Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY
1980
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
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From the D igestum Novum of Justinian, printed at Venice by Jenson in
The type page of which this is a reduction measures \i l /i by %Vi inches.
The initials in the original have been filled in by hand in red and blue.
From the copy in the Library of Brown University
E BOOKLOVER AND
HIS BOOKS
BY
HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN, Lrrx.D.
LIBRARIAN OF BROWN UNIVERSITY
BOSTON
THE BOSTON BOOK COMPANY
Copyright, 1916,
BY THE BOSTON BOOK. COMPANY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
TO
THE AUTHORS AND THEIR PRINTERS
WHO HAVE GIVEN US
THE BOOKS THAT WE LOVE
PREFATORY NOTE
HE following chapters were written during
a series of years as one aspect after another
of the Book engaged the writer's attention.
As they are now brought together, the re-
sult is not a systematic treatise, but rather
a succession of views of one many-sided
subject. In consequence there is considerable overlapping.
The writer hopes, however, that this will be looked upon
not as vain repetition but as a legitimate reinforcement of his
underlying theme, the unity in diversity of the Book and the
federation of all who have to do with it. He therefore offers
the present volume not so much for continuous reading as
for reading by chapters. He trusts that for those who may
consult it in connection with systematic study a sufficient clue
to whatever it may contain on any given topic will be found
in the index.
Most of these chapters appeared as papers in "The
Printing Art"; two were published in "The Graphic Arts,"
and some in other magazines. The writer expresses his
thanks to the proprietors of these periodicals for the per-
mission to republish the articles in their present collective
form. All the papers have been revised to some extent.
They were originally written in rare moments of leisure
scattered through the busy hours of a librarian. Their writ-
ing was a source of pleasure, and their first publication
brought him many delightful associations. As they are
presented in their new attire to another group of readers,
their author can wish for them no better fortune than to
meet possibly to make booklovers.
BROWTI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY,
Commencement Day, 1916
[vii]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BOOKS AND BOOKLOVERS 3
FITNESS IN BOOK DESIGN 9
PRINT AS AN INTERPRETER OF MEANING i4
FAVORITE BOOK SIZES 19
THE VALUE OF READING 28
THE BOOK OF TO-DAY AND THE BOOK OF TO-MORROW ... 33
A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIC OF THE BOOK 38
BOOKS AS A LIBRARIAN WOULD LIKE THEM 44
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL 49
THE READER'S HIGH PRIVILEGE 63
THE BACKGROUND OF THE BOOK 79
THE CHINESE BOOK 87
THICK PAPER AND THIN 92
THE CLOTHING OF A BOOK 97
PARCHMENT BINDINGS 102
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT BOOKS io4
PRINTING PROBLEMS FOR SCIENCE TO SOLVE n5
TYPES AND EYES: THE PROBLEM 120
TYPES AND EYES: PROGRESS 128
EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE OF LEGIBILITY i34
THE STUDENT AND THE LIBRARY 139
ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM i45
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE 162
A SECRET OF PERSONAL POWER 162
INDEX
171
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS
BOOKS
BOOKS AND BOOKLOVERS 1
HE booklover is distinguished from the
reader as such by loving his books, and from
the collector as such by reading them. He
prizes not only the soul of the book, but also
its body, which he would make a house beau-
tiful, meet for the indwelling of the spirit
given by its author. Love is not too strong a word to apply
to his regard, which demands, in the language of Dorothy
Wordsworth, "a beautiful book, a book to caress peculiar,
distinctive, individual: a book that hath first caught your eye
and then pleased your fancy." The truth is that the book on
its physical side is a highly organized art object. Not in vain
has it transmitted the thought and passion of the ages; it has
taken toll of them, and in the hands of its worthiest makers
these elements have worked themselves out into its material
body. Enshrining the artist's thought, it has, therefore, the
qualities of a true art product, and stands second only to those
which express it, such as painting and sculpture; but no other
art product of its own order, not the violin nor the jewel-
casket, can compare with the book in esthetic quality. It
1 The substance of an address delivered Nov. 18, 1909, in the Boston Public
Library, under the auspices of the Society of Printers.
[3]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
meets one of the highest tests of art, for it can appeal to the
senses of both beauty and grandeur, either separately, as in
the work of Aldus and of Sweynheym and Pannartz, or to-
gether, as in that of Jenson.
Books have doubtless had their lovers in all ages, under all
their forms. Even the Assyrian clay tablet, if stamped with
the words of poet or sage, might have shared the affection
which they inspired. So might the papyrus roll of the Egyp-
tian, and so does even to-day the parchment book of the
middle ages, whenever its fortunate owner has the soul of
a booklover. From this book our own was derived, yet not
without a break. For our book is not so much a copy of the
Roman and medieval book as a "substitute" for it, a machine
product made originally to sell at a large profit for the price
of hand-work. It was fortunate for the early printed book
that it stood in this intimate if not honored relation to the
work of the scribes and illuminators, and fortunate for the
book of to-day, since, with all its lapses, it cannot escape
its heritage of those high standards.
Mr. John Cotton Dana has analyzed the book into forty
elements; a minuter analysis might increase the number to
sixty; but of either number the most are subsidiary, a few
controlling. The latter are those of which each, if decided
upon first, determines the character of the rest; they include
size, paper, and type. The mention of any size, folio, quarto,
octavo, twelvemo, sixteenmo, calls up at once a distinct mental
picture of an ideal book for each dimension, and the series is
marked by a decreasing thickness of paper and size of type as
it progresses downward from the folio. The proportions of
the page will also vary, as well as the surface of the paper
and the cut of the type, the other elements conforming to
that first chosen.
Next to size, paper determines the expression of a book. It
BOOKS AND BOOKLOYERS
is the printing material par excellence; but for its production
the art could never have flourished. It is as much preferred
by the printer as parchment was by the scribe. Its three ele-
ments of body, surface, and tint must all be considered, and
either body or surface may determine the size of the book or
the character of the type. A smooth surface may be an ele-
ment of beauty, as with the paper employed by Baskerville,
but it must not be a shiny surface. The great desideratum
in modern paper from the point of view of the book-buyer
is a paper that, while opaque and tough, shall be thin enough
to give us our books in small compass, one more akin to the
dainty and precious vellum than to the heavier and coarser
parchment. It should also be durable.
Type gives its name to the art and is the instrument by
which the spoken word is made visible to the eye. The aims
in its design should be legibility, beauty, and compactness,
in this order; but these are more or less conflicting qualities,
and it is doubtful if any one design can surpass in all . Modern
type is cleaner-cut than the old, but it may be questioned
whether this is a real gain. William Morris held that all types
should avoid hair-lines, fussiness, and ugliness. Legibility
should have the right of way for most printed matter, espe-
cially children's books and newspapers. If the latter desire
compactness, they should condense their style, not their
types.
A further important element, which affects both the legi-
bility and the durability of the book, is the ink. For most
purposes it should be a rich black. Some of the print of the
early masters is now brown, and there have been fashions of
gray printing, but the booklover demands black ink, except
in ornaments, and there color, if it is to win his favor, must
be used sparingly and with great skill . We are told that the
best combination for the eye is ink of a bluish tint on buff-
[5]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
tinted paper; but, like much other good advice, this remains
practically untried.
Illustrations have been a feature of the book for over four
hundred years, but they have hardly yet become naturalized
within its pages. Or shall we say that they soon forgot their
proper subordination to the type and have since kept up a
more or less open revolt ? The law of fitness demands that
whatever is introduced into the book in connection with type
shall harmonize with the relatively heavy lines of type. This
the early black-line engravings did. But the results of all
other processes, from copper-plate to half-tone, conflict with
the type-picture and should be placed where they are not
seen with it. Photogravures, for instance, may be put at
the end of the book, or they may be covered with a piece of
opaque tissue paper, so that either their page or the facing
type-page will be seen alone. We cannot do without illus-
trations. All mankind love a picture as they love a lover.
But let the pictures belong to the book and not merely be
thrust into it.
The binding is to the book what the book is to its subject-
matter, a clothing and protection. In the middle ages, when
books were so few as to be a distinction, they were displayed
sidewise, not edgewise, on the shelves, and their covers were
often richly decorated, sometimes with costly gems. Even
the wooden cover of the pre-Columbian Mexican book had
gems set in its corners. Modern ornamentation is confined
to tooling, blind and gilt, and inlaying. But some book-
lovers question whether any decoration really adds to the
beauty of the finest leather. It should be remembered that
the binding is not all on the outside. The visible cover is
only the jacket of the real cover on which the integrity of
the book depends. The sewing is the first element in time
and importance. To be well bound a book should lie open
[6]
BOOKS AND BOOKLOVERS
well, otherwise it is bound not for the reader but only for
the collector.
It cannot be too often repeated that properly made books
are not extremely costly. A modern book offered at a fancy
price means either a very small edition, an extravagant bind-
ing, or what is more likely, a gullible public. But most
books that appeal to the booklover are not excessive in price.
Never before was so much money spent in making books
attractive for the publisher always has half an eye on the
booklover and while much of this money is wasted, not
all is laid out in vain. Our age is producing its quota of
good books, and these the booklover makes it his business
to discover.
In order to appreciate, the booklover must first know.
He must be a book-kenner, a critic, but one who is looking
fo'r excellencies rather than faults, and this knowledge there
are many books to teach him. But there is no guide that
can impart the love of books; he must learn to love them as
one learns to love sunsets, mountains, and the ocean, by
seeing them. So let him who would know the joys and re-
wards of the booklover associate with well-made books.
Let him begin with the ancients of printing, the great Ger-
mans, Italians, Dutchmen. He can still buy their books if
he is well-to-do, or see them in libraries and museums if he
belongs to the majority. Working down to the moderns, he
will find himself discriminating and rejecting, but he will be
attracted by certain printers and certain periods in the last
four hundred years, and he will be rejoiced to find that the
last thirty years, though following a decline, hold their own
not by their mean but by their best with any former
period short of the great first half-century, i45o i5oo.
Finally, if his book-love develops the missionary spirit in
him, let him lend his support to the printers and publishers
[7J
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
of to-day who are producing books worthy of the booklover's
regard, for in no other way can he so effectually speed the
day when all books shall justify the emotion which more
than five hundred years ago Richard de Bury, Bishop of
Durham, expressed in the title of his famous and still
cherished work, the Philobiblon.
[8]
FITNESS IN BOOK DESIGN
WOMAN'S fitness comes by fits,'* said
slanderous Cloten; but to say as much of
fitness in book design would be on the
whole a compliment. Fitness as applied
to book design means, of course, that the
material form of the book shall correspond
to its spiritual substance, shall be no finer and no meaner,
and shall produce a like, even if a slighter, esthetic impres-
sion. At the outset we have to surrender to commercialism
more than half our territory. All agree that our kings should
be clothed in purple and our commoners in broadcloth; but
how about the intellectual riffraff that makes up the majority
of our books ? Are our publishers willing that these should
be clothed according to their station? Hardly; for then
would much of their own occupation be gone. It is recog-
nized that for a large proportion of our publications the
design the outward appearance is in great measure
counted on to sell the book; and printers and publishers
will not consent to send the paupers of literature forth upon
the world in their native rags, for so they would find no
one to welcome them. It will be useless to quarrel with the
fact that the design of many books is meant as a bait and
not as a simple interpretation of their meaning and worth.
Design of this character, however, is relatively easy; it is
really not design at all, but millinery. It is when his work
becomes genuinely interpretative that the designer's diffi-
culties begin.
[9]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
The first business of the designer, therefore, is to under-
stand the book he is treating. Here, of course, his judg-
ment, however sincere, may be mistaken or misled. A
classical instance of this is found in connection with one of
the most famous books in the history of modern printing,
Barlow's "Columbiad." This work, which first appeared
in 1787 under a different title, was enlarged to epic propor-
tions during the next twenty years, and was finally given to
the world in 1807 in the belief on the part of its author and
in the hope at least on the part of its publisher that it would
take rank and be honored for all time as the great American
epic. Under this misconception the book was clothed in a
form that might worthily have enshrined "Paradise Lost.'*
Its stately quarto pages were set in a type specially designed
for the work and taking from it the name of Columbian.
The volume was embellished with full-page engravings
after paintings in the heroic manner by Smirke; in short,
it was the most pretentious book issued in America up to
that time, and it still ranks, in the words of Professor
Barrett Wendell, "among the most impressive books to
look at in the world." But alas for the vanity of human
aspirations I "The Columbiad " is now remembered as
a contribution to typography rather than literature. The
designer overshot his author.
We have tacitly assumed that a book has but one inter-
pretation and therefore but one most appropriate design.
This, however, is far from the truth. When, after various
more or less successful editions of Irving's "Knicker-
bocker" had appeared, Mr. Updike brought out some
twenty years ago his comic edition, with the whole make-up
of the book expressive of the clumsy and stupid Dutchmen
depicted in Irving's mock-heroic, we felt at the moment
that here was the one ideal "Knickerbocker." Yet, much
[10]
FITNESS IN BOOK DESIGN
as we still admire it, does it wholly satisfy us? Is there not
as much room as ever for an edition that shall express pri-
marily not the absurdity of its subject-matter, but the deli-
cate playfulness of Irving' s humor and the lightness and
grace of his exuberant style? Has there ever been a final
"Don Quixote"? Certainly not in the recent monumental
editions with their quagmire of footnotes. Moreover, if
we had a final edition of the great romance it would not
remain final for our children's children. Every age will
make its own interpretations of the classics and will demand
that they be embodied in contemporary design. Thus
every age in its book design mirrors itself for future admi-
ration or contempt.
Obviously, in giving form to a single work a designer is
freer than in handling a series by one or by various authors.
In such cases he must seize upon more general and there-
fore less salient characteristics. The designer of * ' Hiawatha "
or * * Evangeline " has a fairly clear task before him, with a
chance of distinct success or failure; but the designer of
an appropriate form for the whole series of Longfellow's
works, both prose and poetry, has a less individualized
problem, and must think of the elements that run through
all, sweetness, grace, gentleness, dignity, learning. Yet,
though general, these qualities in a series may be far from
vague. We have only to consider the absurdity of a handy-
volume Gibbon or a folio Lamb. On looking at the bulky,
large-type, black-covered volumes of the Forman edition of
Shelley and Keats one instinctively asks, * * What crime did
these poets commit that they should be so impounded?"
The original edition of the life of Tennyson by his son, in
two lumbering, royal octavo volumes, comes near to what
Thackeray called the Farnese Hercules, "a hulking abor-
tion." Contrast with it the dignity linked with charm of
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
the original edition of Longfellow's life by his brother.
But of all monstrosities of book design the British three-
volume novel mania is responsible for some of the worst.
Henry Ward Beecher's one novel, "Norwood," which
appeared in America becomingly clad in a single volume,
received in England the regulation three-volume dress, in
which it looks as ridiculously inflated as did a slender
miss of that period in the crinoline then in vogue. There
is one abomination in book design for which I owe a per-
sonal grudge to commercialism, and that is the dropsical
book form given to Locker-Lampson's '* My Confidences."
If ever there was a winsome bit of writing it is this, and it
should have made a book to take to one's heart, something
not larger than a " Golden Treasury" volume, but of indi-
vidual design. My comfort is that this will yet be done,
and my belief is that art will justify itself better in the
market than commercialism did. A more modern instance
of expansion for commercial reasons defeating fitness in
design is furnished by Waters' translation of * ' The Journal
of Montaigne's Travels." Here we have three small volumes
outwardly attractive, but printed on paper thick enough for
catalogue cards, and therefore too stiff for the binding, also
in type too large to be pleasant. The whole should have
been issued in one volume of the same size in smaller type,
and would then have been as delightful in form as it is in
substance.
It is not enough that all the elements of a book be honest,
sincere, enduring; otherwise the clumsy royal octavos of Les-
lie Stephen's edition of Fielding would be as attractive as * ' the
dear and dumpy twelves" of the original editions. Royal
octavo, indeed, seems to be the pitfall of the book designer,
though there is no inherent objection to it. Where in the
whole range of reference books will be found a more attrac-
FITNESS IN BOOK DESIGN
tive set of volumes than Moulton's "Library of Literary
Criticism," with their realization in this format of the Hora-
tian simplex munditiis? For extremely different treatments of
this book size it is instructive to compare the slender volumes
of the original editions of Ruskin with the slightly shorter
but very much thicker volumes of the scholarly definitive
edition, which is a monument of excellence in every ele-
ment of book design except the crowning one of fitness. Our
libraries must have this edition for its completeness and its
editorship; its material excellence will insure the trans-
mission of Ruskin 's message to future centuries ; but no one
will ever fall in love with these volumes or think of likening
them to the marriage of "perfect music unto noble words."
Granted that the designer knows the tools of his trade,
grasps the expressional value of every element with which
he has to deal, from the cut of a type to the surface of a
binder's cloth, his task, as we said, is first to know the soul
of the book intrusted to him for embodiment ; it is next to
decide upon its most characteristic quality, or the sum of its
qualities ; and, lastly, it is so to use his physical elements as
to give to the completed book an expression that shall be
the outward manifestation of its indwelling spirit. This is
all that can be asked of him ; but, if he would add a touch
of perfection, let him convey the subtle tribute of a sense of
the value of his subject by reflecting in his design the artist's
joy in his work.
PRINT AS AN INTERPRETER OF
MEANING
HE invention of printing, we have often
been told, added to book production only
the two commercial elements of speed and
cheapness. As regards the book itself, we
are assured, printing not only added noth-
ing, but, during the four and a half cen-
turies of its development, has constantly tended to take away.
These statements are no doubt historically and theoretically
true, yet they are so unjust to the present-day art that some
supplementary statement of our obligations to printing seems
called for, aside from the obvious rejoinder that, even if
speed and cheapness are commercial qualities, they have
reached a development especially in the newspaper be-
yond the dreams of the most imaginative fifteenth-century
inventor, and have done nothing less than revolutionize the
world.
Taking the service of printing as it stands to-day, what
does it actually do for the reader? What is the great differ-
ence between the printed word and even the best hand-
writing? It is obviously the condensation and the absolute
mechanical sameness of print. The advantage of these
differences to the eye in respect to rapid reading is hardly to
be overestimated. Let any one take a specimen of average
penmanship and note the time which he consumes in read-
ing it ; let him compare with this the time occupied in reading
the same number of printed words, and the difference will
PRINT AS AN INTERPRETER OF MEANING
be startling; but not even so will it do justice to print, for
handwriting average in quality is very far from average in
frequency. If it be urged that the twentieth-century com-
parison should be between typewriting and print, we may
reply that typewriting is print, though it lacks most of its
condensation, and that the credit for its superior legibility
belongs to typography, of which the new art is obviously a
by-product. But we are not yet out of the manuscript period,
so far as private records are concerned, and it still is true, as
it has been for many generations, that print multiplies the
years of every scholar's and reader's life.
At this point we may even introduce a claim for print as
a contributor to literature. There are certainly many books
of high literary standing that never would have attained
their present form without the intervention of type. It is
well known that Carlyle rewrote his books in proof, so
that the printer, instead of attempting to correct his galleys,
reset them outright. Balzac went a step further, and largely
wrote his novels in proof, if such an expression may be
allowed. He so altered and expanded them that what went
to the printing office as copy for a novelette finally came
out of it a full-sized novel. Even where the changes are
not so extensive, as in the proof-sheets of the Waverley
Novels preserved in the Cornell University Library, it is
interesting to trace the alterations which the author was
prompted to make by the sight of his paragraphs clothed in
the startling distinctness of print. Nor is this at all surpris-
ing when one considers how much better the eye can take
in the thought and style of a composition from the printed
page than it can even from typewriting. The advantage is
so marked that some publishers, before starting on an
expensive literary venture, are accustomed to have the copy
set up on the linotype for the benefit of their critics. If the
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
work is accepted, the revisions are made on these sheets,
and then, finally, the work is sent back to the composing
room to receive the more elaborate typographic dress in
which it is to appear.
But to return to the advantages of type to the reader.
Handwriting can make distinctions, such as punctuation
and paragraphing, but print can greatly enforce them. The
meaning of no written page leaps out to the eye; but this
is the regular experience of the reader with every well-
printed page. While printing can do nothing on a single
page that is beyond the power of a skillful penman, its ordi-
nary resources are the extraordinary ones of manuscript.
It might not be physically impossible, for instance, to dupli-
cate with a pen a page of the Century Dictionary, but it
would be practically impossible, and, if the pen were our
only resource, we never should have such a marvel of con-
densation and distinctness as that triumph of typography in
the service of scholarship.
In ordinary text, printing has grown away from the dis-
tinctions to the eye that were in vogue two hundred years
ago a gain to art and perhaps to legibility also, though
contemporary critics like Franklin lamented the change
but in reference books we have attained to a finer skill in
making distinctions to the eye than our forefathers achieved
with all their typographic struggles. Nor are our reference
pages lacking in beauty. But our familiarity with works of
this class tends to obscure their wonderful merit as time-
savers and eye-savers. It is only when we take up some
foreign dictionary, printed with little contrast of type, per-
haps in German text, and bristling with unmeaning abbre-
viations, that we appreciate our privilege. Surely this is a
marvelous mechanical triumph, to present the words of an
author in such a form that the eye, to take it in, needs but
PRINT AS AN INTERPRETER OF MEANING
to sweep rapidly down the page, or, if it merely glances at
the page, it shall have the meaning of the whole so focused
in a few leading words that it can turn at once to the
passage sought, or see that it must look elsewhere. The
saving of time so effected may be interpreted either as a
lengthening of life or as an increased fullness of life, but it
means also a lessening of friction and thus an addition to
human comfort.
We have been speaking of prose ; but print has done as
much or more to interpret the meaning of poetry. We
have before us a facsimile of nineteen lines from the oldest
Vatican manuscript of Vergil. The hexameters are written
in single lines ; but this is the only help to the eye. The
letters are capitals and are individually very beautiful,
indeed, the lines are like ribbons of rich decoration; but
the words are not separated, and the punctuation is incon-
spicuous and primitively simple, consisting merely of faint
dots. Modern poetry, especially lyric, with its wealth and
interplay of rhyme, affords a fine opportunity for the printer
to mediate between the poet and his public, and this he has
been able to do by mere indention and leading, without
resorting to distinction of type. The reader of a sonnet or
ballad printed without these two aids to the eye is robbed
of his rightful clues to the construction of the verse. It
seems hardly possible that a poem could have been read
aloud from an ancient manuscript, at sight, with proper
inflection ; yet this is just what printing can make possible
for the modern reader. It has not usually done so, for the
printer has been very conservative ; he has taken his con-
ception of a page from prose, and, not being compelled to,
has not placed all the resources of his art at the service
of the poet. Accents, pauses, and certain arbitrary signs
might well be employed to indicate to the reader the way
[17]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
the poet meant his line to be read. Milton curiously gave
us some metric hints by means of changes in spelling, but
we have to read all our other poets in the light of our own
discernment, and it is not to be wondered at if doctors dis-
agree. Even the caesura, or pause in the course of a long
line, is not always easy to place. Francis Thompson, in
his poem "A Judgement in Heaven," has indicated this by
an asterisk, giving an example that might well be followed by
other poets and their printers. The regularity of eighteenth-
century verse made little call for guide-posts, but modern
free meter, in proportion to its greater flexibility and rich-
ness, demands more assistance to the reader's eye, or even
to his understanding. For instance, to read aloud hexam-
eters or other long lines, some of which have the initial
accent on the first syllable and some later, is quite impossible
without previous study supplemented by a marking of the
page. Yet a few printed accents would make a false start
impossible. Poetry will never require the elaborate aid from
the printer which he gives to music ; but it seems clear that
he has not yet done for it all that he might or should.
It is surely not an extreme assumption that the first duty
of the printer is to the meaning of his author, and his second
to esthetics ; but shall we not rather say that his duty is to
meet both demands, not by a compromise, but by a com-
plete satisfaction of each? A difficult requirement, surely,
but one that we are confident the twentieth-century printer
will not permit his critics to pronounce impossible.
[18]
FAVORITE BOOK SIZES
the following paper some account will
be given of five book sizes that have taken
rank as favorites. It should excite no sur-
prise that all are small sizes. Nature's
favorites are always small; her insect
jewels outnumber her vertebrates a mil-
lionfold; and book-loving human nature takes the same
delight in daintiness.
There is, to be sure, a general impression that the first
centuries of printing were given up to folios, the eighteenth
century to quartos and octavos, and that only the present
period has been characterized by twelvemos and sixteenmos.
We think of the Gutenberg Bible, the Nuremberg Chronicle,
the mighty editions of the Fathers, the polyglot Bibles of
Paris, London, and Antwerp, fairly to be called limp
teachers' Bibles, the 1611 Bible, the Shakespeare folios;
then of the quarto editions of Addison, Pope, Walpole, and
their contemporaries, and the stately octavo editions of the
same writers; and finally of the myriad infra that have
swarmed from the press during the last century. But, when
we walk through a library that offers a representative collec-
tion of books from the invention of printing to the present,
we realize that the bigness of the folios and quartos has de-
ceived us as to their relative number, all forms of literature
being considered.
The parent of our present book form, the Roman codex,
split from an actual block of wood, had a surface hardly as
[19]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
large as the cover of a Little Classic. The vellum Books of
Hours were dainty volumes. Even in the period between
Gutenberg and Aldus, books of moderate size were not un-
common, and continuously, from the days of the great
Venetian popularizer of literature to the present, the small
books have far outnumbered their heavy-armed allies.
Common sense, indeed, would tell us that this must be so,
even if it had not inspired Dr. Johnson, its eighteenth cen-
tury exponent, to declare: "Books that you may carry to
the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful
after all."
Our account properly begins with Aldus. From 1^94,
the date of his first productions, until i5oi he printed his
books in folio and quarto. But in the first year of the new
century he began to use his famous cursive type, now called
italic. The fineness of the new type, as has been suggested,
called for a smaller size of book, which was also favored by
considerations of economy and convenience ; and so Aldus
made up his sheets in a form which the fold compels us to
call octavo, but which to-day would be called sixteenmo.
Says Horatio F. Brown, in his "The Venetian Printing
Press": "The public welcomed the new type and size.
The College granted Aldus a monopoly for ten years for all
books printed in this manner. The price of books was
lowered at once. Didot calculates that an octavo of Aldus
cost, on an average, two francs and a half, whereas a folio
probably cost about twenty francs. These two innovations
on type and on format constituted a veritable revolution in
the printing press and in the book trade, which now began
to reach a far more extensive market than it had ever touched
before. With this wide diffusion of books came the popu-
larization of knowledge at which Aldus aimed. Scholarship
began to lose its exclusive and aristocratic character when the
FAVORITE BOOK SIZES
classics were placed within the reach of any student who
chose to study, meditate, and interpret them for himself.
