems to be “senseless”13 violence.
More important, however, is the claim that this kind of news is unique
to the present day, while there was either no violence—in the case of Costa
Rica—or political violence—in the case of El Salvador—in the past. What
is surprising, then, is not the content of the notices above, but their dates
of publication: 1952 and 1976. Both countries, El Salvador in the 1950s
and Costa Rica in the 1970s, are today considered to have been calm and
quiet in terms of violence in those particular historical moments.14 What
happened in these periods? Without going too much into detail or los-
ing ourselves in historical explanation, a simple answer might be found:
nothing in particular. No political movement challenged social order, no
war occurred—the Salvadorian reporter is correct in writing that nothing
really “happened”.
Indeed, and shifting to the very present, the overall context changed.
While civil wars and internal conflicts came to an end, and dictatorship and
authoritarianism were overcome, broad optimism dominated research-
ers’ views of Central America and its transition towards democracy for at
least some years in the 1990s.15 Some of the former guerrilla movements
transformed themselves into political parties, while others dissolved com-
pletely.16 However, because political transitions in the region got stuck
in grey areas somewhere between authoritarianism and democracy,17 this
new optimism was soon subdued.
Even though the entire socio-political situation shifted from bloody
civil wars to “peace” in the region, violence not only still remains on the
scene, but it still forms part of a powerful reality of its own. As both news-
paper articles cited above indicate, the omnipresent existence of violence
did not change very much. The number of homicides is, and was, high.
Sensationalism thrived on bloody stories, however, and at the same time
cut out the particular context and thereby the social meaning of violence.
This diagnosis reveals a very important and yet not very much considered
task of research on violence in Central America. Scientific explanations,
then, should aim to reconstruct meaning, to give meaning back to the
 THE ENIGMA OF VIOLENT REALITIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA 7

stories, eventually to focus on the very context in which violence hap-

pened and happens, and then to go beyond the context and bring the
larger history back in.
In this regard, this book pleads for joining together the still limited
discussion between historians on the one hand and social scientists on the
other hand. What is often portrayed as a dilemma, namely that historians
almost never link their focus on the violence of the past to contemporary
phenomena and discourses, while social scientists don’t often take history
into consideration, becomes a starting point for future research. Due to
the lack of interdisciplinary exchange between history and the social sci-
ences, today it is common to assert that the currently predominant crimi-
nal violence emerged quite recently as a new problem, whereas formerly
Central America was supposedly characterised almost exclusively by politi-
cal violence. Unfortunately, on the basis of this assumption the current
discussion misses the chance at historical profundity. And specifically con-
testing this disjuncture is a starting point for the present book.

Different Theoretical Constructions of Violence

Finally, a third challenge consists in the fact that the same uncertainty a third
challenge consists in the fact that the same incertainty on the nature of vio-
lence through which Central American societies are plagued characterizes the
research on violence. characterises the research on violence. Research on vio-
lence in Latin America and the Caribbean has focused on political violence
for decades. As a result of the demonstration effect of the Cuban revolution,
guerrilla movements have been active in almost every country of the con-
tinent. In the first wave of research on violence, therefore, scholars tried to
explain the successes and failures of those political movements, mainly inspired
by theories of revolution and discussion of social movements.18 With growing
concerns about human rights violations, the research then switched to a focus
on state-led violence, terror, repression,19 and the escalations of violence in the
dirty wars of the Southern Cone as well as the civil wars in Central America.20
The second wave of research on violence was then fuelled by discus-
sions of political transitions, especially following the recognition of the
impacts of the “third wave of democratization”21 and the peace processes
in Latin America.22 With the transitions towards democracy and the end of
internal conflicts, broad optimism dominated researchers’ views on Latin
America. Furthermore, research on civil–military relations gained impor-
tance as some of the former military forces were challenged to abandon
8 S. HUHN AND H. WARNECKE-BERGER

