"Rarely, nowadays, can anyone devise a startling title for a book. All the surprises and sensations have been tried. The author has to shout pretty loud or else use a big Damn.
"A few years ago, a writer did exactly this, and produced a large and impressive book, whose title made everyone jump.
"The contents were readable; there was evidence of great industry, and some indication of scholarship. It did not seem to be the work of a crank.
"Yet when one came to discover what it was all about-and this required patience-the result showed that the author could not easily get a post as teacher in any scientific institute. For its theme was this:
"Great numbers of strange objects-usually called meteorites-have fallen to the earth throughout the centuries. (The author compiled an enormous list of them.) These are supposed to be the results of celestial accidents: to be fragments of exploded comets or asteroids. But this theory is entirely wrong. These objects are weapons, thrown with mischievous intent at the inhabitants of the earth, by evil spirits dwelling in the skies.
"I forget how the author explained the bad marksmanship of these spirits-who have so seldom hit even a baby-nor why it is that so many of these missiles fall in waste places of the earth. (Of course, the firing is done at very long range, and the spirits may still be hopeful of knocking over somebody some day.)
"The author developed his theory in a style which was, at least, sane; and, if I recollect, even showed some traces of humor-a quality extremely rare in those who practice eccentric literature. His book-which he has followed with another, also astonishing-may have been a hoax. In that case, the object of so much labor is still obscure.
"A few months after publication, the author came into a public library, and-as authors sometimes do-asked to see his book. A copy was brought, and he promptly asked the meaning of the shelf mark: some letters or figures on the back. These symbols on library books, for convenience in placing them on the shelves, have a mysterious power to infuriate some people. The librarian, not aware that he was speaking to the author of the book, said that these marks indicate the class of 'Eccentric Literature'-perhaps he may have said 'Books by Cranks.'
"There was an instant explosion; followed by weeks of complaint, scolding, and entreaty by the author, who demanded that his book should be classed with those on-well, I cannot imagine what. Astronomical theology? Or did he believe that it should have a class all by itself, and that the older astronomies should be destroyed?
"In the end, I think he got part of his desire, but not all. The stubborn librarians would not endorse his amusing treatise as orthodox science. They have that peculiar conservatism: they admit books meant to prove that Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays, but refuse to throw out the ones which uphold the older belief; they take in works which show that the earth is flat, but they still let the brutal majority of writers uphold their theory of rotundidty.
"Nevertheless, embarrassing moments will occur...."
The immediate tone of the anecdote leads one to believe that Pearson was present; indeed, that he was the "crank-calling" librarian in the story. Moreover, it is obvious from the ridiculous reductive reading ("evil spirits in the sky") he offers of the contents of The Book of the Damned that this librarian did not understand one iota of Fort's intent. From this we can probably be justified in making a leap from intent of book to intent of man, and conclude that Mr. Pearson, the redoubtable New York Public Library librarian, had not a clue as to the mind and character of the rather portly gentleman who came daily to read the old newspapers and journals, scribbling notes in the process. Here was the author who argues in the very pages of the book in question that all categorizations, acceptances and exclusions, are arbitrary; that we are all extensions of the "great cheese" in which we find ourselves, wheedling, urging, adjuring, that his extraordinary book be "properly" classified and not be pigeonholed as "Eccentric Literature" by those who make their living classifying the products of the human spirit. In short, here was Charles Fort urging Pearson and his cohorts not to dam his Book of the Damned! Yet the obtuseness Mr. Pearson exhibits in this story leads us to believe that the irony of the situation was totally lost on him, and that Fort was not so abject a figure as is portrayed here. In fact, Fort-the inventor of "super checkers"-- may have been playing a little game with this librarian, the New York Public Library, all libraries, and all classification systems that ever were and ever will be. Perhaps, after a day of peering through thick glasses at accounts of rains of blood and green hair growing on mummies, he would return to his wife with yet another installment to tell of his on-going game of "How Do We Pigeonhole That, Mr. Fort?" drink a beer and laugh and laugh and laugh.
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How Do We Pigeonhole That, Mr. Fort?
A few years ago, while searching through the stacks at Johns Hopkins University Library in Baltimore, Maryland, I came across a reference to Charles Fort that, I believe, has not been cited before. It comes from a book written by Edmund L. Pearson (1880-1937), a former librarian at the New York Public Library, and an afficionado of murder stories and bibliological hoaxes, as his other publications bear out. In his Queer Books (Doubleday, 1927), pages 145-47, Pearson offers the following anecdote regarding Fort's seeming frustration and The Book of the Damned. (Note-Charles Fort was still alive at the time this book was published, which explains the oblique references to both book and author; however the allusions are obvious.)
By Jesse Glass
Ghosts and Legends of Carroll County, Maryland