And to Aldus belongs the credit of having, through his new
type and size, opened the way to the democratization of
learning."
That the taste which Aldus so successfully hit was no
merely temporary one, any person will be convinced if he
will stand before a shelf full of these little Aldus classics,
handle the light, well-proportioned volumes, and take in the
esthetic charm of their type and page and form, which, in
spite of their four hundred years, by no means savors of an-
tiquity. In these books Aldus achieved one of the greatest
triumphs possible in any art, a union of beauty and utility,
each on so high a plane that no one is able to decide which
is pre-eminent. In a copy which I have before me of his
* * Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium Libri IIII," i546, the fine
proportions of the page appear in spite of trimming. Very
noticeable are the undersized roman capitals; more curious
is the letter printed in the otherwise blank square to indicate
what initial the illuminator should insert in color, and the
irregular use of capitals and small letters after a period. The
catchword appears only on the last page of the signature, not
on every page, as was the later practice. Modern usage wisely
consigns italic to a subordinate place, but in point of beauty
combined with convenience, it may well be questioned if four
centuries of printing have made any advance upon this page.
In nearly every library for scholars is to be found a row
of plump little books that never fail to catch the eye of the
sightseer. If the visitor does not know beforehand what they
are, he is little enlightened on being told that they are ' * Elze-
virs," and the attendant must needs supply the information
that the Elzevirs were a family of Dutch printers who flour-
ished during the century that closed with the arrival of
[ail
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
William III in England, and that these tiny volumes repre-
sent their most popular productions. Says George Haven
Putnam in his * * Books and their Makers during the Middle
Ages": "The Elzevirs, following the example set a century
and a half earlier by Aldus, but since that time very gener-
ally lost sight of by the later publishers, initiated a number
of series of books in small and convenient forms, twelvemo
and sixteenmo, which were offered to book buyers at prices
considerably lower than those they had been in the habit of
paying for similar material printed in folio, quarto, or octavo.
. . . These well-edited, carefully printed, and low-priced
editions of the classics won for the Elzevirs the cordial appre-
ciation of scholars and of students throughout Europe."
Among the authors who acknowledged their indebtedness
to the Elzevirs may be mentioned Galileo, the elder Balzac,
and the poet Menage. I have before me more than six feet
of shelving filled with these tiny books. They are nearly all
bound in vellum, and thus retain their antique appearance
without as well as within. Their subject-matter is in the
fields of literature, ancient and contemporary, and the his-
tory, geography, and political constitution of the principal
countries. The books of the latter division are known as
"Respublica3 VariaB." It is impossible to resist the conclu-
sion that this book form was chosen not more to supply
cheap books which could be sold to impecunious scholars
than to provide portable volumes for travelers. The Elzevir
"Commonwealths" were the predecessors of our "satchel
guides," and the literary publications in this form were evi-
dently designed to be pocket editions. It was to such books
that Dr. Johnson referred when he advised his friends ' * never
to go out without some little book or other in their pocket.
Much time is lost by waiting, by travelling, etc., and this
may be prevented by making use of every possible oppor-
FAVORITE BOOK SIZES
tunity for improvement." When the positive doctor, on his
journey to the Hebrides, paid his tribute to George Buchanan
at St. Andrews, his acquaintance with the Latin poetry of
the Scotch professor may well have arisen from his having
thus made a pocket piece of one of the several Elzevir editions
of the poet.
The characteristics of the "Elzevirs" are that they range
from about four to about five inches in height, are always
narrow, aj- to 2| inches in width, and are usually thick, in
some cases even i| inches. It is hardly necessary to say that
the esthetic impression of these "jewels of typography" is
wholly different from that produced by the "Alduses." It
is the beauty of an infant compared with that of a youth,
and, as in the case of the infant, plumpness is a part of the
charm. The thinnest of the ' * Elzevirs " (about three-fourths
of an inch thick) lack much of the characteristic quality. It
is of course granted that no small portion of the charm
exerted by these volumes is due to their type, which in
artistic excellence and practical effectiveness has hardly been
surpassed before or since.
When William Pickering, in i83o, began to issue his
Aldine edition of the British Poets in the most beautiful and
appropriate form that he could devise, the design which he'
placed upon the title-page, a dolphin and an anchor, with
the words "Aldi discip. Anglus," was an expression at
once of pride and of obligation. He had gone back to Aldus
for his model, and the book which he produced was in all
but its change of type from italic to roman a nearly exact
reproduction of the form which Aldus had employed so
successfully three centuries before. Even the relative thin-
ness of the volumes was preserved as an important element
of their attractiveness to eye and hand. Whoever would
learn what an enormous difference in esthetic effect can be
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
produced by slight differences in style and size, especially in
thickness, should compare the Pickering "Aldines" with
the rival set of British Poets published by Little and Brown.
The latter series is a noble one, often showing better press-
work than Pickering's, and it was deservedly popular, but it
is many degrees removed from the totality of esthetic charm
that would entitle it to rank as a favorite.
We said that Pickering went back to Aldus for his model,
but he did not travel a lonely road. The book size in ques-
tion had never ceased to be used, and in the eighteenth cen-
tury it was in full favor. The writings of the novelists and
essayists found ready buyers in this form, as witness, among
others, the Strahan Fielding of 1788, the Rivington Idler of
the same year, and the Rivington Sterne of 1788. The size
of the printed page is usually larger, but that of the Sterne
corresponds as closely to that of the two "Aldines" as the
difference in the size of type will permit. Pickering's con-
temporaries and successors in the publishing field recognized
the attractiveness of this book size, and the works of the
poets generally were issued in this form; hence we have,
for example, the Longman Southey, the Moxon Words-
worth, and the Murray Crabbe. The latest series to appeal
for popular favor by the use of this book form is Every-
man's Library, in which, though much has been sacrificed
to cheapness, the outward proportions of the volumes are
almost identical with those adopted by Aldus and Pickering.
Go, little book, whose pages hold
Those garnered years in loving trust ;
How long before your blue and gold
Shall fade and whiten in the dust?
This stanza from Dr. Holmes 's introduction to his
" Poems" of 1862 may well be claimed by the Blue and
Gold edition of the poets as its passport to the recognition
FAVORITE BOOK SIZES
of future generations. But it will need no passport; its own
enduring charm is sufficient. The volumes of this dainty
series, while larger in all but thickness than the "Elzevirs,"
yet make their appeal by much the same qualities, compact-
ness and portability, with a suggestion of the Elzevirian
plumpness. To the attraction of the size is added the con-
trasted charm of the blue cover and the gilt stamp and
edges. That a Blue and Gold edition, in the absence of its
name qualities, becomes something far inferior may be seen
from a copy that has lost them in rebinding. In spite of the
hardness of their blue and the crudeness of their stamped
designs, these little volumes attract every reader and never
remain long on the shelves of the second-hand bookstores.
We should not expect a publisher to succeed were he now
to put them upon the market for the first time or in an exact
reproduction. But the publisher who shall so recombine
their elements as to produce upon his public the effect which
they made upon theirs, and which they still make as remi-
niscent of an earlier taste, will be the envy of his fellows.
It is interesting to note that after fifty years these volumes
show no sign of fading, so that Dr. Holmes might well have
made his stanza an exclamation instead of a question. They
seem likely to last as long as the "Elzevirs" or even the
"Alduses" have already lasted, and possibly to outlast the
fame, though hardly the memory, of the poet who sang
them. The dimensions of the cover are 5f by 3f inches;
the thickness is about an inch. There was a larger Blue and
Gold format, as well as several smaller, but only the stand-
ard is now valued.
We cannot bring our list of favorite book sizes much
nearer the present without running the risk of confusing the
temporary and the permanent in popular approval. We will,
therefore, close with a mention of the Little Classics. At
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
about the time when the Blue and Gold series ceased to be
published, more exactly in 1874, Mr. Rossiter Johnson de-
signed for the now famous series which he was then editing
a book form that sprang at once into a favor that it still re-
tains. In this form, which appears to have no near counter-
part in either earlier or later bookmaking, the volumes are
closely six by four inches by three-quarters of an inch in
thickness. The edges are colored red, whatever the color
of the sides. The printed page is relatively wide, and the
whole effect of the book is that of a tiny quarto, though in
reality the dimensions are those of a rather small sixteenmo
of normal proportions. Thus the volume produces upon
the eye the charm of daintiness, while the page contains a
sufficient amount of matter to make the volume profitable
to the purchaser.
This series naturally suggests comparison with the Tauch-
nitz editions, which consist of volumes only slightly larger.
But really no comparison is possible. The Tauchnitz edi-
tions are merely convenient carriers of letterpress . The Little
Classics are a genuine art product. That the latter book size
has not been more widely used than it has, by its own and
by other publishers, is perhaps due to commercial reasons.
But there can be no question of the esthetic appeal which it
makes upon the reader who is looking for compactness and
beauty rather than for the greatest bulk for his money.
With the modern demand for the saving of space in private
libraries we may reasonably look for a revival of this con-
densed and charming book size.
The adoption of a few standard sizes for all books was
urged some years ago at a meeting of American librarians .
Commenting on this proposal, a New York publisher re-
marked that he should be glad to have such standard sizes
adopted by others, but he should take pains to avoid them
FAVORITE BOOK SIZES
in his own publications in order to gain the distinction of
difference. The discussion stopped suddenly under the im-
pact of this unexpected assault. But a second thought shows
that the publisher's comment leaves the question still open.
It is obvious that if we were to adopt standard sizes based
upon nothing more fundamental than the librarian's desire
for uniformity or the printer's mechanical convenience, with-
out regard to the tastes and preferences of the reader, who is
the final judge, the publisher might well find his gain in
disregarding them. But if the standards adopted all repre-
sented sizes long tested and approved by popular favor, the
publisher who should avoid them would display a confidence
in the Spirit of the Perverse as sublime as it would be hazard-
ous. Fortunately no formal standardization of book sizes is
likely to be attempted. But, keenly as a publisher would
resent any limitation upon his freedom in book design, he
is just as keenly desirous that his books shall be favorites.
To attain his coveted end he has two resources, experience
and experiment, or a mixture of both. While the book sizes
that have been discussed in this chapter do not include all
the favorites, they certainly include some of the first favor-
ites, and are worthy of study by everyone who is seeking
public favor in the design of that complex art product known
as a Book.
THE VALUE OF READING, TO THE
PUBLIC AND TO THE INDIVIDUAL
F what value is it to a community to con-
tain still more to be composed of well-
read people? We can best answer this
question by picturing its opposite, a com-
munity without readers ; this we are un-
fortunately able to do without drawing
upon our imaginations, for we have only to turn to 'certain
districts of countries like Spain or Russia. There we shall
meet whole communities, large enough to form cities else-
where, which are little more than aggregations of paupers.
Shall we find in any of these homes a daily or a weekly
paper, or a monthly magazine, or even a stray book? Not
one, except perhaps in the house of a priest. These masses
of people live on the earth, to be sure, but they do not live
in the world. No currents of the great, splendid life of the
twentieth century ever reach them; and they live in equal
isolation from the life of the past. "The glory that was
Greece and the grandeur that was Rome" have for them
simply no existence. They are truly the disinherited of all
the ages. Though they may not be unhappy, they can be
called nothing less than wretched. Is the fault one of race,
or government, or religion ? Much could be said on all these
points, both for and against ; but one fact remains indisput-
able these people do not read.
Let us turn now to a different type of community, that
represented by the ordinary New England village. How
THE VALUE OF READING
stands the cause of reading there? If there is any person
of sound mind in the community who has never learned to
read, he is pointed out as a curiosity. There is not a home
in the length and breadth of the town that is without its
paper, its magazine, or its books. In other words, literacy
is taken for granted. Is it any wonder that in progress,
wealth, and influence the one community starts where the
other leaves off? In the illiterate towns just described there
is often no man who has the slightest capacity for business
or who can represent the interests of his community before
even the humblest government official. But from towns of
the other type come men who represent with honor their
state and their nation ; men who widen the bounds of freedom
and who add new stars to the celestial sphere of knowledge.
Is all this wholly a matter of reading ? One would not dare
to assert it absolutely, remembering the advantages of race,
government, and religion enjoyed in New England. And yet
we have only to fancy the condition of even such a town
after one generation, supposing all its printed matter and
its power to read were taken away, if we would realize
what an impulse to progress and prosperity is given by the
presence of the volumes that line the shelves of our public
libraries.
If the fortunes of a community in the modern world are
bound up with the use that it makes of books and libraries,
no less are those of the individual. This is true whether we
refer to his private satisfaction or to his public advancement.
The animal is endowed with instinct, which is sufficient for
the guidance of his life, but it permits of no development.
Man must depend upon judgment, experience, reason
guides that are often only too blind ; but at least they admit
of progress. In fact it is only in the field of knowledge that
human progress appears to be possible. We have no better
[39]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
bodies than the ancient Greeks had to put the case very
mildly. We have no better minds than they had to make
an even safer assertion. But we know almost infinitely more
than they did. In this respect the ancient Greeks were but
as children compared with ourselves. What makes this tre-
mendous difference? Simply the fact that we know all that
was known by them and the Romans and the men of the
middle ages, and through this knowledge we have learned
more by our own discovery than they knew, all put together.
The path to success for men and races lies through the store-
house where this vast knowledge is garnered the library.
But it is something more than a storehouse of knowledge ; it
is an electrical battery of power . This knowledge , this power ,
can be obtained in its fullness only through books. The
man, therefore, who aspires to lead his fellows, to command
their respect or their votes, must not rely on native talent
alone; he must add to it the stored-up talent of the ages.
There is an old proverb: "No man ever got rich with his
coat off." This is a puzzling assertion, for it seems to con-
tradict so many accepted ideas. General Grant, for instance,
when asked for his coat-of-arms , replied: "A pair of shirt
sleeves." The answer showed an honorable pride in labor;
but we must remember that it was not General Grant's arms
but his brain that won his victories. Does not our proverb
mean simply this: that the great prizes of life of which
riches is the symbol, not the sum cannot be won by main
strength and ignorance ; that they can be won only by energy
making use of knowledge ? But it is not only in the public
successes of life that books have a value for the individual.
Public successes are never the greatest that men win. It is
in the expansion and uplift of the inner self that books ren-
der their grandest service. Emily Dickinson wrote of such a
reader :
[3o]
THE VALUE OF READING
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust ;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book What liberty
A loosened spirit brings I
A final word on values. The philosophers make two
great classes of values, which may be entitled respectively
Property and Possessions. Under Property come money,
houses, lands, carriages, clothing, jewels; under Posses-
sions come love, friendship, morality, knowledge, culture,
refinement. All are good things. There never were any
houses or carriages or clothes too good for a human being.
But these obviously belong to a different type of values from
the other group to a lower type. What is the test, the
touchstone, by which we can tell to which class any value be-
longs? We shall find the test clearly stated in the Sermon
on the Mount. Is the treasure in question one that moth and
rust can corrupt or that thieves can break through and steal?
If so, it belongs to the lower class, to Property. But if it is
one that cannot be taken away, then it is a Possession and
belongs to the higher type. There is another test, which is
really a part of this : Can you share it without loss ? If I
own a farm, and give to another a half of it or a year's crop
from it, I deprive myself of just so much. But, if I have
knowledge or taste or judgment or affection, I can pour them
all out like water for the benefit of my fellows, and yet
never have any the less. On the contrary, I shall find that
I have more ; for they grow by sharing. But we have not yet
done with the superiority of Possessions over Property.
" Shrouds have no pockets," says the grim old proverb; and
all Property must be laid down at the edge of the grave.
But if man be immortal, as the wise in all ages have be-
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
lieved, then we do not have to lay down our Possessions
with this mortal body. For, if the soul when freed from the
flesh is to remain the soul, the self and only so can im-
mortality have any meaning then it must keep all those
inner acquisitions of knowledge, culture, and character which
it has gathered on earth; nay, it then for the first time truly
comes into the enjoyment of them. What were our earthly
Possessions become Treasures laid up for ourselves in
Heaven.
THE BOOK OF TO-DAY AND THE BOOK
OF TO-MORROW
HE book of to-day is not necessarily the
parent of the book of to-morrow, just as it is
itself not necessarily the child of the book of
yesterday. The relation is apt to be one of
succession and influence rather than any-
thing suggesting biological evolution. Na-
ture, according to Linnaeus 's famous maxim, never goes by
leaps, but the book is a human product, and human nature
takes its chief pride in its leaps, calling them inventions and
discoveries. Such a leap in book production was the substi-
tution of parchment for papyrus, of paper for parchment,
of mechanical for manual processes when writing was dis-
placed by typography, of higher for lower mechanism in the
creation of the power perfecting press. These inventions
had behind them, to be sure, the impetus of economic de-
mand, but no such partial explanation can be given for the
advent of William Morris among the printers of the late
nineteenth century, unless an unrecognized artistic need may
be said to constitute an economic demand.
The book of to-day in its best examples resembles not so
much the book of yesterday as that of some earlier days, and
we may count this fact a fortunate one, since it relegates to
oblivion the books made in certain inartistic periods, notably
of the one preceding the present revival. It is rather the best
of the whole past of the book, and not the book of to-day
alone, that influences the character to be taken by the book
[33]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
of to-morrow. This element is a historical one and a knowl-
edge of it may be acquired by study ; it is the possible in-
ventions that baffle our prophecies. We know that any time
some new process may be discovered that will transform the
book into something as unlike its present character as that
is unlike the papyrus roll. But because the element of inven-
tion is so uncertain we can only recognize it, we cannot take
it into account. Our advantage in considering the book of
to-day in connection with the book of to-morrow will be
chiefly a negative one, in making the book as it is, so far as
we find it defective, our point of departure in seeking the
book as it ought to be.
To-day, for our present purposes, may be taken as begin-
ning with the great work of Morris. But its book includes
the worst as well as the best. It is not only the book by which
we in our jealousy for the reputation of our age should like
to have our age remembered, but also the more frequent
book that we have to see and handle, however much against
our will, and sometimes even to buy. We may congratulate
ourselves that this book will perish by its own defects, leav-
ing after all only the best book to be associated with our age;
but this does not alter the fact that in the present the unde-
sirable book is too much with us, is vastly in the majority,
is, in fact, the only book that the great mass of our contem-
poraries know. How bad it is most book buyers do not real-
ize ; if they did, a better book would speedily take its place.
But, until they do, our only chance of relief is the doubtful
one of an invention that shall make good books cheaper to
make than poor ones, or the difficult one of educating the
public in the knowledge of what a book should be. The
latter is obviously our only rational hope ; but before we turn
to consider it, let us first look at the book of to-day to see
exactly what it is.
[34]
THE BOOK OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
The book of to-day is first of all a novel. It has other
forms, to be sure, poetry, essays, history, travels, works
of science and art, but these do not meet the eye of the
multitude. We may disregard them for the moment, and, in
reply to the question, What is the book of to-day? we may
say: It is a one-volume novel, a rather clumsy duodecimo,
with a showy cover adorned with a colored picture of the
heroine. It is printed on thick paper of poor quality, with
type too large for the page, and ugly margins equal all
around. Its binding is weak, often good for only a dozen
readings, though quite as lasting as the paper deserves. For
merits it can usually offer clear type, black ink, and good
press work. But its great fault is that in addressing the buyer
it appeals to the primitive instinct for bigness rather than to
the higher sense that regards quality. Such is the book of
to-day, emphatically what Franklin over a hundred years
ago called a " blown" book.
But though the, novel fills the multitude's field of vision,
it is after all not the only contemporary book ; there are
others from which we may be able to choose one worthier
to be the book of to-day than the self-elected novel. But
we shall not find it where commercialism is rife. In the
presence of that element we find still only an appeal to the
many which, if successful, means large profits by an
appearance of giving much while really giving little. In this
game of illusion the sound principles of bookmaking are for-
saken. Books are not designed on the basis of what they
are, but on the basis of what they can be made to seem.
The result is puffery, not merely in advertising, but still
earlier in the dimensions of the book itself the most mod-
ern and profitable instance of using the east wind for a
filler.
But at this point a new element is introduced, the public
[35]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
library. The ordinary buyer carries home the distended
book, and after he and his family have read it, he cares not
if it falls to pieces after the next reading. Neither does he
care if it takes up thrice the room that it should, for he no
longer gives it room. But the public library, under the ex-
isting inflationism, must not only pay too much for its popu-
lar books; it must also house them at a needless outlay,
and must very early duplicate a serious percentage of their
first cost in rebinding them. So burdensome has this last
item become that our libraries are consenting to pay a slightly
larger first cost in order to avoid the necessity of rebinding ;
and enterprising publishers, following the lead of a more
enterprising bookbinder, are beginning to cater to this library
demand, which some day, let us hope, may dominate the
entire publishing world for all books worth preserving, and
may extend to all the elements of the book.
But fortunately there is here and there the uncommercial
publisher and now and then an uncommercial mood in the
ordinary publisher. To these we owe a small but important
body of work of which no previous age need have been
ashamed. Of these books we may almost say that they
would be books if there were nothing in them. They have
come into being by a happy conjunction of qualified pub-
lisher and appreciative buyers. They show what most books
may be and what all books will strive to be if ever the ma-
jority of book buyers come to know what a good book is.
This brings us finally to the book of to-morrow, what we
hope it will be and how we can make it so.
The book of to-morrow, the book as it ought to be, will
be both better and cheaper than the book of to-day. It can
afford to be cheaper, for it will have a large and appreciative
public, and for the same reason it will have to be better.
The question of supreme importance now, if this public is
[36]
THE BOOK OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
ever to exist, is: How to educate our book buyers. The an-
swer is not easy, for our book buyers do not realize that
they are untrained, and, even if they realized it, the task of
training them in the knowledge and love of the well-made
book would be difficult. But we can do at least three things:
agitate proclaim the existence of a lore to be acquired, an
ignorance and its practices to be eschewed ; illustrate show
the good book and the bad together, and set forth, point by
point, why the good is superior ; last and most important, we
must vindicate back up our words by our deeds, support
the publisher who gives the world good books, and leave to
starvation or reform the publisher who clings to the old un-
worthy methods of incapacity or fraud. Even now, if every
enlightened booklover in America would carry out this plan
as a matter of duty merely where he could do so without in-
convenience, nothing less than a revolution would be upon
us, and we should have the Book of To-morrow while it is
still To-day.
[3?]
A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIC OF THE BOOK
T the meeting of the British librarians at
Cambridge in 1 882 a bomb was thrown into
the camp of the book producers in the form
of the question : Who spoils our new Eng-
lish books? In the explosion which fol-
lowed, everybody within range was hit,
from "the uncritical consumer" to "the untrained manu-
facturer." This dangerous question was asked and an-
swered by Henry Stevens of Vermont, who, as a London
bookseller, had for nearly forty years handled the products
of the press new and old, had numbered among his patrons
such critical booklovers as John Carter Brown and James
Lenox, and had been honored with the personal friendship of
William Pickering the publisher and Charles Whittingham
the printer. He had therefore enjoyed abundant opportu-
nity for qualifying himself to know whereof he spoke. If his
words were severe, he stood ready to justify them with an
exhibit of sixty contemporary books which he set before his
hearers. 1
The truth is, however unwilling his victims may have
been to admit it, that his attack was only too well timed.
The men of creative power, who had ennobled English book
production during the second quarter of the nineteenth cen-
1 The address here summarized was printed at the Chiswick Press and published at
Christmas, i884- Mr. Stevens died early in 1886, leaving a posthumous book entitled
" Recollections of Mr. James Lenox," which was printed in the same year at the Chis-
wick Press, and which is of great interest to booklovers, especially Americans.
[38]
A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIC OF THE BOOK
tury, had passed away, and books were being thrown to-
gether instead of being designed as formerly. The tradition
of excellence in English bookmaking still held sway over
the public, and, as their books sold, most producers saw no
reason to disturb themselves. What to them was progress
in other lands, or the claims of a future that could not be
enforced? But after Mr. Stevens's attack they could at least
no longer plead ignorance of their faults. It is certain that
an improvement soon began, which culminated in the pres-
ent great era of book design throughout the English world.
If the famous bookseller's address were not the cause of the
change, it at least marked a turning point, and it deserves
to be studied as one of the historic documents of modern
printing. It is more than this, however; it is a piece of crea-
tive criticism, and though teaching not by example but by
contraries , it forms one of the best existing brief compends
of what a well-made book must be.
The critic of books as they were made a generation ago
begins with the assertion of a truth that cannot be too
often repeated : ' ' The manufacture of a beautiful and dur-
able book costs little if anything more than that of a clumsy
and unsightly one/' He adds that once a handsome book
and a new English book were synonymous terms, but that
now the production of really fine books is becoming one of
England's lost arts. He indulges in a fling at "the efforts of
certain recent printers to retrieve this decadence by throwing
on to the already overburdened trade several big, heavy, and
voluminous works of standard authors termed 'Editions de
luxe/ ' He assures his hearers that his judgments were not
formed on the spur of the moment, but were based partly
on long personal observations Stevens was the author of
that widely influential piece of selective bibliography, "My
English Library," London, i853 and on the results of the
[3 9 ]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
international exhibitions since i85i, especially those of
Vienna (187^), Philadelphia (1876), and Paris (1878), in
the last of which he was a juror. His conclusion is "that
the present new English, Scotch, and Irish books, of a given
size and price, are not of the average quality of high art and
skill in manufacture that is found in some other countries."
He reminds his hearers that " it is no excuse to say that the
rapidity of production has been largely increased. That
amounts merely to confessing that we are now consuming
two bad books in the place of one good one."
Mr. Stevens now comes to the direct question: Who
spoils our new English books? He answers it by naming
not less than ten parties concerned: (i) the author, (2) the
publisher, (3) the printer, (4) the reader, (5) the composi-
tor, (6) the pressman or machinist, (7) the papermaker,
(8) the ink maker, (9) the bookbinder, and (10), last but
not least, the consumer. There is no question of honesty or
dishonesty, he says, but there is a painful lack of harmony,
the bungling work of one or the clumsy manipulation of
another often defeating the combined excellence of all the
rest. The cure he foresees in the establishment of a school
of typography, in which every disciple of these ten tribes
shall study a recognized grammar of book manufacture
based on the authority of the best examples.