their political influence.23 However, as political transitions in the region

got stuck in grey areas, this new optimism was subdued. Research has
since shown that the rule of law and non-violent conflict regulation still
have not been fully established. Moreover, the everyday lives of “ordinary”
citizens are today marked by violence in such a way that the discourse
has now adopted a much more pessimistic view. With the perception of
high levels of insecurity and the apparent loss of a legitimate monopoly
on force, Latin American political regimes are now described as “violent
democracies”24 unable to comply with the basic needs of large parts of the
population.
Therefore, in its third wave research finally began to focus on the
“new patterns of militarized violence”,25 mainly for the following two
reasons. Firstly, in comparison to former times, violence today is said to
be a predominantly urban phenomenon, which has led to the observa-
tion of a geographic change in the patterns of violence in recent decades
in Latin America. The first and the second wave of research on violence
mainly focused on rural violence.26 With urbanisation increasing since the
1970s, violence has today become a part of everyday life in cities and
larger agglomerations.27 Therefore, a great deal of the literature focuses
on specific links to explain urban violence (e.g., urban planning, social
exclusion in megacities, and geographies of fear).28 Rather than studying
violence as a historical phenomenon, these contributions focus on new
causes of violence.29 Consequently, the historical transformations which
led to changes in the geographical distribution of violence still lie partly in
shadow. Secondly, it is well known today that “the most visible forms of
violence stem not from ideological conflicts over the nature of the politi-
cal system but from delinquency and crime.”30 Hence, the recent change
of the patterns of violence in Latin America might be called a qualitative
transformation. Whereas the “old” violence was described in mere politi-
cal terms such as repression, rebellion, or revolution, the “new” violence
of today’s Latin America is characterised as “citizen-on-citizen violence”31
and is marked by ever increasing scales of robberies, kidnappings, and
assaults.32 Victimisation surveys show that “typical victims of crime in
Latin America come from rich and middle class households and tend to
live in larger cities”,33 consequently leading to increasing fears of crime,34
accelerating privatisation of security through private security enterprises,35
further spatial segregation, and the retreat behind fortified enclaves of
gated communities.36 However, the bulk of recent studies focus on quan-
titative data, statistics on homicides, or crime data which is either based in
 THE ENIGMA OF VIOLENT REALITIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA 9

a legal tradition of analysing violence as a judicial problem or embedded

in correlation analysis trying to research the impact of socio-demographic
or economic variables on violence.37
At this point, however, caution is advised. While studies focusing on
the specific contexts of where, when, and under what conditions vio-
lence appears are scarce, the general empirical evidence of the asser-
tion that violence is to be treated in criminal terms is still weak, as well.
Although there is an impressive amount of literature on violence in the
region, ­in-depth analyses which focus on the multiple transformations
of violence, their historical dynamics, corresponding discourses, and
finally their causes, however, are still scarce.38 The question of whether
the legacies cemented in the 1970s still have an effect today, or whether
those “old” forms of violence (e.g., death squads, politically inspired
movements, etc.) still leave their marks on today’s panorama of vio-
lence, is not easy to answer. Furthermore, without in-depth studies, it is
unclear whether the mentioned change of patterns of violence is to be
treated as an empirical or as an ontological shift in descriptions about
violence. To sum up, it can be said that while studies focusing on statis-
tical data are of course important, qualitative, historical, ethnological,
or field-research-based micro-­perspective studies are indispensable to
really understand the phenomenon and the social meaning of violence
and crime in Central America. Furthermore, it is obviously important to
study violence and crime in contemporary Central America. But without
historical approaches, the overall picture would remain incomplete in
some indispensable aspects.
Led by those general findings and insights into the new panorama
of violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, research on violence is
responding in several novel ways. At first the third wave of research on vio-
lence reacted theoretically. Coming out of the discussion on political tran-
sitions and democratisation, crime and violence today is mainly treated
as a challenge to public order and citizen security.39 Moreover, the focus
switched from the analysis of causes of violence to the study of effects of
violence in its multiple domains. Important insights have been provided
in the area of police reforms,40 the impacts of violence on democracy and
regime types,41 on development and economic growth,42 the changing
concepts of security itself,43 and not least on the contemporary discourses
about violence in Central America.44 Those approaches share a common
interest in the study of the consequences of violence, although without
focusing on its causes.
10 S. HUHN AND H. WARNECKE-BERGER