He now returns to the charge and pays his respects to
each member of the "ten tribes" in turn. The author's
offense is found to consist largely of ignorant meddling.
The publisher is too often ignorant, fussy, unskilled, pedan-
tic, shiftless, and money-seeking, willing to make books
unsightly if their cheapness will sell them. The printer is
the scapegoat, and many books are spoiled in spite of his
efforts, Awhile he gets all the blame. But he is apt to have
faults of his own, the worst of which is a failure in the care-
A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIC OF THE BOOK
ful design of the books intrusted to him. " It was not so,"
says Mr. Stevens, "with our good old friends William Picker-
ing and Charles Whittingham, publisher and printer, work-
ing for many years harmoniously together. It was their
custom, as both used repeatedly to tell us, to each first sit upon
every new book and painfully hammer out in his own mind
its ideal form and proportions. Then two Sundays at least
were required to compare notes in the little summer house
in Mr. Whittingham's garden at Chiswick, or in the after-
dinner sanctuary, to settle the shape and dress of their
forthcoming 'friend of man.' It was amusing as well as
instructive to see each of them, when they met, pull from
his bulging side pocket well-worn title-pages and sample
leaves for discussion and consideration. When they agreed,
perfection was at hand, and the ' copy ' went forward to the
compositors, but not till then. The results, to this day, are
seen in all the books bearing the imprint of William Picker-
ing, nearly all of which bear also evidence that they came
from the 'Chiswick Press.* '
The reader, Mr. Stevens holds to be, under the printer,
the real man of responsibility ; but he too is often hampered
by want of plan and due knowledge of the proportions of
the book that he is handling. He also should go to the
school of typography, and the readers of different offices
should learn to agree. The compositor is pronounced "a
little person of great consequence. " His moral responsibility
is not great, but too much is often thrust upon him ; in
fact he is, in many cases, the real maker of the book. " He
ought to have a chance at the school of typography, and be
better instructed in his own business, and be taught not to
assume the business of any other sinner joined with him in
the manufacture of books." Between the compositor and the
pressman is a long road in which many a book is spoiled,
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
but the responsibility is hard to place. Few people have any
idea what constitute the essentials of a book's form and pro-
portions. Yet our old standards, in manuscript and print,
demand ' ' that the length of a printed page should have rela-
tion to its width, and that the top should not exceed half the
bottom margin, and that the front should be double the back
margin/*
The papermaker comes in for a large share of blame, but
the remedy lies only in the hands of the consumer, who
must insist on receiving good and durable paper. * * The ink-
maker is a sinner of the first magnitude." The first printing
inks are still bright, clean, and beautiful after four hundred
years ; but who will give any such warrant to even the best
inks of the present day? Mr. Stevens pronounces the sallow
inks of our day as offensive to sight as they are to smell.
The bookbinder is adjudged equal in mischief to any other
of the ten sinners, and the rest are called upon to combine
to prevent their books from being spoiled in these last
hands.
The consumer, after all, is the person most to blame, for
he has the power to control all the rest. Or, in the critic's
closing words : 4 ' Many of our new books are unnecessarily
spoiled, and it matters little whether this or that fault be laid
to this or that sinner. The publisher, the printer, or the
binder may sometimes, nay, often does, if he can, shift the
burden of his sins to the shoulders of his neighbor, but all
the faults finally will come back on the consumer if he
tolerates this adulteration longer."
The great constructive feature of Mr. Stevens's address,
which is one that brings it absolutely up to date, is his call
for a school of typography, which shall teach a recognized
grammar of book manufacture, especially printing, a gram-
mar as standard as Lindley Murray's. He believes that the
[*']
A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIC OF THE BOOK
art of bookmaking cannot be held to the practice of the laws
of proportion, taste, and workmanship, which were settled
once for all in the age of the scribes and the first printers, with-
out the existence arid pressure of some recognized authority.
Such an authority, he holds, would be furnished by a school
of typography. This, as we interpret it, would be not neces-
sarily a school for journeymen, but a school for those who
are to assume the responsibility too often thrown upon the
journeymen, the masters of book production. With a large
annual output of books taken up by a public none too
deeply versed in the constituents of a well-made book, there
would seem to be much hope for printing as an art from the
existence of such an institution, which would be critical in
the interest of sound construction, and one might well wish
that the course in printing recently established at Harvard
might at some time be associated with the name of its prophet
of a generation ago, Henry Stevens of Vermont.
[43]
BOOKS AS A LIBRARIAN WOULD
LIKE THEM
HE librarian is in a position more than any
one else to know the disabilities of books.
The author is interested in his fame and
his emoluments, the publisher in his repu-
tation and his profits. To each of these
parties the sales are the chief test. But the
librarian's interest in the book begins after the sale, and it
continues through the entire course of the book's natural
life. His interest, moreover, is all-round; he is concerned
with the book's excellence in all respects, intellectual, es-
thetic, and physical. He is the one who has to live with it,
literally to keep house with it ; and his reputation is in a
way involved with its character. He may, therefore, be
allowed for once to have his say as to how he would like to
have books made.
If a book is worth writing at all, it is worth writing three
times: first to put down the author's ideas, secondly to con-
dense their expression into the smallest possible compass, and
thirdly so to arrange them that they shall be most easily
taken into the mind, putting them not necessarily into logi-
cal order, but into psychological order. If the author will do
this and can add the touch of genius, or shall we say?
can suffuse his work with the quality of genius, then he has
made an addition to literature. That, among all the books
which the librarian has to care for, he finds so few that he
can call additions to literature is one of his grievances. The
[44]
BOOKS AS A LIBRARIAN WOULD LIKE THEM
three processes may, indeed, by a practiced hand be per-
formed as one. The librarian is only anxious that they be
performed and that he have the benefit.
With the publisher the librarian feels that he can speak
still more bluntly than with the author, for it is against the
publisher that the librarian cherishes one of his greatest
grievances, the necessity of supplying four times the amount
of storage room that ought to be required. I have before
me two books, one larger than the other in every way and
four times as thick. Yet the smaller book is printed in larger
type, has twice as many words on a page, and has twice as
many pages. This is, of course, an exceptional contrast,
but a difference of four times between the actual and the
possible is by no means unusual. When one considers that
in most of our libraries it costs, all told, a dollar to shelve
a volume, one realizes that the librarian has against the
publisher a grievance that can be put into the language of
commerce. If every book is occupying a dollar's worth of
space, which ought to accommodate three others, then, gen-
tlemen publishers, in swelling your books to catch the pub-
lic eye, you have taken from us far more than you put into
your own pockets from your sales to us. You have made
our book storage four times as costly and unwieldy as it
ought to be; but you have done worse than this, you have
sold us perishable instead of durable goods. You have cheap-
ened every element of the book paper, ink, and binding
so that, while we begin the twentieth century with some
books on our shelves that are over four hundred years old
and some that are less than one, the only books among them
that have any chance of seeing the twenty-first century are
those that will then be five hundred years old ; the books
that might have been a century old will then, like their
makers, be dust. It seems to the librarian that you, who
[45]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
have taken it upon yourselves to direct the service to be ren-
dered to men hy the "art preservative of all arts," have
assumed very lightly your responsibility for the future's
knowledge of our time. You may and do answer that, as
the records begin to perish, the most important of them will
be reprinted, and the world will be the better off for the loss
of the rest. To this it may be rejoined that you give the dis-
tant future no chance to revise the judgments of a rather
near future, and that vast quantities of material which would
be read with eagerness by future generations and which
would be carefully preserved if it were durable, will not be
reprinted, whatever its value. We may be sure that the
daily papers of the present year will never be reprinted;
the world of the future will be too busy, not to speak of the
cost ; yet what a series of human documents will disappear
in their destruction 1 If a part of the professional obligation
which you assumed in making yourselves responsible for
the issues of the press is to transmit the record of this gen-
eration to later time, then it seems to me that you have in
great measure betrayed your trust and have so far brought
to naught the labors of your comrade, the librarian, in the
conservation of literature. Also you compel him to pay for
unnecessary rebindings which can hardly be made, so poor
is the stock you furnish the binder ; yet on this point you
have shown some indications of a change of heart, and I will
pass it over. Perhaps you have finally come to realize that
every cent paid for rebinding is taken out of your gross re-
ceipts. I will not speak of the books that you ought never
to have published, the books that are not books ; most of
these the librarian can avoid buying, but sometimes a book
is just "ower gude for banning," and he has to take it and
catalogue it and store it, and take account of it and rearrange
it, and, after all, get scolded by his authorities or ridiculed
[46]
BOOKS AS A LIBRARIAN WOULD LIKE THEM
by the public for housing so much rubbish. The author is
responsible with you here, but your own individual respon-
sibility is enough for any shoulders to bear.
To the printer the librarian would say: since wishing is
easy, let us imagine that what ought always to happen is
happening regularly instead of rarely, namely, that the
author produces a book worth printing and that the pub-
lisher leaves you free to put it into a worthy form. This is
the opportunity that you have always been looking for. How
are you going to meet it? Do you know all the elements
that you deal with and can you handle them with a sure
touch practically and esthetically ? If so, you will not need
any hints from the librarian, and he will order your book
" sight unseen." But still, among the good and right ways
of making books, there may be some that he prefers, and he
will ask you, when you are making books for him and not
for private buyers, at least to give his preferences a hearing.
He wants his books no bigger physically than they need be,
and yet he would like to have them of a convenient height,
from seven to nine inches. He would rather have their expan-
sion in height and width and not in thickness, for the former
dimensions up to ten and a half inches by eight mean no
increased demand upon shelf room, while the thickness of
every leaf is taken out of his library's capacity. He would
like to have no wasteful margins and no extreme in the size
of type. If it is too large, the book takes up too much room;
if it is too small, his readers will ruin their eyes over it or,
what is more likely, refuse to read it and so make its pos-
session a useless expense. For the sake of rapid reading he
would like to have every wide page printed in columns. For
the same reason he would like to have every possible help
given to the eye in the way of paragraphs, headlines, and
variation of type, so far as it can be given in consonance
[47]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
with the esthetic rights of the book. With these points ob-
served, and the book printed on paper as thin and as light in
weight as can be conveniently used and is consistent with
opacity and strength, with clear type, clear and durable ink,
and good presswork, the printer will have done his part,
and a book will go to the binder that is worthy of his best
treatment.
What that treatment is the binder knows better than I can
tell him. When he has applied it, the book will come out
of his hands at once solid and flexible ; unmutilated, either
on the outer edges where mutilation can be seen, or at the
back where it cannot be seen, but where it nevertheless
hurts the integrity of the book ; covered with honest boards
that will stand use, and clad with a material, cloth or leather,
that is both strong to resist wear and also contains within
itself no seeds of deterioration. Besides this let it have a
character, however unobtrusive, befitting the contents of the
book, and the binder will have paid his full debt to the
present and the future.
While the librarian's ideals of bookmaking are not the
only ones, they are in harmony with the best, and there can-
not be progress in bookmaking without approaching his
ideals. He is, therefore, by his very office committed to
every undertaking for the improvement of the book, and be-
cause of the efforts of librarians and other booklovers there
is ground for belief that the books of the present decade will
be better than those of the last.
[48]
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
IE who use books every day as tools of trade
or sources of inspiration are apt to over-
look the fact that the book, on its material
side, is an art object. Not, indeed, that
it ranks with the products of poetry,
painting, sculpture, and other arts of the
first grade; but it has a claim to our consideration on the
level of the minor arts, along with jewelry, pottery, tapes-
try, and metal work. Moreover, its intimate association with
literature, of which it is the visible setting, gives it a charm
that, while often only reflected, may also be contributory,
heightening the beauty that it enshrines.
Using the word beauty for the result of artistic mastery,
we may say that in the other arts beauty is the controlling
factor in price, but in the book this is the case only excep-
tionally. As a consequence beautiful books are more acces-
sible for purchase or observation than any other equally
beautiful objects. For the price of a single very beautiful
rug one can obtain a small library of the choicest books.
Except in the case of certain masterpieces of the earliest
printing, in which rarity is joined to beauty, high prices for
books have nothing to do with their artistic quality. Even
for incunabula one need pay only as many dollars as for
tapestries of the same grade one would have to pay thou-
sands. In book collecting, therefore, a shallow purse is not
a bar to achievement, and in our day of free libraries one
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
may make good progress in the knowledge and enjoyment
of beautiful books without any expense at all.
Public taste is probably as advanced in the appreciation
of the book beautiful as of any other branch of art, but it is
active rather than enlightened. This activity is a good sign,
for it represents the first stage in comprehension ; the next
is the consciousness that there is more in the subject than
had been realized ; the third is appreciation. The present
chapter is addressed to those and they are many who are
in the second stage. The first piece of advice to those who
seek acquaintance with the book beautiful is : Surround your-
self with books that the best judges you know call beautiful ;
inspect them, handle them; cultivate them as you would
friends. It will not be long before most other books begin
to annoy you, though at first you cannot tell why. Then
specific differences one after another will stand out, until at
last you come to know something of the various elements of
the book, their possibilities of beauty or ugliness, and their
relations one to another. No one should feel ashamed if
this process takes a long time is indeed endless. William
Morris pleaded to having sinned in the days of ignorance,
even after he had begun to make books. So wide is the
field! and so many and subtle are the possible combinations
that all who set out to know books must expect, like the
late John Richard Green, to "die learning." But the learn-
ing is so delightful and the company into which it brings us
is so agreeable that we have no cause to regret our lifelong
apprenticeship.
The first of all the qualities of the book beautiful is fitness.
It must be adapted to the literature which it contains, other-
wise it will present a contradiction. Imagine a "Little
Classic" Josephus or a folio Keats. The literature must also
be worthy of a beautiful setting, else the book will involve
[5o]
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
an absurdity. Have we not all seen presentation copies of
government documents which gave us a shock when we
passed from the elegant outside to the commonplace inside?
But the ideal book will go beyond mere fitness ; it will be
both an interpretation of its contents and an offering of hom-
age to its worth. The beauty of the whole involves perfect
balance as well as beauty of the parts. No one must take
precedence of the rest, but there must be such a perfect har-
mony that we shall think first of the total effect and only
afterwards of the separate elements that combine to produce
it. This greatly extends our problem, but also our delight
in its happy solutions.
The discerning reader has probably noticed that we have
already smuggled into our introduction the notion that the
book beautiful is a printed book; and, broadly speaking, so
it must be at the present time. But we should not forget
that, while the printed book has charms and laws of its own,
the book was originally written by hand and in this form
was developed to a higher pitch of beauty than the printed
book has ever attained. As Ruskin says, "A well-written
book is as much pleasanter and more beautiful than a printed
book as a picture is than an engraving." Calligraphy and
illumination are to-day, if not lost arts, at best but faint
echoes of their former greatness. They represent a field of
artistic effort in which many persons of real ability might
attain far greater distinction and emolument than in the
overcrowded ordinary fields of art. Printing itself would
greatly benefit from a flourishing development of original
bookmaking, gaining just that stimulus on the art side that
it needs to counterbalance the pressure of commercialism.
At present, however, we shall commit no injustice if, while
remembering its more perfect original, we accept the printed
book as the representative of the book beautiful ; but, as a
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
matter of fact, most that we shall have to say of it will ap-
ply with little change to the manuscript book.
A final point by way of preface is the relation of the book
beautiful to the well-made book. The two are not identical.
A book may be legible, strong, and durable, yet ill-propor-
tioned and clumsy, ugly in every detail. On the other hand,
the book beautiful must be well made, else it w r ill not keep
its beauty. The point where the two demands tend most to
conflict is at the hinge of the cover, where strength calls for
thickness of leather and beauty for thinness. The skill of
the good binder is shown in harmonizing these demands
when he shaves the under side of the leather for the joint.
Let us now take up the elements of the book one by one and
consider their relations to beauty.
To one who never had seen a book before it would seem,
as it stands on the shelf or lies on the table, a curious rectan-
gular block; and such it is in its origin, being derived from
the Roman codex, which was a block of wood split into thin
layers. When closed, therefore, the book must have the
seeming solidity of a block; but open it and a totally new
character appears. It is now a bundle of thin leaves, and its
beauty no longer consists in its solidity and squareness, but
in the opposite qualities of easy and complete opening, and
flowing curves. This inner contradiction, so far from mak-
ing the book a compromise and a failure, is one of the great-
est sources of its charm, for each condition must be met as
if the other did not exist, and when both are so met, we de-
rive the same satisfaction as from any other combination of
strength and grace, such as Schiller celebrates in his ' ' Song
of the Bell."
The book therefore consists of a stiff cover joined by a
flexible back in the book beautiful a tight back and in-
closing highly flexible leaves. The substance of the board is
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
not visible, being covered with an ornamental material, either
cloth or leather, but it should be strong and tough and in
thickness proportioned to the size of the volume. In very
recent years we have available for book coverings really
beautiful cloths, which are also more durable than all but
the best leathers ; but we have a right to claim for the book
beautiful a covering of leather, and full leather, not merely a
back and hinges . We have a wide range of beauty in leathers ,
from the old ivory of parchment when it has had a few
centuries in which to ripen its color to the sensuous rich-
ness of calf and the splendor of crushed levant. The nature
of the book must decide, if the choice is yet to be made.
But, when the book has been covered with appropriate
leather so deftly that the leather seems ' ' grown around the
board," and has been lettered on the back a necessary
addition giving a touch of ornament we are brought up
against the hard fact that, unless the decorator is very skill-
ful indeed a true artist as well as a deft workman he
cannot add another touch to the book without lessening its
beauty. The least obtrusive addition will be blind tooling,
or, as in so many old books, stamping, which may empha-
size the depth of color in the leather. The next step in the
direction of ornament is gilding, the next inlaying. In the
older books we find metal clasps and corners, which have
great decorative possibilities; but these, like precious stones,
have disappeared from book ornamentation in modern times
before the combined inroad of the democratic and the classic
spirit.
Having once turned back the cover, our interest soon for-
sakes it for the pages inclosed by it. The first of these is
the page opposite the inside of the cover ; obviously it should
be of the same or, at least, of a similar material to the body
of the book. But the inside of the cover is open to two
[53]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
treatments ; it may bear the material either of the outer
covering or of the pages within. So it may display, for in-
stance, a beautiful panel of leather doublure or it may
share with the next page a decorative lining paper ; but that
next page should never be of leather, for it is the first page
of the book.
As regards book papers, we are to-day in a more fortunate
position than we were even a few years ago ; for we now
can obtain, and at no excessive cost, papers as durable as those
employed by the earliest printers. It is needless to say that
these are relatively rough papers. They represent one es-
thetic advance in papermaking since the earliest days in that
they are not all dead white. Some of the books of the first
age of printing still present to the eye very nearly the black-
est black on the whitest white. But, while this effect is
strong and brilliant, it is not the most pleasing. The result
most agreeable to the eye still demands black or possibly a
dark blue ink, but the white of the paper should be softened.
Whether we should have made this discovery of our own
wit no one can tell ; but it was revealed to us by the darken-
ing of most papers under the touch of time. Shakespeare
forebodes this yellowing of his pages ; but what was then
thought of as a misfortune has since been accepted as an
element of beauty, and now book papers are regularly made
''antique" as well as " white." Even white does not please
us unless it inclines to creamy yellow rather than to blue.
But here, as everywhere, it is easy to overstep the bounds of
moderation and turn excess into a defect. The paper of the
book beautiful will not attract attention ; we shall not see it
until our second look at the page. The paper must not be
too thick for the size of the book, else the volume will not
open well, and its pages, instead of having a flowing charac-
ter, will be stiff and hard.
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
The sewing of the book is not really in evidence, except
indirectly. Upon the sewing and gluing, after the paper,
depends the flexibility of the book ; but the sewing in most
early books shows in the raised bands across the back, which
are due to the primitive and preferable stitch. It may also
show in some early and much modern work in saw-marks at
the inner fold when the book is spread wide open ; but no
such book can figure as a book beautiful. The head band
is in primitive books a part of the sewing, though in all
modern books, except those that represent a revival of me-
dieval methods, it is something bought by the yard and stuck
in without any structural connection with the rest of the
book.
It is the page and not the cover that controls the propor-
tions of the book, as the living nautilus controls its inclos-
ing shell. The range in the size of books is very great
from the " fly's-eye Dante" to "Audubon's Birds" but
the range in proportion within the limits of beauty is aston-
ishingly small, a difference in the relation of the width of
the page to its height between about sixty and seventy-five
per cent. If the width is diminished to nearer one-half the
height, the page becomes too narrow for beauty, besides
making books of moderate size too narrow to open well.
On the other hand, if the width is much more than three-
quarters of the height, the page offends by looking too square.
In the so-called "printer's oblong," formed by taking twice
the width for the diagonal, the width is just under fifty-eight
per cent of the height, and this is the limit of stately slen-
derness in a volume. As we go much over sixty per cent,
the book loses in grace until we approach seventy-five per
cent, when a new quality appears, which characterizes the
quarto, not so much beauty, perhaps, except in small sizes,
as a certain attractiveness, like that of a freight boat, which
[55]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
sets off the finer lines of its more elegant associates. A really
square book would be a triumph of ugliness. Oblong books
also rule themselves out of our category. A book has still
a third element in its proportions, thickness. A very thin
book may be beautiful, but a book so thick as to be chunky
or squat is as lacking in elegance as the words we apply to
it. To err on the side of thickness is easy; to err on the
side of thinness is hard, since even a broadside may be a
thing of beauty.
We now come to the type-page, of which the paper is only
the carrier and framework. This should have, as nearly as
possible, the proportion of the paper really it is the type
that should control the paper and the two should obvi-
ously belong together. The margins need not be extremely
large for beauty ; an amount of surface equal to that occu-
pied by the type is ample. There was once a craze for broad
margins and even for "large-paper" copies, in which the
type was lost in an expanse of margin ; but book designers
have come to realize that the proportion of white to black
on a page can as easily be too great as too small. Far more
important to the beauty of a page than the extent of the
margin are its proportions. The eye demands that the upper
margin of a printed page or a framed engraving shall be
narrower than the lower, but here the kinship of page to
picture ceases. The picture is seen alone, but the printed
page is one of a pair and makes with its mate a double dia-
gram. This consists of two panels of black set between two
outer columns of white and separated by a column of white.
Now if the outer and inner margins of a page are equal, the
inner column of the complete figure will be twice as wide as
the outer. The inner margin of the page should therefore
be half (or, to allow for the sewing and the curve of the leaf,
a little more than half) the width of the outer. Then, when
[56]
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
we open the book, we shall see three columns of equal width.
The type and paper pages, being of the same shape, should
as a rule be set on a common diagonal from the inner upper
corner to the outer lower corner. This arrangement will
give the same proportion between the top and bottom mar-
gins as was assigned to the inner and outer. It is by atten-
tion to this detail that one of the greatest charms in the design
of the book may be attained.
We saw that the shape of the book is a rectangle, and
this would naturally be so if there were no other reason for
it than because the smallest factor of the book, the type, is
in the cross-section of its body a rectangle. The printed page
is really built up of tiny invisible rectangles, which thus de-
termine the shape of the paper page and of the cover. A
page may be beautiful from its paper, its proportions, its
color effects, even if it is not legible ; but the book beautiful,
really to satisfy us, must neither strain the eye with too
small type nor offend it with fantastic departures from the
normal. The size of the type must not be out of proportion
to that of the page or the column ; for two or more columns
are not barred from the book beautiful. The letters must be
beautiful individually and beautiful in combination. It has
been remarked that while roman capitals are superb in com-
bination, black-letter capitals are incapable of team play,
being, when grouped, neither legible nor beautiful. There
has been a recent movement in the direction of legibility that
has militated against beauty of type, and that is the enlarg-
ing of the body of the ordinary lowercase letters at the ex-
pense of its limbs, the ascenders and descenders, especially
the latter. The eye takes little account of descenders in
reading, because it runs along a line just below the tops of
the ordinary letters, about at the bar of the small e; never-
theless, to one who has learned to appreciate beauty in type
[5?]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
design there is something distressing in the atrophied or dis-
torted body of the g in so many modern types and the
stunted p's and q's which the designer clearly did not
mind! The ascenders sometimes fare nearly as badly. Now
types of this compressed character really call for leading, or
separation of the lines; and when this has been done, the
blank spaces thus created might better have been occupied
by the tops and bottoms of unleaded lines containing letters
of normal length and height. Too much leading, like too
wide margins, dazzles and offends the eye with its excess of
white. The typesetting machines have also militated against
beauty by requiring that every letter shall stand within the
space of its own feet or shoulders . Thus the lowercase f and
y and the uppercase Q are shorn of their due proportions.
These are points that most readers do not notice, but they
are essential, for the type of the book beautiful must not be
deformed by expediency. On the other hand, it need not be
unusual ; if it is, it must be exceptionally fine to pass muster
at all. The two extremes of standard roman type, Caslon
and Bodoni, are handsome enough for any book of prose.
One may go farther in either direction, but at one's risk.
For poetry, Cloister Oldstyle offers a safe norm, from which
any wide departure must have a correspondingly strong ar-
tistic warrant. All these three types are beautiful, in their
letters themselves, and in the combinations of their letters
into lines, paragraphs, and pages. Beautiful typography is
the very foundation of the book beautiful.
But beautiful typography involves other elements than the
cut of the type itself. The proofreading must be trained and
consistent, standing for much more than the mere correction
of errors. The presswork must be strong and even. The
justification must be individual for each line, and not accord-
ing to a fixed scale as in machine setting; even when we
[58]
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
hold the page upside down, we must not be able to detect
any streamlets of white slanting across the page. Moreover,
if the page is leaded, the spacing must be wider in propor-
tion, so that the color picture of the rectangle of type shall
be even and not form a zebra of black and white stripes. It
is hardly necessary to say that the registration must be true,
so that the lines of the two pages on the same leaf shall show
accurately back to back when one holds the page to the light.
Minor elements of the page may contribute beauty or ugli-
ness according to their handling: the headline and page
number, their character and position; notes marginal or
indented, footnotes; chapter headings and initials; catch-
words; borders, head and tailpieces, vignettes, ornamental
rules. Even the spacing of initials is a task for the skilled
craftsman. Some printers go so far as to miter or shave the
type-body of initials to make them, when printed, seem to
cling more closely to the following text. Indenting, above all
in poetry, is a feature strongly affecting the beauty of the page.
Not too many words may be divided between lines ; other-
wise the line endings will bristle with hyphens. A paragraph
should not end at the bottom of a page nor begin too near it,
neither should a final page contain too little nor be completely
full. Minor parts of the book, the half-title, the dedication
page, the table of contents, the preface, the index, present
so many opportunities to make or mar the whole. Especially
is this true of the title-page. This the earliest books did not
have, and many a modern printer, confronted with a piece of
refractory title copy, must have sighed for the good old days
of the colophon. Whole books have been written on the
title-page; it must suffice here to say that each represents
a new problem, a triumphant solution of which gives the
booklover as much pleasure to contemplate as any other
single triumph of the volume.
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
But what of color splendid initials in red, blue, or
green, rubricated headings, lines, or paragraphs? It is all a
question of propriety, literary and artistic. The same prin-
ciple holds as in decoration of binding. A beautiful black and
white page is so beautiful that he who would improve it by
color must be sure of his touch. The beauty of the result
and never the beauty of the means by itself must be the test.
But books are not always composed of text alone. We
need not consider diagrams, which hardly concern the book
beautiful, except to say that, being composed of lines, they
are often really more decorative than illustrations fondly sup-
posed to be artistic. The fact that an engraving is beautiful is
no proof that it will contribute beauty to a book ; it may only
make an esthetic mess of the text and itself. As types are
composed of firm black lines, only fairly strong black-line
engravings have any artistic right in the book. This dic-
tum, however, would rule out so many pictures enjoyed by
the reader that he may well plead for a less sweeping ban;
so, as a concession to weakness, we may allow white-line
engravings and half-tones if they are printed apart from the
text and separated from it, either by being placed at the end
of the book or by having a sheet of opaque paper dividing
each from the text. In this case the legend of the picture
should face it so that the reader will have no occasion to look
beyond the two pages when he has them before him. The
printers of the sixteenth century, especially the Dutch, did
not hesitate to send their pages through two presses, one the
typographic press, and the other the roller press for copper-
plate engravings. The results give us perhaps the best ex-
ample that we have of things beautiful in themselves but
unlovely in combination. As in the use of other ornamen-
tal features, there are no bounds to the use of illustration
except that of fitness.
[GO]
THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL
We have spoken of margins from the point of view of the
page; from that of the closed book they appear as edges,
and here they present several problems in the design of the
book beautiful. If the book is designed correctly from the
beginning, the margins will be of just the right width and
the edges cannot be trimmed without making them too nar-
row. Besides, the untrimmed edges are witnesses to the
integrity of the book; if any exception may be made, it will
be in the case of the top margin, which may be gilded both
for beauty and to make easy the removal of dust. But the
top should be rather shaved than trimmed, so that the mar-
gin may not be visibly reduced. The gilding of all the edges,
or "full gilt," is hardly appropriate to the book beautiful,
though it may be allowed in devotional books, especially
those in limp binding, and its effect may there be heightened
by laying the gilt on red or some other color. Edges may
be goffered, that is, decorated with incised or burnt lines,
though the result, like tattooing, is more curious than orna-
mental. The edges may even be made to receive pictures,
but here again the effect smacks of the barbaric.
We have now gone over our subject in the large. To pur-
sue it with all possible degrees of minuteness would require
volumes. William Morris, for instance, discusses the proper
shape for the dot of the i ; and even the size of the dot and
its place above the letter are matters on which men hold
warring opinions. We have not even raised the question of
laid or wove paper, nor of the intermixture of different series
or sizes of types. In short, every phase of the subject bristles
with moot points, the settlement of one of which in a given
way may determine the settlement of a score of others.
But what is the use to the public of this knowledge and
enjoyment of ours? Is it not after all a fruitless piece of
self-indulgence? Surely, if bookmaking is one of the minor
[61]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
arts, then the private knowledge and enjoyment of its prod-
ucts is an element in the culture of the community. But it
is more than that ; it is both a pledge and a stimulus to ex-
cellence in future production. Artists in all fields are popu-
larly stigmatized as a testy lot irritabile genus but their
techiness does not necessarily mean opposition to criticism,
but only to uninformed and unappreciative criticism, espe-
cially if it be cocksure and blatant. There is nothing that
the true artist craves so much not even praise as under-
standing of his work and the welcome that awaits his work
in hand from the lips of "those who know/' Thus those
who appreciate and welcome the book beautiful, by their
encouragement help to make it more beautiful, and so by
head and heart, if not by hand, they share in the artist's crea-
tive effort. Also, by thus promoting beauty in books, they
discourage ugliness in books, narrowing the public that will
accept ugly books and lessening the degree of ugliness that
even this public will endure. Finally, it seems no mere
fancy to hold that by creating the book beautiful as the set-
ting of the noblest literature, we are rendering that literature
itself a service in the eyes of others through the costly tribute
that we pay to the worth of the jewel itself.
THE READER'S HIGH PRIVILEGE
N De Morgan's winsome story, " Alice for
Short," the heroine of the earlier portion,
Miss Peggy Heath, is made to feel what it
would mean to her to be deprived of a
certain companion, and thus realizes his
importance to her life.
It is this test of elimination that I shall ask you to apply
to reading. Imagine yourselves deprived of the privilege, as
many another has been by loss of sight or illness or poverty
or removal from book centers. I have in mind such an in-
stance. The late Professor William Mathews was injured by
a fall when he was ninety years old, and until the end of
his life, about a year later, was confined to his bed. You
may know him as the author of various books of essays :
"Getting on in the World," " Great Conversers," "Hours
with Men and Books," "Words, their Use and Abuse," and
other volumes that testify a marvelous range of acquaintance
with literature. He wrote to a friend that he was brighten-
ing his hours of loneliness by repeating to himself passages
of poetry and prose that he had learned by heart in his ear-
lier days. Few of us can ever have such stores of memory
to draw upon as his, but how happy we should be if under
such circumstances we might be able to turn to a like source
of consolation . Yet we have a much more famous instance of
a great scholar cut off from the privilege of reading. Milton
has given us in his famous invocation to Light, with which
he opens the third book of ' ' Paradise Lost," a picture of his
[63]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
own deprivation, presented with a universal blank in place
of Nature's fair book of knowledge. The passage is too long
to quote here, but let the reader turn to it, if only to refresh
his memory.
This shows the privilege that we are now enjoying, and
it may perhaps be sufficient to take our lesson at this point;
but since it is always pleasanter to consider gain rather than
loss, suppose we turn the subject around and imagine how
it would seem if, after having been deprived all our lives of
the privilege of reading, we suddenly had it thrust upon us.
We should now find ourselves able to enjoy those wonderful
works of literature which we had always been hearing about
from the lips of others, but had never been able to know di-
rectly. How we should revel in the prospect before us 1 At
last to be able to read the " Iliad" ! To follow the fortunes
of wandering Ulysses 1 To accompany Dante in his mysti-
cal journey through the three worlds ! To dare with Macbeth
and to doubt with Hamlet! Our trouble would be that we
should not know which to select first. We should wish we
had the eyes of an insect that we might read them all at
once.
We have a familiar expression in taking leave of our
friends, * * Be good to yourself! " which, it will be seen, is the
modern man's translation of the old "farewell," with the
truly modern implication that the question of his faring well
will depend upon himself. But can we call a man good to
himself who does not avail himself of advantages that are
freely open to him and that others about him are embracing?
The great men of the past have been such because to their
natural abilities they added an acquaintance with the thought
of the great men who preceded them. The same is true of
the men whom we are glad to honor among our contempo-
raries. We may feel very sure that we are not heaven-
THE READER'S HIGH PRIVILEGE
descended geniuses, or even possessed of unusual talent; and
yet, if we do not give ourselves the advantages that all those
had who have won distinction, we have certainly not given
ourselves a fair chance to show what is in us. Therefore, as
a duty to ourselves, we must make the acquaintance of the
books that the common judgment of the world has pro-
nounced to be of the most value. They must become more
than names to us. We may not indeed find in all of them
food for our own spirits, but it is a part of our business
in seeking a knowledge of mankind to know the thoughts
and thought-forms that men have found of most worth. It
is not to be supposed that we shall prize all these books
equally ; some of them will never be more to us than great
monuments which, for some reason peculiar to our tempera-
ments, do not appeal to us ; but among their number we
shall find some that will throw open to our souls the very
gates of heaven books that will raise our natures forever-
more to a higher power, as if from two-dimensional Flat-
land creatures we had suddenly been advanced to three
dimensions, or, in our own humdrum world of length,
breadth, and thickness, we had received the liberty of the
mysterious fourth dimension.
Let us now take a brief inventory of our heritage. We
can glance at only the most precious of these treasures, the
crown jewels of the world's literature, which are all ours,
whether we choose to wear them or not. But first let me
make it plain that I am not assuming that all the great
monuments of human genius are literary. I am not forget-
ful of the fact that literature is only one of the fine arts, that
the Strassburg Cathedral, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
Rembrandt's School of Anatomy, Michelangelo's Moses are
all products of man's creative genius, records of the life of
God in the soul of man. But I do insist that literature is
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THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
the most inclusive and the most definite of all the arts, and
that therefore books unlock to us a vaster world than obeys
the spell of any other art. One man's soul may attain its
transfiguration through architecture or music or painting or
sculpture as another does through poetry ; the great thing is
to attain the transfiguration ; and let us be thankful for the
many ways in which God fulfills himself to man. I am not
trying to make out a case for literature, but literature is my
subject, and what I say of it must be taken as equally
friendly to all the other great forms of human expression
and often as equally applicable to them.
We will not talk of a five-foot or a three-foot shelf, or one
of any other exact dimension, though I suspect that no very
long range of space would be required to hold all the su-
premely great books for whose contents we should have
room in our souls. The limitation will prove to be in us
rather than in the material of literature. The Bible, while
containing supremely great literature, has still higher claims,
and for the present discussion may be left to its special ad-
vocates. But meanwhile our treasures are waiting for their
inventory.
Literature for people of our race begins with Homer and
is confined to Europe and English America. This means in
a very true sense that all the literature which concerns us
is modern, for the Greeks are the first and perhaps the great-
est of the moderns. They present us as their first contribu-
tion the works that go under the name of Homer, and we
need not disturb ourselves now with the question whether
the "Iliad" and the " Odyssey " were both written by the
same man, or even each written by a single hand. The
point is that we have in them an imperishable picture of the
life of a vanished world. Each is an epic of the natural man,
the one national, the other personal. In the "Iliad" we are
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plunged into the thickening close of the ten years' war be-
tween the Greeks and Trojans, during which the beautiful
cause of all the trouble, Helen, retains all her youthful
bloom and, in fact, nobody seems to grow any older. We
have a crowded stage with many episodes arid interests. In
the "Odyssey" we trace the fortunes of one man, Ulysses,
during his return from the war, which occupies him ten
years, so that he is away from home, as Rip Van Winkle
was, twenty years ; but, instead of finding everybody grown
old or dead, as Irving' s hero did, he finds his wife still
young and attractive and beset by numerous suitors. We
are very glad to have this so, because we are all children at
heart and want just such an ending. The telling of these
stories, while simple, is on a lofty plane; the gods them-
selves take part in the passions of the contestants and even
in the warfare. The poet, no doubt, meant this for what it
professes to be; but I cannot help seeing in the embroiling
of Olympus a perhaps unrealized tribute of the poet to the
greatness of the human soul in the scale of the universe, a
suggestion that moral and spiritual values and powers out-
weigh the stars in their courses.
Great as are the works of Homer, we are not to suppose
them the only masterpieces in Greek literature. Certainly
the three great dramatists cannot be omitted, all so great,
yet so unlike. These three, together with two pastoral poets,
one lyric poet, and the greatest of prose poets, are vividly
pictured by Mrs. Browning in the glowing stanzas of her
"Wine of Cyprus."
Oh, our ^Eschylus, the thunderous!
How he drove the bolted breath
Through the cloud, to wedge the ponderous
In the gnarled oak beneath.
Oh, our Sophocles, the royal,
Who was born to monarch's place,
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And who made the whole world loyal,
Less by kingly power than grace.
Our Euripides, the human,
With his droppings of warm tears,
And his touches of things common
Till they rose to touch the spheres 1
Our Theocritus, our Bion,
And our Pindar's shining goals 1
These were cup-bearers undying
Of the wine that 's meant for souls.
And my Plato, the divine one,
If men know the gods aright
By their motions as they shine on
With a glorious trail of light 1
It would not be surprising if some who read these lines
should find more food for mind and soul in Plato than in
any other of the Greek writers. Certainly those works of
Plato and his contemporary, Xenophon, that relate to the
life, teachings, and death of Socrates are contributions to
a yet uncollected Bible of humanity, one more inclusive than
that of Jew or Christian.
It is one of the great misfortunes of Roman literature
that the works of its chief writers are used as textbooks for
schools, a misfortune shared to some extent by the Greek.
Yet Homer and Xenophon, Vergil and Cicero, did not write
for children or callow youth. They belong to Longfellow's
grand old masters,
Whose mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor,
and their writings have no relation to adolescence. Yet it is
to be feared that most people who have read their works
remember them as seen through the cloudy medium of
their own immaturity. Byron speaks of reading and hating
Horace as a schoolboy, but no normal person can hate
Horace any more than he can hate Washington Irving. It
is possible, however, that pupils who have to read Irving's
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" Sketch Book" with the fear of a college entrance examina-
tion before their minds may have no affection even for him.
So some of us may have something to unlearn in our reading
of Vergil and Horace, for we must approach their works as
strong meat for mature minds. Vergil's theme is nothing less
than the glorification of the Roman state through its divinely
ordered and heroic founding. School children seldom read
more than the six books of the "Aeneid" required for col-
lege ; but the other six, though of much less varied interest,
are necessary for the appreciation of the poem. The whole
is a work that no one can afford to pass over in his search
for the burning words that keep alive the thought of other
ages. Very different in theme and manner is the poetry of
Horace. He is the most modern of all the men of old, far
more modern than our own Puritan ancestors. His mixture
of grace and shrewdness, poetic charm and worldly wisdom,
we find nowhere else. The bulk of his work is not large,
and this fact, as in the case of Gray and Keats and Poe, is
rather in his favor, because the reader can easily become
familiar with it all, though then he will sigh for more.
Horace wears well ; the older we grow the better we like
him. He has love songs for youth, political poems for ma-
turity, and satires for old age. After we have lived with him
for half a century he becomes more real to us than most of
our acquaintances in the flesh. Roman literature is not
without other great names to attract the student ; but these
two must not be overlooked by the most general or the
most selective reader.
With Vergil the world always associates the still greater fig-
ure of one who was proud to call him master that of Dante.
More than is true of almost any other writer, his work is a
compendium of the life of his time. The ' ' Divine Comedy "
is first of all poetry, and poetry of the loftiest order; but it
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
is also an embodiment of the learning, the philosophy, and
the theology of his age. It mirrors at once the greatness
and the limitations of the medieval mind. Dante is not
modern in the sense that Horace is, though he is thrice as
near to us in time. Leigh Hunt said that his great poem
ought to be called an infernal tragedy ; but that is true only
of the Inferno ; the spiritual atmosphere clears as we follow
his footsteps through the Purgatorio and the Paradiso. Of
all the masterpieces of human genius the "Divine Comedy"
is perhaps the one that asks the most self-surrender of the
modern reader and shall I add? that repays it most
richly. Longfellow's marvelous sonnet sequence, written
while he was translating Dante, portrays at once the spirit
in which we should approach the reading of the "Divine
Comedy" and the wonders that we shall find there. It is a
book that we never can outgrow. To know it is to be made
a citizen of the moral universe.
In 1616, within ten days of each other, there passed from
earth two men, each the writer first thought of when his
country's literature is mentioned, and one of them the first
writer in the world's literature. Cervantes and Shakespeare
very likely died in ignorance of each other's work. Stoddard
has depicted them in Paradise,
Where sweet Cervantes walks,
A smile on his grave face . . .
Where, little seen but light,
The only Shakespeare is.
There is no injustice in saying that Shakespeare's nature
included that of Cervantes. Not so inclusive was Dante's;
what his nature most lacked we find in the author of ' * Don
Quixote." Yet personally they are equally heroic figures,
and, one an exile and the other a slave, both drained to the
dregs the cup of human suffering. Cervantes has several
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great advantages over most of the world's classic writers:
his masterpiece is a work of humor ; it is written in a simple
and graceful style, at once easy and winning; and it is
written in prose, which, after all, does not make so severe
a cultural demand on the reader as poetry. For these very
reasons it cannot aspire to the highest rank, but what it
loses in fame it makes up in popularity. Though in a few
passages it is not parlor reading, "Don Quixote" is one of
the cleanest of all the world's great books. It is not merely
technically clean, but clean-minded. It has the form of a
satire on chivalry, but its meaning goes much deeper. It is
really a satire on a more persistent weakness of the Spanish
character, visionary unrealism. We have this quality held
up to ridicule in the learned man and the ignorant man, for
Sancho Panza is as much of an unrealist as his master, only
he is a groveling visionary while Don Quixote is a soaring
one. This, too, is a book that one does not outgrow, but
finds it a perpetually adequate commentary on his own
widening experience of men and their motives.
In regard to the supreme figure in literature, the least
thing that we can do is to read him, and, having read him,
to read him again and to keep his volumes next to our hands.
We shall hardly read Shakespeare without having the ques-
tion of commentators come up; and surely Shakespeare
deserves all the attention that we can bestow upon him. But
the general reader should clearly distinguish between the
two kinds of commentary that have appeared regarding
Shakespeare, the one having to do with his text, his histori-
cal accuracy, and his use of words, the other with his mean-
ing. In Hudson's edition these two kinds of notes are kept
separate. Surely it is the thought of Shakespeare that we
want, and not the pedantry of minute scholarship regarding
his material, useful as that is in its place. The reader who
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
has mastered Hudson's introductions and has read Dowden's
"Shakspere: His Mind and Art" or Brandes's " Critical
Study" will have all that he will ordinarily need in the way
of guidance. But remember that reading about Shakespeare
is not reading Shakespeare; that means, for the time at
least, self-surrender to Shakespeare's leading. Shakespeare
is perhaps the supreme example of a man who found the
world interesting. He may not be sympathetic with evil,
but he finds it so interesting that he makes us, for the time
being, take a fratricidal usurper like Hamlet's uncle, or a
gross, sponging braggart like Falstaff, at his own estimate.
Shakespeare is never shocked at anything that happens in
the world ; he knows the world too well for that. He offends
the Puritan in us by his indifference ; he is therefore prob-
ably the best kind of reading for Puritans. Shakespeare is
romantic in his literary methods, but in his portrayal of
character he is an unsurpassed realist. If life were all
thought and achievement, Shakespeare would be the last
word in literature; but there is another side, the side which
the Puritan represents, with which Shakespeare is but im-
perfectly sympathetic. His message accordingly needs to be
supplemented; and it is interesting that his great successor,
the man who still stands next to him in our literature, sup-
plies that missing strain. If we could take but one book
with us into banishment, it would be Shakespeare thus
proving Shakespeare's supremacy by Miss Peggy Heath's
principle of elimination; but if we could take two, that sec-
ond, I am frank to confess, would for me be Milton.
It is Milton's literary glory that he appeared in the second
generation following Spenser and Shakespeare he was
born in Shakespeare's lifetime and carried off the palm,
which he still keeps, for the greatest English poem. In
spiritual kinship he is much nearer to Spenser than to
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Shakespeare. Shakespeare hides behind his pages ; his per-
sonality makes no clear or at least ready impression upon
us ; but the colossal personality of Milton towers above all
his works. He is Milton, the superman, and communion with
him for the moment lifts us to something like his own level.
In this personal inspiration lies Milton's greatest service to
his readers. Over and above the poetic delights, of which
he is a master unsurpassed, is the inspiration that comes
from the man behind the poetry; or, to express the same
thought in other words, above the organ music of his verse
sounds clear and far the trumpet call of personality. There-
fore Milton is destined to inspire generations by which his
theology and his justification of the ways of God to man are
swept into his own limbo of myth and delusion. Fortu-
nately Milton's verse is not appallingly great in amount. If
we cannot hope to know it all by heart, as Macaulay did, we
can at least know it well enough to recognize any quotation
from it, and rich will be the furnishing of our minds when
we have made this true.
In our beadroll of the world's greatest writers I shall
mention only one more, Goethe. He is the modern man
who touched life most widely, penetratingly, and sanely.
His long life came down so near to ours that many of us
have had friends who were in childhood or infancy his con-
temporaries. It is fair to say that since his death the world
has moved much nearer to his mental attitude than it stood
in his lifetime, and one of the agencies that have wrought
the change is the living force of his own works, which led
and still lead the thought of men. Goethe may be called
the ideal creative critic of life. He held up a mirror, not to
Nature, as Shakespeare did, but to society; and society can
get away from the image which it sees reflected there only
by growing away from it.
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
Here let us close our list, not because there are no other
great writers to choose from, but because it is long enough
for our present purposes, and because, from this point on,
every addition is open to challenge. I have intentionally
pitched my counsel high ; some of my readers may feel like
calling it a counsel of perfection; but according to my way
of thinking, no writer is too good for any of us to read.
Moreover, I honestly think the list interesting. It is not
chiefly reading for recreation, but for soul expansion, and it
means intellectual effort. Unless we wrestle with an author
as Jacob did with the angel, we shall not receive the highest
blessing. But some one may plead that, while he does not
wish to read wholly for amusement, he is not in a condition,
either from training or circumstances, to engage in mental
athletics. He cannot apply himself to an author as he recog-
nizes that the greatest writers deserve ; but he is willing to
read with attention, and he should like to feel that what he
is reading is good literature. This is a reasonable request,
and, out of countless possible responses, I will make one
that I hope may prove both profitable and attractive.
Let us set out with the recognition of the fact that syste-
matic reading is far more profitable than desultory reading,
even on the same literary level. One excellent way to achieve
system is to read by authors to make the author a study,
in his writings and his life. To read Hawthorne's " House
of the Seven Gables," for instance, is to drink from a foun-
tain of the purest spiritual delight ; but we gain an additional
delight, even if of a lower kind, when we know something
of Hawthorne's life and his relations to the old town of
Salem. In many cases it is necessary to know the author's
life in order really to understand his book. Now I will
suggest the reading, not merely of separate authors, but of a
group. There are many such, of varying degrees of great-
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ness: the Elizabethan group, the Lake poets, the Byron-
Shelley-Keats group, the mid-nineteenth-century British
novelists, to go no further than writers in English. But
I am going to ask your interest in the New England group
of authors who were writing fifty years ago. They comprise
the well-known names of Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow,
Whittier, Holmes, Thoreau, and Lowell. Each of these de-
lightful writers deserves to be studied for his own sake, but,
if we take them as a group, we shall gain still more in un-
derstanding and profit. How shall we approach the reading
of them? They obviously cannot all be read at once; so let
us begin with any one, say Hawthorne, read his life in Mrs.
Field's brief Beacon Biography, dipping at the same time
into his "Note-Books," and then read some of his short
stories and the ' * Scarlet Letter." His biography will already
have brought us into contact with most of the other names,
of Longfellow, his college classmate, and of Emerson and
Thoreau, his neighbors at Concord. We may read the Beacon
Biography of Longfellow, but Higginson's would be better,
as fuller and more adequate. We may first read Longfel-
low's prose works, * ' Outre-Mer " and * ' Hyperion," and then
his 4 'Voices of the Night, " besides following him in his ' ' Life,
with Extracts from his Journal and Correspondence," edited
by his brother, which is one of the most delightful of books.
We shall do well to read each author's writings in chrono-
logical succession; so they will stand in orderly relation with
his life. Similarly we may take up Emerson first in Mr.
Sanborn's Beacon Biography, or in Dr. Holmes's larger
but still handy volume, and then we can apply ourselves
with better understanding to Emerson's essays and poems.
I particularly mention his poems, for I believe that Emer-
son will come to be rated higher as a poet than he has yet
been. His poetry at its best is hardly below anyone's best;
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THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
the only trouble is that there is so little of it ; but ultimately
all writers are judged by their best. In the same way we
may take up all the writers of the group, learning something
of the life of each and reading some of his works before
passing on to another. Let me especially call your attention
to the writings of Thoreau, who is less known to his coun-
trymen than any of the others. He is a writer of great origi-
nality and freshness of view. He, too, wrote some exquisite
poetry, worthy of any name in literature ; but you will have
to look for it among other verse that has more originality
than charm. Obviously what I have recommended is not
the work of one year's leisure, but the protracted delight of
many years : for these books are not to be hurried over to
get to the end of the chapter or to see how they are coming
out; neither are they material for skipping. They are to be
read attentively and reread; and if one or another fails to
make a strong appeal to some reader, surely he cannot fail
to find in most of them a source of lofty pleasure and spir-
itual enrichment. One fruit that we may expect from such
reading is that we shall find ourselves drawn nearer to the
supreme masters and shall end by surrendering ourselves to
them. To know our New England group is not indeed to
climb the Alps of literature, but it is at least to climb its
White Mountains. Every gain will be a fresh incitement,
and those who at the start join the literary Appalachian Club
may be looked for some day in the ranks of the Alpinists.
A word on the reading of contemporary writers ; for even
our second list did not bring us down to our own time. We
shall, of course, read our contemporaries, and we have a
right to, so long as we do not give them the time and atten-
tion that clearly belong to their betters. The truth is that
contemporaries unless they are contemporary poets have
a quite unfair advantage over their elders, our own in time
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THE READER'S HIGH PRIVILEGE
and place being so much more attractive to us than anything
more remote. Still, our contemporaries have a claim upon
us even, I am rash enough to assert, our contemporary
poets for they have a message that their predecessors can-
not give us ; it may not be the most important message for
us, but it is a message of value, as we shall see if we re-
turn to De Morgan and his novels. These remarkable books
we cannot miss without losing something that makes our
own day fine and precious among earth's generations. But
in this respect they are literally chosen from ten thousand,
for we need constantly the caution that the near carries with
it an appearance of importance that is an illusion; of this
truth our periodical literature, from the newspaper up, is the
illustrious example, and the lesson is all summed up in the
one phrase, ' * back number. " Let us be careful that in heed-
ing contemporary voices we are not storing our minds with
the contents of * ' back numbers." True literature as we have
seen, never becomes out of date ; Homer keeps up with the
telegraph.