When it comes to the causal study of violence, however, two main

general narratives are offered. On the one hand, violence is attributed
to the state’s inability to cope with violence. Following on from this
violence–state relation, statehood is typologically downgraded at differ-
ent scales towards the detection of “governance voids” and “urban grey
zones”.45 Although the analysis of such governance voids seems to be rela-
tively comprehensive, a stringent study of the contexts under which these
voids develop and what then leads to outbreaks of violence is still lack-
ing. Furthermore, the argument becomes tautological when it is stated
in consequence, again, that the state’s loss of the monopoly on force is
the reason for the violence, and not its effect. Research then runs the risk
of confusing causes with consequences. On the other hand, the causes of
violence have been entangled theoretically with global discourses such as
globalisation,46 as well as the impact of the global “age of insecurity”,47 in
very remarkable analyses. But how those macro phenomena produce their
effects on the very local level, and why some societies react to globalisation
with violence while others respond largely non-violently, has not yet been
sufficiently addressed. Hence, those causes are too general to really explain
all facets of violent interactions.

Structure of the Book

Against this background the present book highlights historical explana-
tions for, and the roots of present-day phenomena of and discourses and
memories about, violence, insecurity, and law enforcement. It discusses
historical forms, roots, continuities, turning points, critical junctures, and
changes in violence as a phenomenon and as the object of discourses and
memories at different levels. The book therefore elaborates on historical
accounts to present violence and insecurity in Central America. It also
offers compelling comparisons to identify similarities as well as differences
in the making of today’s violence(s).
Several chapters show that diverse forms of violence have played a fun-
damental role in the formation of Central American states and societies.
Institutions, structures, and path dependencies are best suited to underpin
the interrelation between violence and the longue durée of development
in Central America. Some chapters analyse the historical embeddedness
of violence by concentrating on practices of violence. In this vein, not
only do institutions entangled with violence, such as death squads or pri-
vate security, endure in Central America’s history, but the specific execu-
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Confessions of
a book-lover
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
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eBook.

Title: Confessions of a book-lover

Author: E. Walter Walters

Author of introduction, etc.: Coulson Kernahan

Release date: September 17, 2023 [eBook #71667]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Charles H. Kelly, 1913

Credits: Laura Natal and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK-LOVER ***
CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK-LOVER
CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK-
LOVER
BY
E. WALTER WALTERS

With an Introduction by
COULSON KERNAHAN
AUTHOR OF ‘THE FACE BEYOND THE DOOR,’
‘GOD AND THE ANT,’ ETC.

LONDON
CHARLES H. KELLY
25-35 CITY ROAD, AND 26 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
First Edition, 1913
 To
THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
 CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY COULSON KERNAHAN 9
I. ‘HUMBLY TO CONFESS’ 17
II. BOOKS AND GARDENS 27
III. BOOKS THAT TEMPT 37
IV. ‘OUTSIDE THEIR BOOKS’ 47
V. BOOKS THAT CAPTIVATE 55
VI. PERSONALITIES IN ‘BOOKLAND’ 63
VII. SECOND-HAND BOOKS 73
VIII. ‘THE CULT OF THE BOOKPLATE’ 81
IX. BEDSIDE BOOKS 91
X. OLD FRIENDS 99
XI. THROUGH ROSE-COLOURED SPECTACLES 107
XII. WITH NATURE 117
XIII. A PILGRIMAGE 127
XIV. FAREWELL 137
 INTRODUCTION
BY COULSON KERNAHAN