I have but one final word, which has been provided for
me by Charles Lamb, who says in his inimitable fashion:
' ' I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other
occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I
want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a
moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved prob-
lem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts
a grace before Milton a grace before Shakespeare a
devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the
Fairy Queen?" This is the spirit of a joyous but devoutly
grateful expectance, in which I would have myself approach
the reading of a great book. The gratitude I surely owe the
author, for there is no great book but has come like refined
gold out of the furnace fire. I owe it also to the Providence
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THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
which has granted me this lofty privilege. Moreover, it is
only in the humility born of such an attitude that I can
make a complete approach to my author and gain that up-
lift and enrichment of the soul, which and not pastime
nor pleasure is the true end, as it should be the aim of
reading.
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THE BACKGROUND OF THE BOOK
NE of the greatest contributions that
modern investigation has made to human
knowledge is background. It was once
thought a remarkable achievement to un-
cover the historic background of modern
institutions, and this was all that, until
lately, scholarship attempted. Dr. Samuel Johnson confi-
dently remarked that we know no more about ancient Britain
than the old writers have told us, nor can we ever know any
more than this. Edward Clodd reminds us that at the very
time when the great oracle voiced this assertion discoveries
had already been made in England that, when interpreted
as they have been since, were to make the landing of Caesar
seem, by comparison, a contemporary occurrence. Now this
inconceivably remote prehistoric era furnishes not merely
arrowheads and stone chisels and burial mounds, but also
other objects that are the background of that " picture of
time" of which the book of to-day is the foreground.
Very properly these are objects of art, and they afford the
earliest illustrations in histories of art as they do in histories
of the book. Thus the printer who questions what art has
to do with his business stamps himself as two hundred
thousand years behind the times. They are pictures, and the
book of to-day has descended as directly from them as the
printer of to-day has descended from the man who made
them. They are, moreover, in some instances, works of
very high art. The picture of the mammoth, scratched on a
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THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
fragment of the mammoth's tusk, is a piece of drawing so
skillful that only the greatest living masters can equal it.
Not even Rembrandt's drawing of the elephant, which Dr.
Holmes celebrates in one of his poems, is more expressive
or wrought with more economy of effort. In the same dis-
trict of southwestern France, Dordogne, that yielded the
drawings are found long cave galleries of paintings repre-
senting the creatures of that period, all executed with great
spirit and ability. But what are the steps in the descent
from these ancient pictures to the printed book?
Primitive man had one more string to his conversational
bow than most civilized people have, namely, sign language.
But gesture and speech alike prevail but little against space
and time. Each is possible only at short range, and each
dies on the eye or ear that receives it. Pictures may be car-
ried to any distance and may be preserved for any length of
time. They were probably made first in response to an in-
stinct rather for art than for the communication of ideas ;
but their great advantage for communication must have been
perceived very early, and, as we find picture writing em-
ployed by primitive races to-day, we have the right to infer
that prehistoric peoples at the same stage of culture also
employed it. Pure picture writing, however, does not suffice
for all that men have to say. It is easy to represent a house,
but how shall we represent a home? It is easy to represent
a woman, but how shall we add the idea of wife? To do
this we must pass from simple pictures to symbols. Chinese
writing has never advanced beyond this stage. Its prodi-
gious type-case of more than forty-two thousand characters
contains, therefore, only a series of pictures, direct and
symbolic, all highly conventionalized, but recognizable in
their earlier forms. To represent "wife" the Chinaman
combines the two signs for " woman" and "broom"; to
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THE BACKGROUND OF THE BOOK
represent ' ' home" he makes a picture of a pig under a roof!
The Egyptian and Mexican systems of writing, though very
different to the eye, were both of this nature and represented
ideas rather than words. Yet all true alphabets, which are
representations of sound, have been derived from such primi-
tive ideograms or pictures of ideas. What was the process?
The rebus is the bridge from the writing of thoughts to
the writing of sounds, and it came into use through the ne-
cessity of writing proper names. Every ancient name, like
many modern ones, had a meaning. A king's name might
be Wolf, and it would be indicated by the picture of a wolf.
Ordinarily the picture would be named by everyone who saw
it according to his language; he might call it "wolf," or
" lupus," or " lykos " ; but when it meant a man's name
he must call it Wolf, whatever his own language. So such
names as Long Knife and Strong Arm would be represented,
and these pictures would thus be associated with the sound
rather than the thing. By and by it was found convenient,
where the word had several syllables, to use its picture to
represent the sound of only the first syllable, and, still later,
of only the first sound or letter. Thus the Egyptian symbol
for F was originally a picture of the horned asp, later it
stood for the Egyptian name of this venomous creature, and
finally for the first sound in the name, being used as the
letter F itself; and the reason why we have the barred cross-
piece in the F, the two horns in U, V, and Y, and the four
in W (VVj is because the Egyptian asp had two horns, as
may be seen from the illustration in the Century Dictionary
under the word cerastes ; and every time that we write one of
these letters we are making a faded copy of the old picture.
We find systems of writing in all the stages from pure pic-
tures to the phonetic alphabet; in Egyptian hieroglyphics
we find a mixture of all the stages. So much for the back-
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
/
ground of the book as the bringer of a message to the eye,
but the outward form or wrapping of that message has also
a long and interesting history.
No objects could be much more unlike than a Babylonian
tablet, an Egyptian papyrus roll, and a Mexican book. They
are as different as a brick, a narrow window-shade, and a
lady's fan ; they have nothing common in their development,
yet they were used for the same purpose and might bring
identically the same message to the mind. Inwardly, as re-
gards writing or printing, all books have a parallel develop-
ment; but outwardly, in their material and its form, they
are the results of local conditions. In Babylonia, which
was a fertile river-bottom, bricks were the only building
material, and clay was therefore a familiar substance. Noth-
ing was more natural than that the Babylonian should scratch
his record or message on a little pat of clay, which he could
afterwards bake and render permanent. Some day all other
books in the world will have crumbled into dust, their rec-
ords being saved only when reproduced ; but at that remote
time there will still exist Babylonian books, even now five
thousand years old, apparently no nearer destruction than
when they were first made.
The Babylonian book carried its message all on the out-
side ; the Egyptian book went to the opposite extreme, and
we should find our chief objection to it in the difficulty of
getting readily at its contents. There flourished on the banks
of the Nile a stout reed, six feet high, called by the Egyp-
tians "p-apa" and by the Greeks "papyros" or "byblos."
It was the great source of raw material for Egyptian manu-
factures. Its tufted head was used for garlands ; its woody
root for various purposes; its tough rind for ropes, shoes,
and similar articles the basket of Moses, for instance;
and its cellular pith for a surface to write on. As the
THE BACKGROUND OF THE BOOK
stem was jointed, the pith came in lengths, the best from
eight to ten inches . These lengths were sliced through from
top to bottom, and the thin slices laid side by side. Another
layer was pasted crosswise above these, the whole pressed,
dried in the sun, and rubbed smooth, thus giving a single
sheet of papyrus. As the grain ran differently on the two
surfaces of the papyrus sheet, only one side was written on.
Other sheets were added to this by pasting them edge to
edge until enough for a roll had been made, usually twenty,
a roller being fastened to the last edge and a protecting strip
of wood to the front. The manuscript was unrolled by the
right hand and rolled up by the left. It is obvious that a book
of reference in this form would be subjected to great wear.
In our dictionaries it is as easy to find Z as A ; but in a papy-
rus book, to find the end meant to unroll the whole. The
Latin word for roll was "volumen," hence our "volume.'*
A long work could obviously not be produced conveniently
in a single roll, therefore Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey,"
for instance, were each divided into twenty-four books, and
that is why the divisions of an epic poem are still called
books, though they are really chapters. The rolls compos-
ing a single work were kept together in a case something
like a bandbox. The roll was the book form of the Greek
and Roman as well as the Egyptian world, but it left no
descendants. Our book form was derived from a different
source, which we will now consider.
Just as we speak of Russia leather, so the ancients spoke
of Pergamum skins, or parchment. The story is that Eu-
menes II, King of Pergamum, a city of Asia Minor, tried to
build up a library rivaling that of Alexandria, and the Ptole-
mies, seeking to thwart him, forbade the export of papyrus
from Egypt. Eumenes, however, developed the manufac-
ture of Pergamum skin, or parchment, or vellum, which
[83]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
not only enabled him to go on with his library, but also in-
cidentally changed the whole character of the book for future
ages. This material is not only much more serviceable than
the fragile papyrus, but, being tough enough to stand fold-
ing and' sewing, permitted the book to be made in its pres-
ent or codex form, the original codex being two or three
Roman waxed tablets of wood, fastened together like hinged
slates, and thus opening very crudely in the manner of our
books. This development of parchment occurred in the first
half of the second century before Christ. The new material
and book form gradually made their way into favor and
came to constitute the book of the early Christian and me-
dieval world. Though paper was introduced into Europe
soon after the year seven hundred, it did not displace parch-
ment until the invention of printing called for a material of
its cheaper and more adaptable character.
But, though we have traced the origin of our present
book form, we have not yet filled in the background of its
history. Several other notable types of the book deserve our
attention; first of all that of China, one of the most attrac-
tive of all book forms, to which we devote our next chapter.
Though it superficially resembles our own books, it is really
the product of a different line of evolution. When we ex-
amine it closely, we find that in many respects it is the exact
reverse of our practice. It is printed on only one side of the
paper; it is trimmed at the back and folded on the fore edge;
its wide margin is at the top ; its running headline is on the
folded fore edge; its sewing is on the outside; its binding
is limp; its lines run up and down the page; and its pages,
according to Western ideas, open from the back towards the
front. Yet it is a thing of beauty, and let us hope that noth-
ing in the modern reorganization of China will change its
character to prevent it from remaining a joy forever.
[84]
THE BACKGROUND OF THE BOOK
Just as Chinese paper is made from bamboo, which plays
an even greater part in China than papyrus did in Egypt, so
the book of India utilizes the leaves of that important tropi-
cal tree, the palm. The sheets of the book before me are
strips of palm-leaf two inches wide and two feet long. They
are written on both sides and, following the run of the
grain, lengthwise. This makes an inordinate length of line,
but, owing to the small number of lines on the page, the
confusion of the eye is less than might be expected. The
leaves composing the book are clamped between two boards
of their own size, the block thus formed is pierced with two
holes, through which pins are thrust, and the whole is
wound with a cord. The dimensions vary, some books being
larger and some much smaller. I have also before me
a Burmese booklet in which the leaves are one inch wide
and six inches long. Sometimes the sheets are of brass,
beautifully lacquered, and the writing heavy and highly
decorative. These books also vary greatly in size, some
forming truly massive and sumptuous volumes. Birch bark
was also employed as a book material in India, being used
in what we should call quarto sheets, and in Farther India
a peculiar roll is in use, made of Chinese paper, folded at
the side, sewed at the top, and rolled up like a manifold
banner in a cover of orange-colored or brown cotton cloth.
We do not ordinarily associate books with pre-Columbian
America; yet one of the most interesting of all book forms
was current in Mexico before the Conquest. As in the case
of the Chinese book, it looks superficially like ours ; we
think it is a tiny quarto until we see that its measure is
rather that of an oblong twenty-fourmo ; that is, its dimen-
sions are just scant of five inches high and six inches wide.
It has thin wooden covers and is, over all, an inch thick;
but between these covers is a strip of deerskin twenty-nine
[85]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
feet long and, of course, nearly five inches wide. This is
folded in screen or fan fashion, the first and last leaves being
pasted to the inside of the covers. This attachment is really
the only binding ; the whole strip is capable of being opened
up to its full length. It is read by those who can read its
vividly colored hieroglyphics by holding it like a modern
book, turning the leaves until what seems the end is reached,
and then turning the cover for the next leaf, and continuing
to turn until the first cover is reached again, but from the
other side. Incredible as it may seem, there is a book of
India which is almost identical in structure with the ancient
Mexican book. It has the shape of the palm-leaf book, but
it is made of heavy paper, blackened to be written on with
a. chalk pencil, and it opens like a fan exactly in the Mexican
fashion. Each cover is formed by a double fold of paper, and
the writing runs lengthwise of the page as in the palm-leaf
volume. As the writing can be erased, the book serves the
purpose of a slate.
The variety of objects that men have used to write upon
almost surpasses imagination, ranging from mountain walls
to the ivory shoulders of Rider Haggard's heroine in his
"Mr. Meeson's Will." Such unusual, if actual, writing ma-
terials belong, perhaps, rather to the penumbra than to the
background of the book ; but, as a final survey of our sub-
ject, running back to the time when there were no books
and men must rely upon their memories, we may quote
what Lane says of the sources from which the Kuran was
derived after the death of Mohammed : ' ' So Zeyd gathered
the Kuran from palm-leaves, skins, shoulder-blades (of
beasts), stones, and the hearts of men."
[86]
THE CHINESE BOOK
HE naturalist, Lloyd Morgan, in one of his
lectures threw together on the screen pic-
tures of a humming bird and an insect of
the same size, the two looking so much
alike as to seem to the casual observer to
belong to the same order. Yet they are
anatomically far more different than the man and the fish.
In much the same way we may be led to suppose that a
Chinese book and an occidental paper-bound book are much
the same thing in origin as they are to the eye. But here too
the likeness is only apparent. One book form has descended
from a block of wood and the other from a fold of silk.
The Chinese book is such a triumph of simplicity, cheap-
ness, lightness, and durability that it deserves a more careful
study at the hands of our book producers than it has yet
received. In fact we do not see why books made on nearly
these lines should not be an attractive and popular innova-
tion in our book trade. Approaches, to be sure, have been
made to this peculiar book form, but they have been partial
imitations, not consistent reproductions. In an illustrated
edition of Longfellow's "Michael Angelo," published in
1 885, Houghton, Mifflin and Company produced a small
folio, the binding of which is obviously patterned after that
of a Chinese book. But the printing is on every page, and
the paper is so stiff that the book will not lie open. In the
holiday edition which the same publishers issued in 1896
of Aldrich's poem, entitled "Friar Jerome's Beautiful
[8 7 ]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
Book," they produced a volume in which the front folds
were not intended to be cut open; but they outdid the
Chinese by printing on only one of the pages exposed at
each opening of the book, instead of on both, as the Chinese
do, thus utilizing only one-fourth of the possible printing
surface of the volume. In this case again the paper was stiff
and the binding was full leather with heavy tapes for tying.
A much closer approach to the Chinese book form was af-
forded by "The Periodical," issued by Henry Frowde, in
the form which it bore at first. Here we have what may
fairly be called a naturalization of the Chinese book idea in
the Occident. But let us see exactly what that Chinese book
form is.
The standard book is printed from engraved wood blocks,
each of which is engraved on the side of the board, not on
the end like our wood blocks, and for economy is engraved
on both its sides. Each of these surfaces prints one sheet
of paper, making two pages. The paper, being unsized, is
printed on only one side, and the fold is not at the back, as
in our books, but at the front. The running headline, as we
should call it, with the page number, is printed in a central
column, which is folded through when the book is bound,
coming half on one page and half on the other. There is
always printed in this column a fan-shaped device, called
the fish's tail, whose notch indicates where the fold is to
come. It may be remarked in passing that the Chinese book
begins on what to us is the last page, and that the lines read
from top to bottom and follow one another from right to left.
Each page has a double ruled line at top and bottom and
on the inner edge. The top and bottom lines and the fish's
tail, being printed across the front fold, show as black lines
banding the front edge when the book is bound. The bottom
line is taken by the binder as his guide in arranging the
[88]
THE CHINESE BOOK
sheets, this line always appearing true on the front edge and
the others blurred. The top margin has more than twice
the breadth of the lower. After the sheets are gathered,
holes are punched at proper distances from the back edge
four seems to be the regulation number whether the book
be large or small, but large books have an extra hole at top
and bottom towards the corner from the last hole. These
holes are then plugged with rolls of paper to keep the sheets
in position, and the top, bottom, and back edges are shaved
with a sharp, heavy knife, fifty or more volumes being
trimmed at the same stroke. A piece of silk is pasted over
the upper and lower corners of the back. Covers, consist-
ing of two sheets of colored paper folded in front like the
pages, are placed at front and back, but not covering the
back edge, or there is an outer sheet of colored paper with
inside lining paper and a leaf of heavy paper between for
stiffening. Silk cord is sewn through the holes and neatly
tied, and the book is done light in the hand and lying
open well, inexpensive and capable with proper treatment
of lasting for centuries.
What are the chief defects of the Chinese book from an
occidental point of view? The most obvious is that it will
not stand alone. Another is that its covers, being soft, are
easily crumpled and dog's-eared. A third is that it is printed
on only one side of the paper and therefore wastes space.
All these objections must be admitted, but it may be urged
with truth that our books, in spite of their relatively costly
binding, do not stand alone any too well, and in fact this
is a function seldom asked of books anyway. Its covers are
soft, but this means at least that they are not so hard and
foreign to the material of the book as to tear themselves off
after a dozen readings, as is the case with so many of our
bindings. There is no danger of breaking the back of a
[89]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
Chinese book on first opening it, for it has no lining of hard
glue. As to the utilization of only one side of the paper, it
must be remembered that the Chinese paper is very thin,
and that this practice makes it possible to secure the advan-
tage of opacity without loading the paper with a foreign and
heavy material. Moreover, the thickness of the pasteboard
cover is saved on the shelves, and even if a substitute for it
is adopted, it is in the form of a light pasteboard case that
holds several volumes at once. Such a cover is capable of
being lettered on the back, though the Chinese seem not
to think this necessary, but put their title labels on the side.
Really, the back of the Chinese book is to us its most for-
eign feature. It is a raw edge, not protected by the cover,
and differs from the front only in consisting of the edges of
single leaves instead of folds. It is in fact a survival from
the days before the invention of paper, when books were
printed on silk, the raw edge of which would fray and was
therefore consigned to the position where it would have the
least wear and would do the least harm if worn.
But there is no reason why, in Europeanizing the Chinese
book, the corner guard should not be extended the whole
length of the back and bear the ordinary lettering. With
this slight difference the Chinese book would be equipped
to enter the lists on fairly even terms against the prevailing
occidental type of book, which has come down to us from
the ancient Roman codex through the parchment book, of
which ours is only a paper imitation. In "The Periodical,"
referred to, four pages instead of two were printed at once,
or, at least, four constitute a fold. The sheets are stitched
through with thread they might, of course, have been
wire-stitched and then a paper cover is pasted on, as in
the case of any magazine or paper-bound book. But in this
process the beauty of the Chinese binding disappears, though
[90]
THE CHINESE BOOK
the Chinese do the same with their cheapest pamphlets. In
these days , when lightness and easy handling are such popu-
lar features in books, what publisher will take up the book
form that for two thousand years has enshrined the wisdom
of the Flowery Kingdom, and by trifling adaptations here
and there make it his own and ours?
THICK PAPER AND THIN
IR HIRAM MAXIM, the knight from Maine,
prophesies that we shall change our reli-
gion twenty times in the next twenty thou-
sand years. In the last two thousand years
we have changed our book material twice,
from papyrus to parchment and from
parchment to paper, with a consequent change of the book
form from the roll to the codex. Shall we therefore change
our book material twenty times in the next twenty thousand
years ? Only time itself can tell ; but for five hundred years
the book has never been in such unstable equilibrium as at
present; the proverb "A book's a book" has never pos-
sessed so little definite meaning. This condition applies
chiefly to the paper, but as this changes, the binding will
also change from its present costly and impermanent char-
acter to something at once cheaper and more durable.
The changes in modern paper have worked in two oppo-
site directions, represented on the one hand by Oxford India
paper, with its miraculous thinness, opacity, and lightness,
and on the other hand by papers that, while also remarkably
light, offer, as a sample book expresses it, "excellent bulk";
for instance, 272 pages to an inch as against i5oo to an inch
of Oxford India paper. 1 The contrasted effects of these two
1 Mr. Edison's projected substitute for paper, sheets of nickel, 20,000 to the inch,
may indicate the book material of the future, but at present it is only a startling
possibility.
[92]
THICK PAPER AND THIN
types of material upon the book as a mechanical product are
well worth the consideration of all who are engaged in the
making of books.
Some of these results are surprising. What, for instance,
could be more illogical than to make a book any thicker
than strength and convenience require? Yet one has only to
step out into the markets where books and buyers meet to
find a real demand for this excess of bulk. Though illogical,
the demand for size in books is profoundly psychological
and goes back to the most primitive instincts of human na-
ture. The first of all organs in biological development, the
stomach, will not do its work properly unless it has quantity
as well as quality to deal with. So the eye has established
a certain sense of relationship between size and value, and
every publisher knows that in printing from given plates he
can get twice as much for the book at a trifling excess of cost
if he uses thicker paper and gives wider margins. That all
publishers do not follow these lines is due to the fact that
other elements enter into the total field of bookselling be-
sides quantity, the chief of which is cost, and another of
which, growing in importance, is compactness. But it is
safe to say that to the buyer who is not, for the moment at
least, counting the cost, mere bulk makes as great an appeal
as any single element of attractiveness in the sum total of
a book.
This attraction of bulk receives a striking increase if it
is associated with lightness. The customer who takes up
a large book and suddenly finds it light to hold receives a
pleasurable shock which goes far towards making him a
purchaser. He seems not to ask or care whether he may be
getting few pages for his money. The presence of this single,
agreeable element of lightness at once gives a distinction to
the book that appears to supplant all other requirements.
[93]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
The purchaser does not realize that the same lightness of
volume associated with half the thickness would not seem
to him remarkable, though the book would take up only
half the room on his shelves. He feels that a modern
miracle in defiance of gravitation has been wrought in
his favor, and he is willing to pay for the privilege of
enjoying it.
Curiously and somewhat unexpectedly the results of
neither extreme, thick paper nor thin, are wholly satisfactory
in the library. The parvenu, who is looking only to the
filling up of his shelves with volumes of impressive size,
may find satisfaction in contemplating wide backs. But the
scholar and the public librarian will grudge the space which
this * ' excellent bulk " occupies. One single element in their
favor he will be quick to recognize, the better space which
they afford for distinct lettering. In a private library that is
collected for use and not for show the thin-paper books are
almost an unmixed blessing. They cost little for what they
contain. Their reduction in thickness is often associated
with a reduction in height and width, so that they repre-
sent an economy of space all round. A first-rate example of
this is furnished by the Oxford India Paper Dickens, in
seventeen volumes, printed in large type, yet, as bound,
occupying a cubical space of only 1 3 by 7 by !\ \ inches and
weighing only nine pounds. A more startling instance is
that of the novels of Thomas Love Peacock, which are issued
in a pretty library edition of ten volumes. But they are also
issued in a single volume, no higher nor wider, and only
three-fourths of an inch thick. But it is at this point that the
public librarian rises to protest. It is all very well, he says,
for the private owner to have his literature in this concen-
trated form, but for himself, how is he to satisfy the eight
readers who call for ' ' Headlong Hall, " * * Nightmare Abbey, "
[9*]
THICK PAPER AND THIN
and the rest of Peacock's novels all at once? To be sure he
can buy and catalogue eight single-volume sets of the
author's works instead of one set in ten volumes, and when
he has done this each reader will be sure to find the particu-
lar novel that he is looking for so long as a set remains ; but
the cost will naturally be greater. On the other hand, he
welcomes equally with the private buyer the thin-paper edi-
tion of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, which needs only a third
of the shelf space required for the regular edition, seven-
sixteenths of an inch as against an inch and five-sixteenths.
He also looks upon his magazine shelves and sees a volume
of the "Hibbert Journal" with 966 pages in large type oc-
cupying the space of a volume of the "Independent" with
1788 pages in fine type, or again he sees by the side of his
thin-paper edition of Dickens another on heavy paper occu-
pying more than three times the lineal space with no ad-
vantage in clearness of type. By this time he is ready to
vote, in spite of the occasional disability of overcompactness,
for the book material that will put the least strain upon
his crowded shelves. A conference with the booksellers
shows him that he is not alone in this conclusion. Certain
standard works, like the Oxford Book of English Verse and
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, have almost ceased to be
sold in any but the thin-paper editions. Then there dawns
upon him the vision of a library in which all books that
have won their way into recognition shall be clothed in
this garb of conciseness, and in which all that aspire to that
rank shall follow their example. In short he sees what he
believes to be the book of the future, which will be as differ-
ent from the book of the present as that is from the parch-
ment book of the early and middle ages of the Christian era,
and as different in binding as it is in material. The realiza-
tion of this vision will involve first of all a readjustment of
[95]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
values on the part of the public, an outgrowing of its childish
admiration for bulk. But this change is coming so rapidly
under the stress of modern conditions of crowding, espe-
cially in city life, as to reduce the vision from its prophetic
rank to a case of mere foresight.
[96]
THE CLOTHING OF A BOOK
HE binding of a book is its most conspicu-
ous feature, the part which forms its in-
troduction to the public and by which too
often it is judged and valued ; yet the bind-
ing is not an integral portion of the vol-
ume. It may be changed many times
without essentially changing the book; but if the printed
pages are changed, even for others identical to the eye, the
book becomes another copy. The binding is, therefore, a
part of a book's environment, though the most intimate part,
like our own clothing, to which, indeed, it bears a curious
resemblance in its purpose and its perversions.
Human clothing is for protection and adornment. That
of a book involves two other demands mutually so contra-
dictory that bookbinding has always offered a most attractive
challenge to the skill of the handicraftsman. The first de-
mand is that the book when closed shall form a well-squared
and virtually solid block, like the rectangle of wood from
which its first predecessors were split, and shall be able
to stand alone, unsupported. The second demand is that
this same object, when open, shall lie flat at any point and
display all its leaves in turn as fully, and far more con-
veniently, than if they had never been fastened together.
Whatever may be true of other clothing, it is eminently
true of a book's that the part which really counts is the part
which is never seen. Only the ornamental portion of a
book's covering is exposed. The portions which protect the
[97]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
book and render it at once firm and flexible are out of sight
and unheeded by the ordinary reader. Hence the existence
of so much bookbinding that is apparently good and essen-
tially bad, and hence the perpetual timeliness of attempts like
that of the present chapter, to point out what binding is and
should be. The processes in bookbinding by which its dif-
ferent ends of utility and ornament are achieved are known
under the two heads of Forwarding and Finishing.
Forwarding includes many processes, literally * 'all but the
finishing." It is to forwarding that a book owes its shapeli-
ness, its firmness, its flexibility, and its durability. Forward-
ing takes the unfolded and unarranged sheets as delivered by
the printer and transforms them into a book complete in all
but its outermost covering of cloth or leather. The first
process is to fold the sheets and reduce their strange medley
of page numbers to an orderly succession. This is assuming
that there is a whole edition to be bound. If it consists of a
thousand copies, then there will be a certain number of piles
of folded sheets, each containing a thousand copies of the
same pages printed in groups, let us say, of sixteen each.
These groups of pages are called sections or signatures.
They are now rearranged, or gathered, into a thousand piles,
each containing the signatures that belong to one book. The
edition is thus separated into its thousand books, which the
collator goes over to see that each is perfect. Let us follow
the fortunes of a single one. It is not much of a book to
look at, being rather a puffy heap of paper, but pressing,
rolling, or beating soon reduces it to normal dimensions,
and it is then carried forward to the important process of
sewing. This is the very heart of the whole work. If the
book is badly sewed, it will be badly bound, though a thou-
sand dollars were to be spent upon the decoration of its
covering. There is only one best method of sewing, and that
[98]
THE CLOTHING OF A BOOK
is around raised cords, in the way followed by the earliest
binders. There are modern machine methods that are very
good, but they are only cheap substitutes for the best. The
cords must be of good, long-fibered hemp, and the thread of
the best quality and the right size drawn to the right degree
of tension without missing a sheet. After the sewing the end
papers are put in place, the back is glued and rounded, and
the mill boards are fitted. Into these last the ends of the
cords are laced and hammered. The book is then pressed to
set its shape, being left in the press for some days or even
weeks. After it is taken out, if the edges are to be treated,
they are trimmed and then gilded, marbled, sprinkled, or
otherwise decorated. The head band for which many
French binders substitute a fold in the leather is now
added. It was formerly twisted as the book was sewn, but
at present is too often bought ready-made and simply glued
on. The book is now forwarded.
The business of the finisher is to cover and protect the
work already done on the book, but in such a way as not
to interfere with the strength and flexibility that have been
gained, and, finally, to add such decoration as may be artis-
tically demanded or within the means of the purchaser. If
leather is employed, it must be carefully shaved to give an
easily opening hinge, yet not enough to weaken it unneces-
sarily. This is a most important process and one that must
be left largely to the good faith of the binder. If he is un-
worthy of confidence, his mistakes may long escape notice,
but, though buried, they are doomed to an inglorious resur-
rection, albeit he may count on a sufficient lapse of time to
protect himself.
The next and last process of finishing is that of the deco-
rator, whose work passes out of the sphere of handicraft into
that of art. His problem is no easy one ; it is to take a sur-
[99] '
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
face of great beauty in itself, as of calf or morocco, and so
treat it as to increase its beauty. Too often, after he has
done his utmost, the surface is less attractive to the eye than
it was at the beginning. He, therefore, has a task quite
different from that of the painter or sculptor, whose mate-
rials are not at the outset attractive. This condition is so
strongly felt that many booklovers leave their bindings un-
tooled, preferring the rich sensuous beauty and depth of
color in a choice piece of leather to any effect of gilding or
inlaying. This initial beauty of the undecorated book does
not, however, form an impossible challenge, as witness the
work of the Eves, Le Gascon, and the binders of such famous
collectors as Grolier and de Thou.
It may be well to consider more particularly what the
problem of the book decorator is. Though perfectly obvious
to the eye and clearly illustrated by the work of the masters,
it has been sometimes lost sight of by recent binders. It is,
in a word, flat decoration. In the first place he has a surface
to work upon that is large enough to allow strength of treat-
ment, yet small enough to admit delicacy ; then, whatever in
beautiful effects of setting, relief, harmony, and contrast can
be brought about by blind tooling, gilding, and inlaying,
or by rubbing the surface as in crushed levant, or variegat-
ing it as in " tree" or marbled calf, all this he can command.
He has control of an infinite variety of forms in tooling; he
has only to use them with taste and skill. There is practi-
cally no limit to the amount of work that he can put into
the binding of a single book, provided that every additional
stroke is an additional beauty. He may sow the leather with
minute ornament like Mearne, or set it off with a few sig-
nificant lines like Aldus or Roger Payne ; all depends upon
the treatment. If he is a master, the end will crown the
work; if not, then he should have stopped with simple
THE CLOTHING OF A BOOK
lettering and have left the demands of beauty to be satisfied
by the undecorated leather. Above all, let every decorator
stick to flat ornament. The moment that he ventures into
the third dimension, or perspective, that moment he invades
the province of the draftsman or painter. One does not
care to walk over a rug or carpet that displays a scene in
perspective, neither does one wish to gaze into a landscape
wrought upon the cover of a book, only to have the illusion
of depth dispelled upon opening the volume. Embossing is,
to be sure, a literal not a pictorial invasion of the third di-
mension, but its intrusion into that dimension is very slight
and involves no cheating of the eye. It has now practically
gone out of use, as has the heavy medieval ornamentation
of studs or jewels. In cloth covers, which are confessedly
edition work and machine made, the rules of ornament need
not be so sharply enforced. Here embossing still flour-
ishes to some extent. But the decorative problem is essen-
tially the same in cloth as in leather binding, and the best
design will be one that triumphs within the conditions, not
outside them. The machines and the division of labor have
made sad havoc with binding as a craft. The men in America,
at least, who are masters of every process and of all the skill
and cunning of the early binders are few, and their thinning
ranks are not being filled. Will bookbinding, in spite of a
high economic demand, share the fate that has overtaken
engraving, or shall we have a renascence of this fascinating
handicraft and delightful art, to take its name from the
present era?
['01]
PARCHMENT BINDINGS
HERE are certain things, the Autocrat in-
forms us, that are "good for nothing until
they have been kept a long while; and
some are good for nothing until they have
been long kept and used. Of the first,
wine is the illustrious and immortal ex-
ample. Of those which must be kept and used I will name
three meerschaum pipes, violins, and poems." May we
present another representative of the class which gathers
value with the '* process of the suns," one as immortal and
historic as wine and even richer in associations the parch-
ment book cover? In this case it matters not whether the
object meets with use or neglect. So long as it is not actu-
ally worn to pieces on the one hand, nor destroyed by mold on
the other, the parchment binding will keep on converting time
into gold, until after a few hundred years it reaches a tint
far surpassing in beauty the richest umber of a meerschaum,
and approached only by the kindred hue of antique ivory.
Here is a table full of old parchment-bound books, ranging
from a tiny twenty-fourmo, which will stay neither open
nor shut, to thin, limp folios that are instantly correspond-
ent to either command. Those that are bound with boards
have taken on a drumhead quality of smoothness and ten-
sion, especially the fat quartos and small octavos, while the
larger volumes that received a flexible binding resemble
nothing in surface so much as the wrinkled diploma on
yonder wall, with its cabalistic signature now to be written
PARCHMENT BINDINGS
no more, Carolus-Guil. Eliot; but all agree in a tint over
which artists rave, the color that gold would take if it were
capable of stain. But there is no stain here, or rather all
stains are taken up and converted into beauty. Dust, dirt,
smudges, all are here, and each is made to contribute a new
element of charm. Is the resultant more beautiful than the
spotless original? Compare it with the pearly tint of the
diploma, or turn up the folded edge of one of those flexible
bindings and note the chalky white of the parchment's pro-
tected under-surface. The same three hundred years that
have made over Europe and made English America have, as
it were, filled in the rhythmic pauses between their giant
heart-beats by ripening Dr. Holmes's wine and touching
with Midas caress these parchment bindings!
It is surely a crime to keep such beauty of tint and tone
hidden away in drawers or all but hidden on crowded
shelves. Let them be displayed in open cases where all may
enjoy them. But let us go softly; these century-mellowed
parchments are too precious to be displayed to unapprecia-
tive, perhaps scornful, eyes. Put them away in their hiding-
places until some gentle reader of these lines shall ask for
them ; then we will bring them forth and persuade ourselves
that we can detect a new increment of beauty added by the
brief time since last we looked on them. I once heard an
address on a librarian's duty to his successors. I will sug-
gest a service not there mentioned : to choose every year the
best contemporary books that he can find worthily printed
on time-proof papers and have them bound in parchment;
then let him place them on his shelves to gather gold from
the touch of the mellowing years through the centuries to
come and win him grateful memory such as we bestow upon
the unknown hands that wrought for these volumes the
garments of their present and still increasing beauty.
[io3]
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT
BOOKS
NE result of the stir that has been made in
library matters during the last two genera-
tions, and especially during the latter, is
the enormous increase in the size of our
libraries. In 1876 the public libraries of
the United States contained a little less
than n,5oo,ooo volumes. In the five years from 1908 to
1918 the libraries of 5,ooo volumes and over added nearly
20,000,000 volumes, making a total of over 76,000,000
volumes, an increase of 35-7 per cent. In 1876 there were
8682 libraries of more than 3oo volumes each; in 191 3
there were 83o2 libraries of over 1000 volumes each. In
1876 there were only nine libraries containing 100,000 vol-
umes or over. These were the Library of Congress, 3oo,-
ooo ; Boston Public Library, 3oo,ooo ; New York Mercantile
Library, 160,000; Harvard College Library, 16^,000; Astor
Library, 162,000; Philadelphia Mercantile Library, 126,-
ooo; House of Representatives Library, 126,000 ; Boston
Athenaeum, 106,000; Library Company of Philadelphia,
10^,000. In 1918 there were in this class 82 libraries, or
over nine times as many, including i^ libraries of 3oo,ooo
to 2,000,000 volumes, a class which did not exist in 1876.
Meanwhile the individual book remains just what it always
was, the utterance of one mind addressed to another mind,
and the individual reader has no more hours in the day nor
days in his life ; he has no more eyes nor hands nor we
[io41
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT BOOKS
reluctantly confess brains than he had in iSyS. But, fast
as our libraries grow, not even their growth fully represents
the avalanche of books that is every year poured upon the
reader's devoted head by the presses of the world. To take
only the four countries in whose literature we are most in-
terested we find their annual book publication, for the latest
normal year, 1918, to be as follows: Germany, 85,078 vol-
umes; France, 11,^60; England, 12,879; America, 12,280.
But Japan, Russia, and Italy are each credited with issuing
more books annually than either England or the United
States, and the total annual book publication of the world is
estimated to reach the enormous figure of more than 180,-
ooo volumes. In view of this prodigious literary output,
what progress can the reader hope to make in * * keeping up
with the new books"? De Quincey figured that a man might
possibly, in a long lifetime devoted to nothing else, read
20,000 volumes. The estimate is easy. Suppose we start
with one book a day surely a large supposition and
count a man's reading years from 20 to 80, 60 years in all;
60 times 365 is 21,900. This estimate makes no allowance
for Sundays, holidays, or sickness. Yet, small as it is for
there are private libraries containing 20,000 volumes it is
manifestly too large. But whatever the sum total may be,
whether 20,000 or 2,000, let us see, if I may use the expres-
sion, what a one must read before he can allow himself to
read what he really wants to.
First of all we must read the books that form the intellec-
tual tools of our trade, and there is no profession and hardly
a handicraft that does not possess its literature. For instance,
there are more than ten periodicals in the German language
alone devoted exclusively to such a narrow field as bee-
keeping. Such periodicals and such books we do not call
literature, any more than we do the labors of the man or
[io5]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
woman who supplies the text for Butterick's patterns. But
they are printed matter, and the reading of them takes up time
that we might have spent upon "books that are books."
But besides this bread and butter reading there is another
sort that we must admit into our lives if we are to be citi-
zens of the world we live in, contemporaries of our own
age, men among the men of our time, and that is reading
for general information. The time has long since gone by,
to be sure, when any man could, like Lord Bacon, take all
knowledge for his province we can hardly take a bird's-
eye view of all knowledge to-day. No amount of reading
will ever produce another Scaliger, learned in every sub-
ject. To be well informed, even in these days of the banyan-
like growth of the tree of knowledge, is to be a miracle of
erudition. Most of mankind must be content with the modest
aim which Dr. Holmes set for the poet, to know enough not
to make too many blunders. In carrying out this humble
purpose, that of merely touching elbows with the thronging
multitude of facts of interest to the civilized man, we have
a task great enough to occupy the time of any reader, even if
he made it his vocation ; and with most of us it must be only
a minor avocation. The very books about the books in this
boundless field, the compends of the compends, the reviews
of the reviews, form in themselves a library great enough
to stagger human weakness. Besides all this in a sense a
part of it, yet a miscellaneous and irrational part come the
newspapers, with their daily distraction. This is after all
our world, and we cannot live in it and be absolute noncon-
formists. So we must submit to the newspaper, though it
makes a heavy addition to our daily load of reading for in-
formation. But there is still another kind of necessary read-
ing that I wish to mention before we come to that which
ranks chief in importance.
[106]
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT BOOKS
The woman who takes out of the public or subscription
library a novel a day is only suffering from the perversion of
an appetite that in its normal state is beneficial. It is pos-
sible that her husband does not read enough for amusement,
that his horizon is narrowed, his sympathies stunted by the
lack of that very influence which, in excess, unfits his wife
for the realities and duties of everyday existence. It came as
a surprise to many to learn from Tennyson's "Life" that
the author of "In Memoriam" was a great novel reader.
But clearly in his case the novel produced no weakening of
the mental fiber. President Garfield advised the student to
mingle with his heavier reading a judicious proportion of
fiction. The novel may rank in the highest department of
literature and may render the inestimable service of broad-
ening and quickening our sympathies. In this case it be-
longs to the class of the best books. But I have introduced
it here as the most prominent representative of what we
may call the literature of recreation . There is a further rep-
resentative of this class that is peculiarly well fitted to bring
refreshment and cheer to the weary and dispirited, and that
is humor, which is often also the soundest philosophy.
If the reader does not at the outset make provision in his
daily reading for the best books, the days and the months
will go by, and the unopened volumes will look down upon
him from his shelves in dumb reproof of his neglect and
reminder of his loss. In truth it is all a matter of the bal-
ance of gain. What we rate highest we shall find room for.
If we cannot have our spiritual food and satisfy all our other
wants, perhaps we shall find that some of our other wants can
do with less satisfaction. That we should neglect the material
side of life for the spiritual I do not say. But for our en-
couragement let me quote another estimate of what may be
accomplished by persistent reading, and my authority shall
[ I0 7 ]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
be the late Professor William Mathews, the essayist, an
author whose graceful style bears lightly as a flower a weight
of learning that would appall, if it did not so delight us.
Says Dr. Mathews:
Did you ever think of the sum total of knowledge that may
be accumulated in a decade, or score of years, or a lifetime by
reading only 10 pages a day? He who has read but that small
amount daily, omitting Sundays, has read in a year 3i3o pages,
which is equal to six volumes of 621 pages each, enough to
enable one to master a science. In five years he will have read
i5,65o pages, equivalent to 3o large volumes, or to 60 of the
average size. Now, we do not hesitate to say that 3o volumes
of 5ai pages each of history, biography, science, and literature,
well chosen, well read, and well digested, will be worth to nine
persons out of ten more than the average collegiate education is
to the majority of graduates.
Our case for knowing the best books is, therefore, not
hopeless. What we need for the achievement is not genius,
but only a moderate amount of forethought and persistence.
But who is there that has not tasted the joy of discovering
a great book that seemed written for himself alone ? If there
is such a man, he is to be pitied unless, indeed, he is to
be congratulated on the unimagined pleasure in store for
him. Discovery is not too strong a word for the feeling of
the reader when he lights upon such a world-opening volume.
He feels that no one else ever could have had the same ap-
preciation of it, ever really discovered it, that he is
the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Keats, in his glorious sonnet, ' ' On First Looking into Chap-
man's Homer," has given the finest of all expressions to
this sense of literary discovery.
[108]
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT BOOKS
Much have I travelled in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet never did I breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold :
Then felt I like some watcher in the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken ;
Or like stout Gortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
To describe such accessions of spiritual vision we turn
instinctively to the narratives of Holy Writ, to Pisgah and its
revelation of the Promised Land, to the ladder at Bethel with
its angels ascending and descending, and to the lonely seer
on Patmos with his vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
But, questions a listener, do books ever really affect people
like this ? Most assuredly ! We have only to turn to biog-
raphy for the record, if we do not find living witnesses
among our friends. It was said of Neander that "Plato is
his idol his constant watchword. He sits day and night
over him; and there are few who have so thoroughly and
in such purity imbibed his wisdom."
The elder Professor Torrey, of the University of Vermont,
found his inspiration, as many another has done, in Dante.
In his youth he preferred the Inferno; in his middle life he
rose to the calm heights of the Purgatorio; and he used to
say with a smile that perhaps the time would come when he
should be fitted to appreciate the Paradiso. Highly interest-
ing is John Ruskin's tribute to Sir Walter Scott:
It is one of the griefs of my old age that I know Scott by heart,
but still, if I take up a volume of him, it is not laid down again
for the next hour.
[ 109]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
Beside this we may place Goethe's testimony, also written
in old age:
We read many, too many, poor things, thus losing our time
and gaining nothing. We should only read what we can admire,
as I did in my youth, and as I now do with Sir Walter Scott.
I have now begun "Rob Roy," and I shall read all his romances
in succession. All is great material, import, characters, execu-
tion ; and then what infinite diligence in the preparatory studies!
what truth of detail in the composition! Here we see what Eng-
lish history is; what an inheritance to a poet able to make use of
it. Walter Scott is a great genius ; he has not his equal ; and we
need not wonder at the extraordinary effect he has produced on
the reading world. He gives me much to think of; and I dis-
cover in him a wholly new art with laws of its own.
Of Goethe himself Carlyle confessed that the reading of his
works made him understand what the Methodists mean by a
new birth. Those who are familiar with the speeches and
writings of Daniel Webster realize the inspiration that he
owed to the grandeur of Milton. His great rival, Calhoun,
honored everywhere as a statesman, was known in his own
home as * ' the old man of the Bible." It was the reading of
the Bible that equipped John Bunyan to become the author
of "Pilgrim's Progress." The novelists have not failed to
recognize the influence of some single book on a human life.
It was the accidental possession of a folio volume of Shake-
speare in Blackmore's ' * Lorna Doone" that transformed
John Ridd from a hulking countryman to a man of profound
acquaintance with the world. And who does not remember
Gabriel Betteridge, the simple-hearted old steward in Wilkie
Collins's ' ' Moonstone," who finds for every occurrence a text
to counsel or console in his favorite "Robinson Crusoe"?
As the experience of Professor Torrey shows, different
books appeal to us most strongly at different ages. Young
[no]
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT BOOKS
men read Shelley, old men read Wordsworth. In youth
"Hamlet" is to us the greatest of all plays; in old age,
" Lear." I know of no more interesting account of the de-
velopment of a mind in the choice of books than that pre-
sented in John Beattie Crozier's autobiographical volume
entitled ' * My Inner Life." The author is an English philos-
opher, who was born and lived until manhood in the back-
woods of Canada. He tells us how as a young man groping
about for some clew to the mystery of the world in which
he found himself, he tried one great writer after another
Mill, Buckle, Carlyle, Emerson all to no purpose, for he
was not ready for them. At this period he read with great
profit the "Recreations of a Country Parson," which, as
he says, "gave me precisely the grade and shade of plati-
tude I required." But more important were the weekly
sermons of Henry Ward Beecher. Of him Crozier says:
For years his printed sermons were the main source of my in-
struction and delight. His range and variety of observation . . .
his width of sympathy ; his natural and spontaneous pathos ; the
wealth of illustration and metaphor with which his sermons were
adorned, and which were drawn chiefly from natural objects, from
his orchard, his farm, his garden, as well as from machinery
and from all kinds of natural processes ; his naturalism and ab-
sence of theological bias; his knowledge of average men and
their ways of looking at things ; in a word, his general fertility
of thought, filling up, as it did, the full horizon of my mind,
and running over and beyond it on all sides, so that wherever
I looked he had been there before me all this delighted and
enchanted me, and made him for some years my ideal of intel-
lectual greatness ; and I looked forward to the Saturdays on which
his weekly sermons reached me with longing and pure joy.
Later, in England, Crozier took up the works of the
philosophers with better success. The chapter of most in-
[in]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
terest for us is the one on the group which he calls ' ' The
Poetic Thinkers" Carlyle, Newman, Emerson, Goethe.
Of these he places Goethe and Emerson highest. Indeed of
Emerson's essay on "Experience" he says:
In this simple framework Emerson has contrived to work in
thoughts on human life more central and commanding, more
ultimate and final, and of more universal application than are
to be found within the same compass in the literature of any
age or time, thoughts which rise to the mind as naturally and
spontaneously when the deeper secrets of life are in question,
as proverbs do in its more obvious and superficial aspects. . . .
Nowhere, indeed, will you find greater penetration and pro-
fundity, or greater refinement and delicacy than in these essays
(of Emerson). . . . After a lapse of ten or fifteen years ... no
increase of experience or reflection has enabled me to add or
suggest aught by way of commentary on these great and pene-
trating observations on human life that is not either more super-
ficial or less true. . . . Until Emerson is understood, no observer
of human life making any pretension to originality can, in my
judgment, consider his reputation safe, or his work free from
the danger of being undermined by this great master of human
thought.
If some scholar on whose judgment we relied were to
speak in these terms of a book that was only to be read in
Persian or Icelandic, how cheerfully we should bend our-
selves to the task of learning these difficult tongues for the
sake of the reward the possession of the coveted thought.
But the writings of Emerson are in our own language and
accessible in the cheapest editions. If to us personally
Emerson does not make this supreme appeal, there are
other writers, all at hand, set apart from the great multitude
of lesser spirits by that final weigher of human talents whom
Bacon calls Good Fame. It is not that among the myriad
volumes of a library we must painfully and largely by acci-
LEST WE FORGET THE FEW GREAT BOOKS
dent discover the few of highest worth scanning each
doubtfully as one searches for an unknown visitor in the
crowd alighting from a train. No, the best books are the
best known, the most accessible. Lists of the ten, the fifty,
the one hundred best books are at our disposal, and, if they
do not always represent final judgments, are near enough
for practical purposes. The will to read the best books is
all that we need to supply the rest has been done for us.
And is there anyone who turns with indifference from the
high and free privilege of making the greatest spirits that
have ever lived his bosom friends, his companions and coun-
selors? If there be such a one, would that I might repeat
to him more of that glorious chant in praise of books that
has been sung by the wise of all ages, from Socrates to
Gladstone. I have given a few of these tributes already; I
will close with one from an unexpected source. Says Walt
Whitman, in his "Democratic Vistas," speaking of the
books that have come down to us from antiquity:
A few immortal compositions, small in size, yet compassing
what measureless values of reminiscence, contemporary por-
traitures, manners, idioms and beliefs, with deepest inference,
hint and thought, to tie and touch forever the old, new body,
and the old, new soul. These ! and still these ! bearing the freight
so dear dearer than pride dearer than love. All the best ex-
perience of humanity folded, saved, freighted to us here ! Some
of these tiny ships we call Old and New Testament, Homer,
Eschylus, Plato, Juvenal, etc. Precious minims! I think if
we were forced to choose, rather than have you, and the likes
of you, and what belongs to and has grown of you, blotted out
and gone, we could better afford, appalling as that would be,
to lose all actual ships, this day fastened by wharf, or floating
on wave, and see them, with all their cargoes, scuttled and sent
to the bottom.
Gathered by geniuses of city, race or age, and put by them
[118]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
in highest of art's forms, namely, the literary form, the peculiar
combinations, and the outshows of that city, age or race, its
particular modes of the universal attributes and passions, its
faiths, heroes, lovers and gods, wars, traditions, struggles,
crimes, emotions, joys (or the subtle spirit of these) having
been passed on to us to illumine our own selfhood, and its ex-
periences what they supply, indispensable and highest, if taken
away, nothing else in all the world's boundless storehouses could
make up to us, or ever again return.
PRINTING PROBLEMS FOR SCIENCE
TO SOLVE
HE book seems to have been regarded for
hundreds of years for thousands of years
if we include its prototypes as a thing
apart, subject to its own laws of beauty,
utility, and economy. But recently men
have come to realize that the book has no
special esthetic license, that what is barbarous art elsewhere
is barbarous in the book; they also recognize that the book
is within the domain of economics, that the invention of
typography was primarily a reduction of cost, and that a
myriad later processes, which make the book what it is
to-day, are all developments of the same principle. What
has not been so clearly seen is that in the field of utility the
book is not independent, cannot impose conditions upon
its users, but is an instrument strictly subordinate to human
needs. The establishment of its efficiency has only begun
when we have adapted it to the convenience of the hand and
the bookshelf. The real tests of its utility are subtle, not
gross, and are, in fact, beyond the range of ordinary hap-
hazard experience. In this field popular judgment may be
right or wrong; it offers merely an opinion, which it cannot
prove. But here that higher power of common sense that we
call science comes in and gives verdicts that take account of
all the elements involved and can be verified. Rather this
is what science has not yet done for printing, or has done only
in part, but which we confidently expect it is about to do.
[n5]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
What then are some of the points that we may call in
science to settle? We know surely that fine type, bad press-
work, pale ink on gray paper are all bad for the eyes. But
there are a host of other matters connected with printing,
we may even say most matters, in regard to which our
knowledge is either uncertain or indefinite. In respect to
this whole range of practical printing subjects we want to
know just what practice is the best and by what percentage
of superiority. This quantitative element in the solution is of
great importance, for when rival considerations, the esthetic,
the economic, for instance, plead for one choice as against
another, we shall know just how much sacrifice of utility
is involved. The tests for which we look to science cover
everything that goes to make up the physical side of the
book. The tests themselves, however, are psychological,
for the book makes its appeal to the mind through one of
the senses, that of sight, and therefore its adaptedness to the
manifold peculiarities of human vision must be the final
criterion of its utility.
Beginning with the material basis of the book paper
most readers are sure that both eggshell and glaze finish are
a hindrance to easy reading and even hurtful to the eyes;
but which is worse and how much? Is there any difference
as regards legibility between antique and medium plate
finish, and which is better and by what percentage? In
regard to the color as well as the surface of paper we are
largely at sea. We realize that contrast between paper and
ink is necessary, but is the greatest contrast the best? Is
the blackest black on the whitest white better, for instance,
than blue-black on buff- white, and how much? Is white
on black not better than black on white, and, if so, in what
exact degree? Or is the real solution to be found in some
other color contrast as yet untried? The very mention of
[1,6]
PRINTING PROBLEMS FOR SCIENCE TO SOLVE
some of these possibilities shocks our prejudices and stirs
our conservatism to revolt in advance ; yet, with or against
our will, we may be perfectly sure that the changes which
science finally pronounces imperative will be made.