I
PART of the present volume appeared in Great Thoughts. Yet here
am I, whose name is associated—if at all—in the memory of readers
with ‘little thoughts,’ and with booklets impudent in the slenderness
of their matter, presumptuously standing forth to bow the public into
the writer’s presence, and essaying to introduce the one to the other.
The necessary explanation shall be brief. I must have been a young
man, and Mr. E. Walter Walters a boy, when he and I last met;
indeed I am not sure that I altogether remember him. But his father,
who bore an honoured name, I well remember.
The Rev. W. D. Walters and my own dear and honoured father were
personal friends; and when the former’s son sent me a manuscript of
a book, with the request that I should write an introduction, how
could I do otherwise than accede, and express myself honoured by
the invitation?
That I share all Mr. Walters’s whole-hearted bookish enthusiasm, I
may not pretend, for, as R. L. Stevenson says, in An Apology for
Idlers, ‘Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a
mighty bloodless substitute for life.’ So long, however, as the reading
of it be not allowed to deprive either man or woman of drinking deep
at the wells of life, there are few greater joys, for young or old, than
are to be found within the covers of a noble book; and to the
enthusiastic book-lover, Mr. Walters’s volume should prove treasure
trove indeed.
He drags (to use a phrase of Stevenson’s) with a wide net, but his
castings are made, for the most part, in the same waters. Of the
literature of the time of Elizabeth, or even of Anne, he tells us little,
and it is not until we come to Goldsmith, Lamb, De Quincey, Leigh
Hunt, and, later, to Jefferies, Thoreau, and Stevenson, that Mr.
Walters may be said to let himself go. What my friend Mr. Le
Gallienne calls The Lilliput of Literary London, he wisely leaves
severely alone.
That Mr. Walters has a pretty sense of humour is clear from the
following passage:
‘Here is a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, “hooked” in the deep
waters of a “penny tub.” It is calf-bound, mark you, and in fairish
condition, though much stained with the passing of years. My heart
leaps; it is very old—a first edition possibly! But no, it is anything but
that.... Many of the pages are entirely missing, and others partially
so. Judged by the books that surround me it is dear at a penny ...
Paradise Lost!’
The word-play is not unworthy of Mr. Zangwill; but when Mr. Walters
writes, ‘I have frequently trodden snow-covered ground with my nose
a few inches from an open book,’ I wish him, for the time being,
‘Good afternoon’ and seek other company, preferably that of some
lover of the Emerson who wrote:

See thou bring not to field or stone

The fancies found in books,
Leave authors’ eyes, and fetch your own
To brave the landscape’s looks.

Or, better still:

Canst thou copy in verse one chime

Of the woodbell’s peal and cry?
Write in a book the morning’s prime?
Or match with words that tender sky?
 II
‘I KNOW a pretty little edition of the Religio Medici,’ writes Mr. Le
Gallienne in his Retrospective Reviews, ‘which has been quite
spoiled for me by the astounding remark of its editor upon Browne’s
beautiful description of his life as “a miracle of thirty years”—yet its
actual incidents justify no such description!’
Mr. Walters will not thus spoil for his readers the work of the writers
he loves. He strikes no jarring note. On the contrary, he is capable,
when writing of books, book-making, and book-buying, of an
enthusiasm which I envy as much as I admire.
‘I have confessed,’ he says in his chapter on ‘Second-hand Books,’
‘that I am of the company of book-lovers who delight in dipping into
the “lucky tubs” to be found outside booksellers’ windows. I know of
no pleasanter way of spending a spare half-hour. Give me a few
“loose” coppers, place my feet upon a likely road, and I am content. I
am now, let me say, of the happy company of book-fishermen. And
this, mark you, is fishing in real earnest, this effort to “hook” good
food for the mind, to place in one’s basket a “book that delighteth
and giveth perennial satisfaction.”’
The comparison of a book-seeker to an angler is as happy as it is
original, and the phrase—though phrase-making must not be
confused, as Leslie Stephen points out, with thought-finding—‘a
book-fisherman’ has something of Charles Lamb’s own ‘self-pleasing
quaintness.’
Lamb would, indeed, appear to be Mr. Walters’s favourite author.
That he knows his Elia intimately and can interpret him aright to
others is clear from the chapter on ‘Books and Gardens.’
‘We are told,’ says Mr. Walters, ‘that Lamb was a lover of towns and
crowded streets. Would it not be truer to say that he was a lover of
the conditions in which he chanced to be placed? London claimed
him—for the sanest reasons, no doubt—and, lo! under his pen,
London became a garden.’
This is truly and finely said. Of such acute and illuminative comment,
there is no lack in Mr. Walters’s delightful book, which should
assuredly find a place in the library of book-loving women and men.
 I
‘HUMBLY TO CONFESS’

HOW ruthlessly Webster strips the word ‘confession’ of the tender

associations woven around it by the hand of the gentle essayist! A
confession, he informs us, is the acknowledgement of a crime or
fault, open declaration of guilt, &c. True, a brighter note is struck in
further definitions; but I cannot find in any book at my command a
definition of the word as used, for example, by Thomas De Quincey.
The fact that De Quincey took opium was, I believe, known long
before he wrote his Confessions. He personally avers that his object
was to emblazon the power of opium, not over bodily disease and
pain, but over the grander and more shadowy world of dreams. He
desired

Humbly to confess
A penitential loneliness.