Who can tell what is the normal length of line for legi-
bility, or whether there is one, and whether there is an
ideal size of type, or what it is? Are the newspapers, for
instance, right as to length of line and the books as to size
of type, as many suppose? Has each size of type a length
of line normal to it? How is this affected by leading, or
is leading merely of imaginary value? Is large type desir-
able for the schoolbooks of the youngest children, and may
the type be made smaller, down to a certain limit, without
harm, as the children grow older, or is there one ideal size
for all ages? It is frankly recognized that in certain works,
like editions of the poets, legibility may properly be sacri-
ficed in some degree to beauty, and in certain reference
works, again, to economy of space; but we should like to
know, as we do not now with any exactness, what amount
of legibility is surrendered.
It is easy, however, to see that one great battleground of
controversy in any suggested reforms must be the design
of the type itself. Here, fortunately, the English public
starts with a great advantage. We have thrown overboard
our old black letter with its dazzling contrasts of shading
and its fussy ornament, and therefore can begin where the
Germans must some day leave off. We have no accents or
other diacritical marks, and in this respect are superior to
the French also. We start with a fairly extended and dis-
tinct letter like Caslon for our norm, but even so the problem
is in the highest degree complex and baffling. First, ac-
cepting the traditional forms of the letters, we must deter-
mine whether light or heavy, even or shaded, condensed or
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
extended letters are the more legible, and always in what
proportion. We shall then be in a position to decide the
relative standing of the various commercial types, if such
we find, that fairly well meet the conditions. It will also
be obvious what changes can be introduced to improve the
types that stand highest. By and by the limit of improve-
ment will be reached under the traditional forms of the
letters. It will next be the task of science to show by what
modifications or substitutions the poorest letters, such as
s z e a x o can be brought up to the visibility of the best
letters, such as mwdjlp. Some of these changes may be
slight, such as shortening the overhang of the a and slanting
the bar of the e, while others may involve forms that are
practically new. It is worth remembering at this point
that while our capital letters are strictly Roman, our small
or lower-case letters came into being during the middle ages,
and many of them would not be recognized by an ancient
Roman as having any relation to his alphabet. They there-
fore belong to the modern world and can be altered without
sacrilege.
There will remain other problems to be solved, such as
the use of capitals at all; punctuation, whether to keep our
present practice or to devise a better ; the use of spacing be-
tween paragraphs, words, and even letters; besides numerous
problems now hardly guessed. Many of the conclusions of
science will be openly challenged, but such opposition is
easiest to overcome. Harder to meet will be the opposition
of prejudice, one of whose favorite weapons is always ridi-
cule. But the results of science in the field of printing, as
in every other, are sure to make their way into practice,
and here their beneficent effect in the relief of eye strain
and its consequent nervous wear and in the saving of time
is beyond our present power to calculate or even imagine.
[1.8]
PRINTING PROBLEMS FOR SCIENCE TO SOLVE
The world at the end of the twentieth century will be a
different world from this, a far better world, we trust; and
one of the potent influences in bringing about that improve-
ment will then be traced, we are confident, to the fact that,
near the beginning of the century, science was called in
to solve those problems of the book that belong to the
laboratory rather than to the printing office.
TYPES AND EYES: THE PROBLEM
UR modern world submits with an ill grace
to the nuisance of spectacles, but flatters
itself that after all they afford a measure
of civilization. Thirty-five years ago Dr.
fimile Javal, a Parisian oculist, contested
this self-complacent inference, believing
the terrible increase of near sight among school children to
be due rather to a defect than to an excess of civilization.
He conceived that the trouble must lie in the material set
for the eye to work upon, namely, the printed page. He
therefore instituted a series of experiments to discover its
defects from the point of view of hygiene. Being an oculist,
he naturally adopted the test of distance to determine the
legibility of single letters at the limit of vision, and he em-
ployed the oculist's special type. His conclusions cover a
wide range. He decided that paper with a slightly buff tint
printed with an ink tinged with blue was the most agreeable
combination for the eye, though in absolute clearness noth-
ing can surpass the contrast of black upon white. He held
that leading is no advantage to clearness, and that it would
be better to print the same words on the page in a larger
type unleaded. He found the current type too condensed;
this is particularly a fault of French type. But he favored
spacing between the letters of a word, a conclusion in which
he has not been followed by later investigators. He found
shaded type a disadvantage and advocated a fairly black
type in which all the lines are of uniform thickness. But
[120]
TYPES AND EYES : THE PROBLEM
most interesting are his conclusions regarding the letters
themselves. He found that the eye in reading follows a
horizontal line which cuts the words just below the tops of
the short letters, the parts of the letters being indistinct in
proportion as they are distant from this line. It is chiefly
by their individuality on this line that letters acquire dis-
tinctness. But just here he found that an unfortunate
tendency towards uniformity had been at work, flattening
the rounded letters and rounding the square letters. In a
series of articles he gives exhaustive studies of the various
letters, their characteristics, and their possible reform.
These teiv point lines in Delia Robbia of the American Type
Founders Company include the principal elements of reform
advocated by Dr. Javal, as well as others mentioned below
A few years later Dr. Cattell, now a professor in Colum-
bia, but then an investigator in Wundt's psychological lab-
oratory in Leipsic, made a series of studies on brain and
eye inertia in the recognition of letters. Like Dr. Javal he
found some alphabets harder to see than others and the
letters of the same alphabet different in legibility. He saw
no advantage in having a mixture of capital and small letters.
He condemned shading in types and opposed all ornament
as an element of confusion. He regarded punctuation marks
as hard to see and proposed that they should be displaced,
or at least supplemented, by spaces between the words cor-
responding to the pause in the thought or the utterance.
He tested the letters by their legibility when seen for a
small fraction of a second through a narrow slit in a falling
screen. Beginning with the capitals, he found that out of
two hundred and seventy trials for each letter, W was
recognized two hundred and forty-one times and E only
sixty-three times, the former being much more distinct and
the latter much less distinct than any other. Some letters,
[131]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
like S and C, were found hard to recognize in themselves,
and certain groups of letters, such as 0, Q, G, and C, were
constantly confused with one another. Said Dr. Cattell,
' * If I should give the probable time wasted each day through
a single letter, as E, being needlessly illegible, it would
seem almost incredible; and, if we could calculate the
necessary strain put upon eye and brain, it would be still
more appalling."
In regard to the small letters he found a like difference
in legibility. Out of one hundred trials d was read correctly
eighty-seven times, s only twenty-eight times. He found
s, g, c, and x particularly hard to recognize by reason of
their form ; and certain pairs and groups were sources of con-
fusion. The group of slim letters, i, j, 1, f, t, is an instance.
He suggested that a new form of 1, perhaps the Greek X,
should be adopted; and he advocated the dropping of the dot
from the i, as in Greek. He made experiments upon the Ger-
man as well as the Roman alphabet, but he found the former
so bad that he could only advise giving it up altogether.
Somewhat later, in 1888, Mr. E. C. Sanford, now presi-
dent of Clark College, published in the "American Journal
of Psychology" an exhaustive study on "The Relative Legi-
bility of the Small Letters." He studied simply the letter
forms, to determine the order of legibility in the alphabet and
the groups most liable to confusion, in order to discover
what letters most need improvement and upon what clear-
ness depends. He too employed a special type. He found
the order under the distance test tobewmqpvyjf hrd
gkbxlnu atizocse, and the order under the time test
mwdqvyjp kfblighrxt ouanescz. It will be
noticed that of the seven letters most largely represented
in a full font of type, etainos, all fall in the last third
of one or the other of these two groups, four are there in
TYPES AND EYES: THE PROBLEM
both groups, while e, the letter used most of all, stands at
the very foot of the list in the distance group. Could there
be any clearer call for the reform of our letters ?
Mr. Sanford enters at length into the question of the
points that help and hinder legibility and that should there-
fore be considered in reforming the shapes of letters. En-
largement of size and increase of differences are obvious
aids to clearness. Simplicity of outline and concentration
of peculiarity upon one feature are important elements of
legibility. Even a letter of small size, like v, is brought
into the first group by a combination of these two quali-
ties. Serifs are necessary to prevent irradiation, or an
overflowing of the white on the black, but they should
be stubby; if long, they take on the character of ornament
and become confusing. The letters g and a are complicated
without being distinctive and are therefore continually con-
fused with other letters. The ceo group of much used
letters can be made less liable to confusion if the gap on
the right of the first two letters is made wider and the line
of the e slants downward as in Jenson. Another group,
a n u, are confused together. To avoid this the top and
bottom openings of n and u should be made as open as
possible and the a should go back to the old script forma,
as in the Humanistic type. The letter s is a source of great
difficulty, being either not recognized at all in the tests or
confused with other letters. It will be remembered that
Franklin greatly deprecated the giving up of the long f , and
a return to this form is now suggested, care being taken,
of course, to differentiate it from f, especially by carrying
it below the line. The dot of the i is of no use when the
letter stands alone, but it is an important element of dis-
tinctness in words like "minim." The dot, as Dr. Javal
suggests, should be set on a level with the top of the 1
[M3]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
rather than on a level with the top of the t. A reduction of
serifs would lessen the confusion of x and z and of sand z.
But it is unnecessary to trace these studies in all their
minutiae. In the twenty-eight years that have followed
the appearance of Mr. Sanford's* article work along the
same lines has been done by many investigators in various
countries. Some of the conclusions that we have noticed
have been sustained, others have been discredited. The
most important conclusions of the investigators down to
1908 will be found scattered through the pages of Huey's
"Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading," which appeared in
that year. Such matters as the normal length of a line of
print, the size of type appropriate to schoolbooks for chil-
dren of different ages, the possibilities of future type design
with reference solely to the reader's needs, are among the
many subjects there set forth in an interesting fashion.
In all these studies one obvious subject of investigation
appears to have been overlooked, and that is the actual
types of everyday print. Do they vary greatly in legibility ?
Are some of them so bad that they ought to be rejected in
toto? On the other hand, have the designers of certain
types attained by instinct or by happy accident a degree of
legibility that approximates the best to be hoped for? If
so, can we trace the direction to be followed in seeking
further improvement? To answer these questions an ex-
tended investigation was undertaken at Clark University in
1911 by Miss Barbara Elizabeth Roethlein under the direc-
tion of Professor John Wallace Baird. Her results were
published by Clark University Library in January, 1912,
under the title ' ' The Relative Legibility of Different Faces
of Printing Types." The pamphlet abounds in tables made
clear by the use of the very types under consideration. The
following are the conclusions reached:
TYPES AND EYES: THE PROBLEM
1. Certain faces of type are much more legible than other
faces ; and certain letters of every face are much more legible
than other letters of the same face.
2. These differences in legibility prove to be greater when
letters are presented in isolation from one another than when
they are presented in groups.
3. Legibility is a product of six factors: (i) the form of the
letter; (2) the size of the letter; (3) the heaviness of the face of
the letter (the thickness of the lines which constitute the letter) ;
(4) the width of the white margin which surrounds the letter ;
(5) the position of the letter in the letter group ; (6) the shape
and size of the adjacent letters. In our experiments the first
factor seemed to be less significant than any of the other five ;
that is, in the type-faces which were employed in the present
investigation the form of any given letter of the alphabet usually
varied between such narrow limits as to constitute a relatively
insignificant factor in the determination of its legibility.
4. The relatively heavy-faced types prove to be more legible
than the light-faced types. The optimal heaviness of face seems to
lie in a mean between the bold faces and such light faces as Scotch
Roman and Gushing Monotone.
5. The initial position in a group of letters is the most ad-
vantageous position for legibility ; the final position comes next
in order of advantage ; and the intermediate or internal positions
are least favorable for legibility.
6. The size and the form of the letters which stand adjacent
to any given letter play an important role in determining its legi-
bility ; and the misreadings which occur in the case of grouped
letters are of a wholly different sort from those which occur in
the case of isolated letters. When letters of the same height or
of similar form appear side by side, they become relatively illegi-
ble. But the juxtaposition of an ascender, a descender and a
short letter tends to improve the legibility of each, as also does
the juxtaposition of letters which are made up wholly or chiefly of
straight lines and letters which are made up wholly or chiefly
of curved lines.
7. The quality and the texture of the paper is a much less
significant factor than has been supposed, provided, of course, that
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
the illumination and the inclination of the paper are such as to
secure an optimal condition of light reflection from its surface.
8. There is an urgent need for modification of certain letters of
the alphabet.
Contrary to previous results with special types, these tests
of commercial types represent the capitals as more legible,
by about one-fifth, than the lowercase letters; but, in view
of the much greater bigness and heaviness of capitals, the
earlier judgment would seem to be supported so far as
the letter forms of the two classes are concerned. The
order of each class, taking an average of all the faces, is as
follows: WMLJIATCVQPDOYUFHXGNZ
KERBSmwdjlpfqyihgbkvrtncuoxaezs.
Considering only the lowercase letters, which represent
nine-tenths of the print that meets the eye, we still have
four of the most used letters, s e a o, in the lowest fourth
of the group, while s in both sizes of type and in all faces
stands at the bottom. The average legibility of the best and
worst is: W, 3oo.2 ; S, 206.7; m 296.8; s, 162.6.
The tests were by distance ; the letters were all ten-point
of the various faces ; and the figures represent the distance
in centimeters at which the letters were recognized. There
is a satisfaction in being assured that the range between the
best and the worst is not so great as had been estimated
previously, the proportion being in the one case not quite
3 : 2 and in the other not quite 3 : 1.5. The following
twenty-six widely different faces of type were studied:
American Typewriter Century Expanded
Bold Antique Cheltenham Oldstyle
Bulfinch Cheltenham Bold
Caslon Oldstyle No. 54o Cheltenham Bold, Condensed
Century Oldstyle Cheltenham Italic
Century Oldstyle, Bold Cheltenham Wide
[126]
TYPES AND EYES: THE PROBLEM
Glearface < Delia Robbia
Clearface Italic DeVinne No. 2
Clearface Rold DeVinne No. 2, Italic
Glearface Bold Italic Franklin Gothic
Gushing No. 2 Jenson Oldstyle No. 2
Gushing Oldstyle No. 2 News Gothic
Gushing Monotone Ronaldson Oldstyle No. 55 1
Of these, omitting the boldface and italic types, as well
as all capitals, the six best text types, ranging in average
distance of recognition from 286.4 to 22^.3, are News
Gothic, Bulfinch, Glearface, Century Oldstyle, Century
Expanded, and Cheltenham Wide. The six worst, ranging
from 206.4 to 1 85. 6, are Cheltenham Oldstyle, DeVinne
No. 2, American Typewriter, Caslon Oldstyle, Gushing
Monotone, and Gushing No. 2. The author says, comment-
ing on these findings :
If legibility is to be our sole criterion of excellence of type-
face, News Gothic must be regarded as our nearest approxima-
tion to an ideal face, in so far as the present investigation is able
to decide this question. The esthetic factor must always be taken
into account, however, here as elsewhere. And the reader who
prefers the appearance of Gushing Oldstyle or a Century face
may gratify his esthetic demands without any considerable sacri-
fice of legibility.
To what extent these conclusions may be modified by
future experiments it is, of course, impossible to predict,
but they clearly point the way towards definiteness and
boldness in the design of types as well as to a preference
for the larger sizes in their use. All this, as we shall see
in the next chapter, is in harmony with what experience
has been gradually confirming in the practice of the last
generation.
127]
TYPES AND EYES: PROGRESS
HE late John Bartlett, whose "Familiar
Quotations" have encircled the globe, once
remarked to a youthful visitor that it was
a source of great comfort to him that in
collecting books in his earlier years he
had chosen editions printed in large type,
"for now," he said, "I am able to read them." The fad-
ing eyesight of old age does not necessarily set the norm of
print; but this is certain, that what age reads without diffi-
culty youth will read without strain, and in view of the
excessive burden put upon the eyes by the demands of
modern life, it may be worth while to consider whether it
is not wise to err on the safer side as regards the size of
type, even by an ample margin.
It is now some thirty-five years since the first scientific
experiments upon the relations of type to vision were made
in France and Germany. It was peculiarly fitting, we may
remark, that the investigation should have started in those
two countries, for the German alphabet is notoriously hard
on the eyes, and the French alphabet is encumbered with
accents, which form an integral part of the written word,
and yet are always minute and in poor print exceedingly
hard to distinguish. The result of the investigation was a
vigorous disapproval of the German type itself and of the
French accents and the favorite style of letter in France,
the condensed. It was pointed out that progress in type
design towards the hygienic ideal must follow the direction
["8]
TYPES AND EYES: PROGRESS
of simplicity, uniformity, and relative heaviness of line,
with wide letters and short descenders, all in type of suf-
ficient size for easy reading. In the generation that has
succeeded these experiments have we made any progress in
adapting print to eyes along the lines of these conclusions?
The printer might well offer in proof of such progress the
page in which these words are presented to the reader. In
the four and a half centuries of printing, pages of equal
clearness and beauty may be found if one knows just where
to look for them, but the later examples all fall within the
period that we are discussing. It may be objected that this
is the luxury of printing, not its everyday necessity, and this
objection must be allowed; but luxuries are a powerful
factor in elevating the standard of living, and this is as true
of print as of food and dress. It must be confessed that an
unforeseen influence made itself felt early in the generation
under discussion, that of William Morris and his Kelmscott
Press. Morris's types began and ended in the Gothic or
Germanic spirit, and their excellence lies rather in the
beauty of each single letter than in the effective mass-play
of the letters in words. Kelmscott books, therefore, in
spite of their decorative beauty, are not easy reading. In
this respect they differ greatly from those of Bodoni, 1 whose
types to Morris and his followers appeared weak and ugly.
Bodoni's letters play together with perfect accord, and his
pages, as a whole, possess a statuesque if not a decorative
beauty. If the reader is not satisfied with the testimony of
the page now before him, let him turn to the Bodoni
Horace of 1791, in folio, where, in addition to the noble
roman text of the poems, he will find an extremely clear
1 The type in which this book is printed is a modern Bodoni, cut in Italy, and
was chosen for its elegance rather than to illustrate the latest results in legibility
of type design.
[ I2 9]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
and interesting italic employed in the preface, virtually
a " library hand" script. But no force has told more power-
fully for clearness and strength in types than the influence
of Morris, and if he had done only this for printing he
would have earned our lasting gratitude.
Morris held that no type smaller than long primer should
ever be employed in a book intended for continuous read-
ing; and here again, in size of type as distinguished from
its cut, he made himself an exponent of one of the great
forward movements that have so happily characterized the
recent development of printing. Go to any public library
and look at the novels issued from 1860 to 1880. Unless
your memory is clear on this point, you will be amazed to
see what small print certain publishers inflicted with ap-
parent impunity on their patrons during this period. The
practice extended to editions of popular authors like Dickens
and Thackeray, editions that now find no readers, or find
them only among the nearsighted.
The cheap editions of the present day, on the contrary,
may be poor in paper and perhaps in presswork, they may
be printed from worn plates, but in size and even in cut
of type they are generally irreproachable. As regards near-
sighted readers, it is well known that they prefer fine type
to coarse, choosing, for instance, a Bible printed in dia-
mond, and finding it clear and easy to read, while they can
hardly read pica at all. This fact, in connection with the
former tolerance of fine print, raises the question whether
the world was not more nearsighted two generations ago
than it is now ; or does this only mean that the oculist is
abroad in the land?
It is recognized that, in books not intended for con-
tinuous reading, small and even fine type may properly be
employed. That miracle of encyclopedic information, the
[i3o]
TYPES AND EYES: PROGRESS
World Almanac, while it might be printed better and on
a higher quality of paper, could not be the handy reference
book that it is without the use of a type that would be in-
tolerably small in a novel or a history. With the increase
of the length of continuous use for which the book is in-
tended, the size of the type should increase up to a certain
point. Above eleven-point, or small pica, however, increase
in the size of type becomes a matter not of hygiene, but
simply of esthetics. But below the normal the printer's
motto should be: In case of doubt choose the larger type.
A development of public taste that is in line with this
argument is the passing of the large-paper edition. It was
always an anomaly; but our fathers did not stop to reason
that, if a page has the right proportions at the start, mere
increase of margin cannot enhance its beauty or dignity. At
most it can only lend it a somewhat deceptive appearance
of costliness, with which was usually coupled whatever
attraction there might be in the restriction of this special
edition to a very few copies. So they paid many dollars a
pound for mere blank paper and fancied that they were
getting their money's worth. The most inappropriate
books were put out in large paper, Webster's Unabridged
Dictionary, for instance. At the other extreme of size may
be cited the Pickering diamond classics, also in a large-
paper edition, pretty, dainty little books, with their Lilli-
putian character only emphasized by their excess of white
paper. But their print is too fine to read, and their margins
are out of proportion to the printed page. Though their
type is small, they by no means exhibit the miracle of the
books printed in Didot's "microscopic" type, and they
represent effort in a direction that has no meaning for book-
making, but remains a mere tour de force. Quite different
is the case with the Oxford miniature editions, of the same
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
size outwardly as the large-paper editions of the Pickering
diamond classics ; these are modern miracles, for with all
their "infinite riches in a little room," they are distinctly
legible.
As regards the design of type, the recent decades have
given us our choice among type-faces at once so beautiful
and so clear as the Century Oldstyle, Century Expanded,
and Cheltenham Wide. To those should be added Mr.
Goudy's virile Kennerley. Still later have appeared, in
direct descent from one of Jenson's type-faces, Cloister and
Centaur, two of the most beautiful types of any age or
country, and both, if we may judge by comparison with the
types approved by the Clark University experiments, also
among the most legible. Fortunately in type design there
is no essential conflict between beauty and use, but rather
a natural harmony. Already a high degree of legibility
has been attained without sacrifice; the future is full of
promise.
In respect to books, we may congratulate ourselves that
printing has made real progress in the last generation
towards meeting the primary demand of legibility. The
form of print, however, which is read by the greatest num-
ber of eyes, the newspaper, shows much less advance. Yet
newspapers have improved in presswork, and the typeset-
ting machines have removed the evil of worn type. More-
over, a new element has come to the front that played a
much more subordinate part three or four decades ago
the headline. "Let me write the headlines of a people,"
said the late Henry D. Lloyd to the writer, "and I care not
who makes its laws." It is the staring headlines that form
the staple of the busy man's newspaper reading, and they
are certainly hygienic for the eyes if not always for the
mind. While the trend towards larger and clearer type
[ife]
TYPES AND EYES: PROGRESS
has gone on chiefly without the consciousness of the public,
it has not been merely a reform imposed from without.
The public prefers readable print, demands it, and is ready
to pay for it. The magazines have long recognized this
phase of public taste. When the newspapers have done
the same, the eyes of coming generations will be relieved
of a strain that can only be realized by those who in that
day shall turn as a matter of antiquarian curiosity to the
torturing fine print that so thickly beset the pathway of
knowledge from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century,
and, in the twentieth, overthrown in the field of books and
magazines, made its last, wavering stand in the newspapers.
[,33]
EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE OF
LEGIBILITY
INGE print is meant primarily to be read,
the first law of its being is legibility. As
a general principle this must be accepted,
but in the application certain important
reservations must be made, all relating
themselves to the question how the print
is to be read. For straightaway, long-time reading, or for
reading in which the aim is to get at the words of the
author with the least hindrance, the law of legibility holds
to its full extent is, in fact, an axiom ; but not all read-
ing is long-continued, and not all is apart from considera-
tions other than instantaneous contact with the author's
thought through his words. It is these two classes of
exceptions that we have now to consider.
Let us begin with an example outside the field of typog-
raphy. On the first issue of the Lincoln cent were various
sizes of lettering, the largest being devoted to the words
which denote the value of the coin, and the smallest, quite
undistinguishable in ordinary handling, to the initials of
the designer, afterwards discarded. Obviously these sizes
were chosen with reference to their power to attract atten-
tion ; in the one case an excess of legibility and in the other
case, quite as properly, its deficiency. Thus, what is not
designed for the cursory reader's eye, but serves only as a
record to be consulted by those who are specially interested
in it, may, with propriety, be made so inconspicuous as
[i34]
EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE OF LEGIBILITY
to be legible only by a distinct effort. Cases in everyday
typography are the signatures of books and the cabalistic
symbols that indicate to the newspaper counting room the
standing of advertisements. Both are customarily rendered
inconspicuous through obscure position, and if to this be
added the relative illegibility of fine type, the average
reader will not complain, for all will escape his notice.
Again, we may say that what is not intended for ordi-
nary continuous reading may, without criticism, be con-
signed to type below normal size. Certain classes of books
that are intended only for brief consultation come under
this head, the best examples being encyclopedias, dictiona-
ries, and almanacs. As compactness is one of their prime
requisites, it is a mistake to put them into type even com-
fortably large. The reader opens them only for momentary
reference, and he can well afford to sacrifice a certain degree
of legibility to handiness. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is
a classic instance of a work made bulky by type unneces-
sarily coarse for its purpose; the later, amazingly clear,
photographic reduction of the Britannica volumes is a
recognition of this initial mistake. The Century and Ox-
ford dictionaries, on the other hand, are splendid examples
of the judicious employment of fine print for the purpose
both of condensation and the gradation of emphasis. One
has only to contrast with these a similar work in uniform
type, such as Littre's Dictionnaire, to appreciate their
superiority for ready reference.
The departure from legibility that we have thus far con-
sidered has related to the size of the letters. Another
equally marked departure is possible in respect to their
shape. In business printing, especially in newspaper ad-
vertisements, men are sometimes tempted to gain amount
at the risk of undue fineness of type. But no advertiser
[i36]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
who counts the cost will take the chance of rendering his
announcement unreadable by the use of ornamental or
otherwise imperfectly legible letters. He sets no value upon
the form save as a carrier of substance. In works of litera-
ture, on the contrary, form may take on an importance of
its own; it may even be made tributary to the substance
at some cost to legibility.
In this field there is room for type the chief merit of
which is apart from its legibility. In other words, there
is and always will be a place for beauty in typography,
even though it involve a certain loss of clearness. As re-
lated to the total bulk of printing, works of this class never
can amount to more than a fraction of one per cent. But
their proportion in the library of a cultivated man would
be vastly greater, possibly as high as fifty per cent. In
such works the esthetic sense demands not merely that the
type be a carrier of the alphabet, but also that it interpret
or at least harmonize with the subject-matter. Who ever
saw Mr. Updike's specimen pages for an edition of the
"Imitatio Christi," in old English type, without a desire
to possess the completed work? Yet we have editions of
the "Imitatio" that are far more legible and convenient.
The "Prayers" of Dr. Samuel Johnson have several times
been published in what we may call tribute typography;
but no edition has yet attained to a degree of homage that
satisfies the lovers of those unaffected devotional exercises.