And I take that to mean that he desired to admit us into the

innermost recesses of his heart, to speak to us as one speaks to a
bosom friend.
I plead, therefore, for a wider definition of the word ‘confession’—a
definition that embraces those ‘gentle whisperings’ which pass
between bosom friends, the confidence that springs from the very
roots of the human heart.
An eminent essayist of our own day has been pleading for more
autobiographies of unknown persons. If I read him aright, he wishes
that more persons, however humble, however obscure, would set
forth their thoughts and experiences. He believes that such writings
would make better reading than much that finds its way into print.
There is an idea in some quarters that unless a person enjoys
peculiar gifts of expression, or has achieved distinction in some walk
of life, his thoughts and experiences are of no public interest. But
there are, I am certain, many who would rather have the unadorned
expression of a man’s innermost feelings than the thoughts that flit
so lightly from the mind of the accomplished litterateur. How many
are they—men whose names are emblazoned upon the roll of
honour—who have confessed to a love for conversing with the
ordinary man, ‘the man in the street’! As for your ‘men of letters,’ you
are well aware of their love for conversing with unknown and
frequently humble persons, ‘casual acquaintances.’ And who shall
say to what extent we are indebted to those persons for the thoughts
which, having been selected and refined, sparkle like jewels fresh
from the cutter’s hands?
How numerous are the men who have read widely and thought
deeply, and yet hesitate before expressing an opinion upon the most
trivial matters! Fortunate is the person who can induce such men to
talk freely, to express their views, their secret thoughts, on this, that,
and the other subject—their beloved books, their likes, their dislikes,
their aspirations, their fears, their hopes. Such confessions should
make good reading. By dint of a little gentle persuasion I have
managed to glean ‘copy’ of this description, which I shall hope to set
down in these pages, carefully avoiding meanwhile any mention of
names. The mere thought of publicity would bring a blush to the
cheeks of the good gentlemen I have in mind. I must adopt the plan
of those ‘Knights of the Pen’ of whom mention has been made. But
here the process will be reversed. Here the rich thought of others will
come forth in homely attire.
I would, however, first inquire in what respect the lover of books
differs from the rank-and-file? What are his distinctive
characteristics? Langford has declared that no matter what his rank
or position may be, the lover of books is the richest and happiest of
men. But is that entirely true? I confess that I do not find it so. The
lover of books is, I fancy, grievously prone to hanker after the moon,
or, to put it another way, to build wondrous fairy palaces, which he
would fain inhabit and cannot. I fancy he is apt to suffer from a
‘glorious discontent.’ He is too imaginative, too sensitive, to enjoy the
distinction of being the happiest of men.
Indeed, is it not a fact that we book-lovers stand in danger of falling
out of sympathy with this rough-and-tumble old world? Certainly
many of us resent anything that threatens to come between us and
our idols. (I have friends, book-lovers, who as strongly resent an
intrusion into the sacred nook that holds themselves and a book as
they would resent the invasion of a foreign power.) Thus grows upon
the book-lover an ever-deepening desire for solitude, for the quiet
life. Others may, if they choose, jostle for the gilded things of life. He
is for other prizes, treasures of the mind and spirit. He, for his part,
prefers to saunter through quiet by-ways, knowing full well that
prizes will rest in his path, and that these, which he need but stoop to
gather, will prove abiding treasures.
Yes, certainly the lover of books is rich. Every true lover must in the
nature of the case be that. Listen to Gibbon: ‘My early and invincible
love of reading I would not change for the treasures of India.’ How
many have spoken in like manner! ‘You, O Books,’ cried Aungervyle,
‘are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the clerical militia
with which missiles of the most wicked are destroyed; fruitful olives,
vines of Engedi, fig-trees knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be
ever held in hand.’
I have a friend, a book-lover, who confesses that he acquired this
love of his after having passed through the most painful experiences.
Often he stumbled, often he fell, seemingly never to rise again. But,
happily, he has reached safe ground at last. He is now the contented
owner of a rich storehouse of books. But he confesses that he is not
boisterously happy. He doubts not that others laugh more heartily
than he; that many have lighter hearts. But he, be it remembered,
has passed through deep sorrow, has lost friends, home, wealth—all
that men hold most dear. Without his books and all they have taught
him his lot would be that of a wanderer in a wilderness. ‘My books,’
he says, ‘are my inseparable comforters—my friends, companions,
teachers, consolers, creators, amusers.’ But he makes no claim to
being a student, or an authority on books. He does not burn the
proverbial midnight oil. There is nothing of the book-worm about him.
He is simply a book-lover, and being such, enjoys the very best that
books can give.
I confess that I envy the pleasure derived by this friend of mine from
the little ‘crackling’ sound caused by the opening of a new book. It is
the sweetest music in his ears—an overture composed of the most
pleasing notes. And with what relish he enters into the entertainment
that follows! With what zest he reads aloud the choice passages!
The four walls of his library must, I fancy, have peculiar knowledge of
‘the dainties that are bred in books.’ They are his only audience.
When friends are with him, it is they who must do the reading, whilst
he plays the better part.
How many a tale such as this might be told! How full of eccentricities
is the lover of books, aye, and how full, too, of whims and fads and
fancies! Each one is for a particular type of binding. In no two cases
can you find tastes exactly alike. One is for plain cloth, plainly
lettered, another is for calf or russia, another for parchment. And
each one has his own views as regards size. Some cry out for books
that can be handled with ease; others maintain that the size of a
book should suit the nature of its contents. And thus the battle
wages, quite a long and wordy affair, before any question arises as
regards the actual contents of a book. But are not these views
concerning the make-up of a book healthy and desirable? I seem to
remember having read of men held in high repute who had marked
preferences as regards the get-up of a book. Did not Charles Lamb
maintain that to be strong-backed and neat-bound is the
desideratum of a volume? ‘Magnificence comes after. This, when it
can be afforded, is not lavished upon all kinds of books
indiscriminately. I would not dress a set of magazines, for instance,
in full suit. The deshabille or half-binding (with russia backs) is our
costume. A Shakespeare or a Milton (unless the first editions) it were
mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel.’
And what of the ‘inside’ of books? What of their contents? For my
own part, I confess that, when pressed for a list of my favourite
authors, I am at a loss for an answer, or, at least, for a satisfactory
answer. The question is so pointed, the answer resting quietly in my
mind so wide, so shadowy, so needful of explanation. So much
depends upon one’s mood and environment. I require the
opportunity to say why certain books appeal to me in certain moods
and leave me untouched at other times. I desire to show that certain
books, in order to be enjoyed to the full, must be read in certain
seasons and under certain conditions. I wish to hold forth upon, say,
‘Books and Gardens,’ ‘Unknown Books,’ and so forth, and on the
peculiarities of certain authors, giving reasons why I like or dislike
their works. I wish to confess, to bare my heart. And that is too
lengthy a process to cram in a direct answer to a direct question.
Only this much can I confess ‘off-hand’: The books that please me
most are the books that speak to the heart. Such volumes are my
most highly treasured possessions.
 II
BOOKS AND GARDENS

The mind relaxing into needful sport,

Should turn to writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well-managed, and whose classic style
Give truth a lustre and make wisdom smile.
Cowper.

I have confessed that the books which please me most are the
books that speak to the heart—books that greet one with the ease
and familiarity of a friend. I desire to feel the humanity, the heart of
an author. I desire to know that he is genial, kindly, well-disposed. I
have no inclination for angry, fretful men of letters. I no more desire
to meet such through the medium of a book, than I desire to make
the acquaintance of quarrelsome individuals in the flesh. I, too, ‘find
myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, full of
doubts, difficulties, and disappointments, quite a hard enough life
without dark countenances at my elbow.’ Give me pleasant
company. Give me gentlemen of letters. Still, I have no taste for the
company of the maudlin or weak-kneed. Robert Louis Stevenson
says that ‘we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature;
and not a man amongst us will go to the head of the march to sound
the heady drums!’ Note with what grace he makes the observation! It
is more in the nature of a good-tempered laugh than a growl. How
gracefully he wears the title—a Gentleman of Letters! How
pleasantly he addresses us! Little wonder if, in his presence, our
failings are as open wounds. He has no need to probe. His gentlest
touch is sufficient, more effective by far than the rough treatment of
the irascible author.