What, therefore, shall be the typography of books that
we love, that we know by heart? In them, surely, beauty
and fitness may precede legibility unchallenged. These are
the books that we most desire and cherish ; this is the
richest field for the typographic artist, and one that we
venture to pronounce, in spite of all that has yet been done,
still almost un tilled. Such books need not be expensive;
t'36]
EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE OF LEGIBILITY
we can imagine a popular series that should deserve the
name of tribute typography. Certain recent editions of the
German classics, perhaps, come nearer to justifying such
a claim than any contemporary British or American work.
In more expensive publications some of Mr. Mosher's work,
like his quarto edition of Burton's "Kasidah," merits a
place in this class. A better known, if older, instance is
the holiday edition of Longfellow's "Skeleton in Armor."
Who would not rather read the poem in this Old English
type than in any Roman type in which it has ever been
printed? The work of the Kelmscott Press obviously falls
within this class.
The truth is, there is a large body of favorite literature
which we are glad to be made to linger over, to have, in
its perusal, a brake put upon the speed of our reading;
and in no way can this be done so agreeably as by a typog-
raphy that possesses a charm of its own to arrest the eye.
Such a delay increases while it prolongs the pleasure of
our reading. The typography becomes not only a frame
to heighten the beauty of the picture, but also a spell to
lengthen our enjoyment of it. It cannot be expected that
the use of impressive type will be confined to literature.
That worthiest use will find the field already invaded by
pamphlet and leaflet advertisements, and this invasion is
certain to increase as the public taste becomes trained to
types that make an esthetic appeal of their own.
Ordinary type is the result of an attempt to combine
with legibility an all-round fitness of expression. But that
very universality robs it of special appropriateness for
works of a strongly marked character. It is impossible to
have a new type designed for every new work, but classes
of types are feasible, each adapted to a special class of
literature. Already there is a tendency to seek for poetry a
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
type that is at least removed from the commonplace. But
hitherto the recognition of this principle has been only oc-
casional and haphazard. Where much is to be gained much
also can be lost, and interpretative or expressional typog-
raphy that misses the mark may easily be of a kind to
make the judicious grieve. But the rewards of success
warrant the risk. The most beautiful of recent types, the
New Humanistic, designed for The University Press, has
hardly yet been used. Let us hope that it may soon find
its wider mission so successfully as to furnish an ideal
confirmation of the principle that we have here been seek-
ing to establish.
t'38]
THE STUDENT AND THE LIBRARY
HAT does a student of five and twenty
years ago still remember of his college?
My own first and fondest recollection is of
the walks and talks, nodes coenaeque deam,
with loved and honored companions, in
the bonds of a friendship that can be
realized only in youth, under the inspiration of a common
intellectual purpose, and, one is tempted to add, in the
atmosphere of college halls ; next arise golden hours passed
in the library; and lastly there come back other hours, not
always golden, spent in the classroom. This is, of course,
only to enumerate the three influences that are, or should
be, strongest in a student's life : the society of his fellows,
his private reading, and his studies. Of these three factors
of culture the first and the last are fairly constant, but the
second is apt to vary in the experience of any small group
of students from the foremost place, as in the case of John
Hay, to no place at all. It is of this varying element in the
student's conduct of life that I have undertaken to write.
Unless student intercourse has an intellectual basis, such
as reading furnishes, it has nothing to distinguish it from
any other good fellowship and can hardly escape triviality.
The little groups of students at Cambridge which included
such members as the three Tennysons, Hallam, Spedding,
Fitzgerald, and Thackeray, while they were no doubt jovial
enough, were first of all intellectual associations, where
Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech.
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
In such companionship men not only share and correct the
culture which they have acquired in private, but they are
stimulated to higher and wider attainment. The classroom
at its best is hardly equal to a good book; from its very
nature it must address an abstract average rather than the
individual, while a good book startles us with the intimacy
of its revelation to ourselves. The student goes to college
to study; he has his name thence. But while the classroom
is busied, patiently, sedulously doling him out silver, he
discovers that there is gold lying all around, which he may
take without asking. Twenty-five years after he finds that
the silver has grown black with rust, while the gold shines
on untarnished. Librarians are often besought for a guide
in reading, a set of rules, a list of books. But what is
really needed, and what no mentor can give, is a hunger
and thirst after what is in books ; and this the student must
acquire for himself or forego the blessing. Culture can-
not be vicarious. This is not to say that a list of books
may not be useful, or that one set of books is as good as
another, but only that reading is the thing, and, given the
impulse to read, the how and the what can be added unto it;
but without this energizing motive, no amount of oppor-
tunity or nurture will avail.
But, having not the desire to read, but only a sense that
he ought to have it, what shall a student do? I will sug-
gest three practicable courses from which a selection may
be made according to the needs of the individual. The first
is to sit down and take account of stock, to map out one's
knowledge, one's previous reading, and so find the inner
boundaries of the vast region yet to be explored. This
process can hardly fail to suggest not merely one point of
departure, but many. The second method is, without even
so much casting about, to set forth in any direction, take
[i4o]
THE STUDENT AND THE LIBRARY
the first attractive unread book at hand, and let that lead
to others. The third course is intended for the student
whose previous reading has been so scanty and so perfunc-
tory as to afford him no outlook into literature, a case,
which, it is to be feared, is only too common. We will
consider this method first. Obviously such a student must
be furnished with a guide, one who shall set his feet in
the right paths, give him his bearings in literature, and
inspire him with a love for the beauty and grandeur of the
scenery disclosed, so that he shall become not only able to
make the rest of his journey alone, but eager to set out.
Where shall the student find such a guide? There are
many and good at hand, yet perhaps the best are not the
professional ones, but rather those who give us merely a
delightful companionship and invite us to share their own
favorite walks in Bookland. Such a choice companion, to
name but one, awaits the student in Hazlitt's "Lectures on
the English Poets." Of the author himself Charles Lamb
says : * ' I never slackened in my admiration of him ; and I
think I shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to
find, such another companion." And of his books Steven-
son confesses : ' * We are mighty fine fellows, but we cannot
write like William Hazlitt." In this little volume which
the most hard-pressed student can read and ponder in the
leisure moments of a single term, the reader is introduced
at once into the wonderland of our English literature, which
he is made to realize at the outset is an indivisible portion
of the greater territory of the literature of the world.
Hazlitt begins with a discussion of poetry in general,
shows what poetry is, how its various forms move us, and
how it differs from its next of kin, such as eloquence and
romance. He then takes up the poetry of Homer, the
Bible, Dante, and Ossian, and sets forth the characteris-
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
tics of each. In his chapter on our first two great poets,
Chaucer and Spenser, he points out the great and contrasted
merits of these two writers who have so little in common
except a superficial resemblance in language. Hazlitt is
fond of presenting his authors to us in pairs or groups.
His next chapter is devoted to Shakespeare and Milton ; and
we may remark that, while the student is in no danger of
forgetting the existence of Shakespeare, he is likely to need
just such a tribute to the greatness of Milton as the critic
here presents. The volume contains later chapters of great
interest on Milton's ' * Lycidas " and ' ' Eve." It is not neces-
sary for us to mention here all the subjects treated; Dry den
and Pope, Thomson and Gowper, Burns and the Old Eng-
lish Ballads are among them. In every case we are not
tantalized with mere estimates and characterizations, but
are furnished with illustrative specimens of the poems dis-
cussed. But the initiation into English literature which
we receive from Hazlitt does not end with the authors of
whom he treats directly. Resuming our figure of a land-
scape, we may say that he takes us through a thousand
bypaths into charming nooks and upon delightful prospects
of which he has made no announcement beforehand.
I spoke of reading and pondering his book in a single
college term. But, while this may easily be done, it will
be far more profitable for the student, as soon as he feels
drawn away from the volume to some author whom it pre-
sents, to lay it aside and make an excursion of his own
into literature. Then let him take up the volume again
and go on with it until the critic's praise of the ' ' Faerie
Queene," or the "Rape of the Lock," or the "Castle of
Indolence" again draws his attention off the essay to the
poem itself. And as one poem and one author will lead to
another, the volume with which the student set out will thus
THE STUDENT AND THE LIBRARY
gradually fulfill its highest mission by inspiring and train-
ing its reader to do without it. If the student has access
to the shelves of a large library, the very handling of the
books in their groups will bring him into contact with
other books which he will be attracted to and will dip
into and read. In fact it should not be long before he
finds his problem to be, not what to read, but what to
resist reading.
Suppose, however, that the student finds himself already
possessed of a vague, general knowledge of literature, but
nothing definite or satisfying, nothing that inspires interest.
He it is who may profitably take up the first attractive un-
read book at hand ; but he should endeavor to read it, not
as an isolated fragment of literature, but in its relations.
Suppose the book happens to be "Don Quixote." This is
a work written primarily to amuse. But if the reader throws
himself into the spirit of the book, he will not be content,
for instance, with the mere mention of the romances of
chivalry which turned the poor knight's brain. He will
want to read about them and to read some of them actually.
He will be curious as to Charlemagne and his peers, Arthur
and his knights, and will seek to know their true as well
as their fabulous history. Then he will wonder who the
Moors were, why they were banished, and what was the
result to Spain of this act in which even his liberal and
kindly author acquiesced. He will ask if antiquity had its
romances and if any later novelists were indebted to Cer-
vantes. The answer to the last query will bring him to
Gil Bias in French literature and to the works of the great
English romancers of the eighteenth century. Fielding
will lead him to Thackeray, Smollett to Dickens, Dickens
to Bret Harte, and Bret Harte to Kipling. If he reads Cer-
vantes in English, he will have a choice of translations,
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
and he will not fail to mark the enormous difference in
language, literary style, and ideals of rendering between
the three versions of Shelton in the seventeenth century,
Motteux in the eighteenth, and Ormsby in the nineteenth.
If, like many another, he becomes so interested in the
great romance as to learn Spanish for the sake of coming
into direct communication with his author, a whole new
literature will be opened to him. Furthermore, in the
cognate languages which a mastery of Spanish will make
easy for him, a group of literatures will be placed at his
command; and, while he began with Cervantes, who threw
open for him the portals of the middle ages, we may leave
him with Dante, looking before and after over all human
achievement and destiny.
All this the student will not do in one term nor in one
year, but he will have found himself in the library, he will
have acquired a bond to culture that will not break as he
steps out of his last recitation, that will not yield when
time and distance have relegated his college friendships,
with his lost youth, to the Eden or the Avilion of memory.
And if afterwards he comes, with Emerson, to find the
chief value of his college training in the ability it has given
him to recognize its little avail, he will thus disparage it
only in the spirit in which a more advanced student of an
earlier day, looking back upon the stupendous revelations
of his "Principia," likened them to so many pebbles or
shells picked up on the shore of the illimitable ocean of
knowledge.
ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM
ELDOM have controversies brought out so
much humor, on both sides, as that over
the reform of English spelling, and few
have excited so little interest in propor-
tion to the energy expended. Both these
results are due perhaps to the fact that
the subject, from its very nature, does not admit of being
made a burning question. Yet one has to look only a little
way into it to see that important interests educational,
commercial, and possibly racial are involved. Thus far the
champions have been chiefly the newspapers for spelling as
it is, and scholars and educators for spelling as it ought to be.
But, in spite of the intelligence of the disputants, the discus-
sion has been singularly insular and deficient in perspective.
It would gain greatly in conclusiveness if spelling and its
modifications were considered broadly and historically, not
as peculiar to English, but as common to all languages, and
involving common problems, which we are not the first to
grapple with, but rather seem destined to be the last to solve.
As is usually the case in controversies, the chief obstacle
to agreement is a lack of what the lawyers call a meeting
of minds. The two sides are not talking about the same
thing. The reformer has one idea of what spelling is; the
public has another idea, which is so different that it robs
the reformer's arguments of nearly all their force. The
two ideas for which the same word is used are hardly more
alike than mother of pearl and mother of vinegar. To the
['45]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
philologist spelling is the application of an alphabet to the
words of a language, and an alphabet is merely a system
of visible signs adapted to translate to the eye the sounds
which make up the speech of the people. To the public
spelling is part and parcel of the English language, and to
tamper with it is to lay violent hands on the sacred ark of
English literature. To the philologist an alphabet is not
a thing in itself, but only a medium, and he knows many
alphabets of all degrees of excellence. Among the latest
formed is that which we use and call the Roman, but which,
though it was taken from Italy, made its way back after
a course of form development that carried it through Ire-
land, England, and Germany. This alphabet was originally
designed for writing Latin, and, as English has more sounds
than Latin, some of the symbols when applied to English
have to do multiple duty; though this is the least of the
complaints against our current spelling. In fact any in-
ventive student of phonetics could in half an hour devise
a better alphabet for English, and scores have been devised.
But the Roman has the field, and no one dreams of advocat-
ing a new alphabet for popular use. Meanwhile, though the
earliest English may have been written in Runic, and the
Bibles which our Pilgrim fathers brought over were printed
in Black-letter, still to the great English-reading public the
alphabet of current books and papers is the only alphabet.
Even this is a double alphabet, consisting as it does of capitals
and small letters; and we have besides Italic, Black-letter, and
Script, all in common use, all with double forms, and all differ-
ing greatly from one another. At best the Roman alphabet,
though beautiful and practical, is not so beautiful as the Greek
nor nearly so efficient for representing English sounds as the
Cherokee syllabary invented by the half-breed, Sequoyah, is
for representing the sounds of his mother tongue.
[i46]
ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM
Let us now turn from the alphabet, which is the founda-
tion of spelling, to spelling itself. Given a scientific alphabet,
spelling, as a problem, vanishes; for there is only one possi-
ble spelling for any spoken word, and only one possible
pronunciation for any written word. Both are perfectly
easy, for there is no choice, and no one who knows the
alphabet can make a mistake in either. But given a tradi-
tional alphabet encumbered with outgrown or impracticable
or blundering associations, and spelling may become so
difficult as to serve for a test or hallmark of scholarship.
In French, for instance, the alphabet has drifted so far
from its moorings that no one on hearing a new word
spoken, if it contains certain sounds, can be sure of its
spelling; though every one on seeing a new word written
knows how to pronounce it. But in English our alphabet
has actually parted the cable which held it to speech, and
we know neither how to write a new word when we hear
it nor how to pronounce one when we see it. Strangest of
all, we have come, in our English insularity, to look on
this as a matter of course. But Germans and Spaniards,
Italians and Dutchmen, have no such difficulty and never
have to turn to the dictionary to find out how to spell a
word that they hear or how to pronounce a word that they
see. For them spelling and speech are identical ; all they
have to make sure of is the standard pronunciation. They
have done what we have neglected to do developed the
alphabet into an accurate phonetic instrument, and our
neglect is costing us, throughout the English-speaking
world, merely in dealing with silent letters, the incredible
sum of a hundred million dollars a year. 1 Our neighbors
1 See "Simplified Spelling in Writing and Printing; a Publisher's Point of View,"
by Henry Holt, LL.D., New York, 1906. About one half the expense falls within the
domain of printing.
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
look after the alphabet and the spelling looks after itself;
if the pronunciation changes, the spelling changes auto-
matically, and thus keeps itself always up to date.
But this happy result has not been brought about with-
out effort, the same kind of effort that our reformers are
now making for our benefit. In Swedish books printed
only a hundred years ago we find words printed with the
letters th in combination, like the word them, which had
the same meaning, and originally the same pronunciation,
as the English word. At that time, however, Swedes had
long ceased to be able to pronounce the th, but they kept
the letters just as we still keep the gh in brought and
through, though for centuries no one who speaks only
standard English has been able to sound this guttural. In
the last century the Swedes reformed their spelling, and
they now write the word as they pronounce it dem.
German spelling has passed through several stages of re-
form in recent decades and is now almost perfectly phonetic.
Germans now write Brot and no longer Brod or Brodt.
It must be frankly confessed that the derivation of some
words is not so obvious to the eye as formerly. The ap-
pearance of the Swedish byra does not at once suggest the
French bureau, which it exactly reproduces in sound. But
Europeans think it more practical, if they cannot indicate
both pronunciation and etymology in spelling, to relegate
the less important to the dictionary. Much, to be sure, has
been made of the assumed necessity of preserving the pedi-
gree of our words in their spelling, but in many cases this
is not done now. Who thinks of alms and eleemosynary
as coming from the same Greek word? Scholars say that
a complete phonetic spelling of English would actually
restore to the eye as much etymology as it took away.
But the most deep-seated opposition to changing our cur-
[,48]
ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM
rent spelling arises from its association, almost identifica-
tion, with English literature. If this objection were valid
it would be final, for literature is the highest use of lan-
guage, and if reformed spelling means the loss of our
literature we should be foolish to submit to it. But at what
point in the history of English literature would reformed
spelling begin to work harm? Hardly before Shakespeare,
for the spelling of Chaucer belongs to the grammatical
stage of the language at which he wrote, and Spenser's
spelling is more or less an imitation of it made with a
literary purpose. Shakespeare and Milton, however, wrote
substantially modern English, and they are therefore at
the mercy of the spelling reformer as they always have
been. The truth is, Shakespeare's writings have been re-
spelt by every generation that has reprinted them, and the
modern spelling reformer would leave them at least as near
to Shakespeare's spelling as our current spelling is. The
poet himself made fun of his contemporaries who said del
instead of debt, but what would he say of us who continue
to write the word debt, though it has not been so pro-
nounced for three hundred years? In old editions (and
how fast editions grow old!) antiquated spelling is no ob-
jection, it is rather an attraction; but new, popular editions
of the classics will be issued in contemporary spelling so
long as the preservation of metre and rhyme permit. We
still occasionally turn to the first folio of Shakespeare and
to the original editions of Milton's poems to enjoy their
antique flavor, and, in the latter case, to commune not
only with a great poet, but also with a vigorous spelling
reformer. Thus, whatever changes come over our spelling,
standard old editions will continue to be prized and new
editions to be in demand. But for the most part, though
we might not readily understand the actual speech of
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
Shakespeare and Milton, could we hear it, we like to treat
them as contemporaries and read their works in our
everyday spelling.
Our libraries, under spelling reform, will become anti-
quated, but only a little faster than they are now doing
and always have done. Readers who care for a book over
ten years old are few in number and will not mind anti-
quated spelling in the future any more than they do now.
The printer, therefore, must not flatter himself with the
prospect of a speedy reprinting of all the English classics
in the new spelling. English is certain to have some
day as scientific a spelling as German, but the change will
be spread over decades and will be too gradual to affect
business appreciably. On the other hand, he need not
fear any loss to himself in the public's gain of the annual
hundred million dollar tax which it now pays for the luxury
of superfluous letters. Our printer's bills in the future
will be as large as at present, but we shall get more for
our money.
It will indeed be to the English race a strange world in
which the spelling book ends with the alphabet; in which
there is no conflict of standards except as regards pronun-
ciation; in which two years of a child's school life are
rescued from the needless and applied to the useful; in
which the stenographer has to learn not two systems of
spelling, but only two alphabets; in which the simplicity
and directness of the English language, which fit it to be-
come a world language, will not be defeated by a spelling
that equals the difficulty of German grammar; in which
the blundering of Dutch printers, like school, false ety-
mologies, like rhyme, and French garnishes, as in tongue,
no longer make the judicious grieve ; and in which the fatal
gift of bad spelling, which often accompanies genius, will
[i5o]
ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM
no longer be dependent upon the printer to hide its ortho-
graphic nakedness from a public which, if it cannot always
spell correctly itself, can always be trusted to detect and
ridicule bad spelling. But it is a world which the English
race will some day have, and which we may begin to have
here and now if we will.
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE
HAT searching analyst of the soul, Edgar
Allan Poe, found among the springs of
human nature the quality of perverseness,
the disposition to do wrong because it is
wrong; in reality, however, Poe's Imp
of the Perverse is active far beyond the
boundaries of the human soul; his disturbances pervade
the whole world, and nowhere are they more noticeable
than in the printing office. This is so because elsewhere,
when things fall out contrary to rule, the result may often
be neutral or even advantageous ; but in the printing office
all deviations, or all but a minute fraction, are wrong.
They are also conspicuous, for, though the standard is
nothing less than perfection, the ordinary human eye is able
to apply the standard. These tricks of the malicious imp
are commonly called " misprints," "printer's errors,"
"errors of the press," or, more impartially, "errata" or
"corrigenda." In the first three names there is a tinge of
unfairness, because the printer is by no means responsible
for all the mistakes that appear in type. The author is
usually partly to blame and may be chiefly; yet when he
suffers a lapse of memory or knowledge, he usually passes
it off as a "printer's error." Sometimes the author's hand-
writing may mislead the printer, but when so good a bibli-
cal scholar as Mr. Gladstone wrote of Daniel in the fiery
furnace, there was no possibility that the single name could
have stood in his manuscript for the names of the three men
[i5 2 ]
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE
whose trial is mentioned in the book of Daniel. Even here
the submission of proof fixes the final responsibility on the
author. But, quite apart from the responsibility for them,
the mistakes embalmed in type are among the most inter-
esting of all literary curiosities.
Misprints to use the handiest term range in impor-
tance from the innocent and obvious, like a turned a, and
the innocent and obvious only to the expert, like a turned
s, to a turned n, which may be mistaken for a a, or the
change or omission of a punctuation mark, which may in-
volve claims to thousands of dollars. Even the separation
of one word into two may reverse the meaning of the
sentence, yet not betray itself by any oddity of phrase, as
when the atheist who had asserted that "God is nowhere"
found himself in print standing sponsor for the statement
that "God is now here." The same trick of the types was
played on an American political writer in his own paper
regarding his pet reform, which he meant to assert was
"nowhere in existence." The earliest printed books were
intended to be undistinguishable from manuscripts, but oc-
casionally a turned letter betrayed them absolutely. In the
same way the modern newspaper now and then introduces
an unintentional advertisement of the linotype by present-
ing to its readers a line upside down. Another trick is the
mixing of two paragraphs, which sometimes occurs even in
books. The most famous instance of this blunder is prob-
ably that which happened in the English "Men of the
Time" for i856, and which led to a serious lawsuit against
the publishers. The printer had iriixed the biographies of
the Bishop of Oxford and Robert Owen the Socialist in
such a way that Bishop Wilberforce was called "a sceptic
as it regards religious revelation." The mistake occurred
in locking up the forms. Doubtless both biographies had
t'53]
THE BOOKLOYER AND HIS BOOKS
been approved by their subjects, but apparently no proof
was read after the fatal telescoping of the two articles.
The last instance is an example of the patient waiting as
much as the ingenuity of the Imp of the Perverse, but in
pure ingenuity he is without a rival in mere human inven-
tiveness. It certainly was a resourceful Frenchman who
translated "hit or miss" as "frappe ou mademoiselle,"
and it was inspired ignorance on the part of a student
assistant in a college library who listed * * Sur 1' Administra-
tion de M. Necker, par Lui Meme" under "Meme, Lui,"
as if it were the name of the author of the book instead of
being the French for "himself." But the Imp of the Per-
verse aims higher than this. He did not hesitate in an
edition of the Bible published in London in 1681 to leave
the not out of the one commandment from which its ab-
sence would be the most noticeable. This was much worse
than leaving out the whole commandment, for it trans-
formed a moral prohibition into an immoral command.
The printer in this case was fined three hundred pounds,
or five hundred dollars for each letter omitted. It is curious
that the same omission was made in an edition of the Bible
printed at Halle. A Vermont paper, in an obituary notice
of a man who had originally come from Hull, Mass., was
made by the types to state that "the body was taken to
Hell, where the rest of the family are buried." In the first
English Bible printed in Ireland, "Sin no more" appears
as "Sin on more." It was, however, a deliberate joke of
some Oxford students which changed the wording in the
marriage service from "live" to "like," so that a couple
married out of this book are required to live together only
so long as they "both shall like." An orator who spoke of
"our grand mother church" was made to say "our grand-
mother church." The public of Brown University was
[i54]
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE
recently greatly amused by a local misprint. The presi-
dent of the university is required by its ancient charter to
be an " antipaedobaptist " ; the types reproduced the word
as "antipseudobaptist," a word which would be a very
good Greek rendering of "hardshell/' An express train at
full speed having struck a cow, the report was made to say
that it * ' cut her into calves." Sixty years ago the * * London
Globe" made the Registrar General say that the city was
suffering from a high rate of morality. The ingenuity of our
readers will supply the missing letter, as it also will the
the true reading of the following passage which appeared
in an English newspaper : ' ' Sir Robert Peel has been out
with a party of fiends shooting peasants." It was an easy
but astonishing blunder made in German, in the substitu-
tion of * * Madchen" (girls) for ' * Machten " (powers), accord-
ing to which Bismarck was asserted to be " trying to keep
up honest and straightforward relations with all the girls."
The Imp of the Perverse, when he descends upon the
printing office, sometimes becomes the Imp of the Per-
verted. Here his achievements will not bear reproducing.
Suffice it to say that in point of indecency he displays the
same superhuman ingenuity as in his more innocent pranks.
His indecencies are all, indeed, in print, but fortunately
scattered, and it would be a groveling nature that should
seek to collect them; yet the absence of this chapter from
the world's book of humor means the omission of a comic
strain that neither Aristophanes nor Rabelais has surpassed.
Even as I write, a newspaper misprint assures me that type-
setting machines are no protection against the Imp of the
Perverted. Perhaps we may be pardoned the reproduction
of one of the mildest of these naughtinesses. A French
woman novelist had written: "To know truly what love
is, we must go out of ourselves" (sortir de soi). The addi-
[,55]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
tion of a single letter transformed this eminently respectable
sentiment into the feline confession: "To know truly what
love is , we must go out nights ' ' (sortir de soir) .
Sometimes the Blunder Sprite deliberately pits himself
against author, proof reader, and all their allies. The books
printed by Aldus are famous for their correctness, yet a few
errors crept into them, so much to the disgust of the great
printer that he said he would gladly have given a gold crown
for each one to be rid of them. The famous Oxford Uni-
versity Press is said to have posted up the first sheet of one
of its Bibles, with the offer of a guinea for every misprint
that could be found in it. None was found until the book
was printed. James Lenox, the American collector, prided
himself on the correctness of his reprint of the autograph
manuscript of "Washington's Farewell Address," which
he had acquired. On showing the book to Henry Stevens,
the bookseller, the latter, glancing at a page, inquired,
"Why papar instead of paper?" Mr. Lenox was over-
whelmed with mortification; but Stevens sent for a skill-
ful bookbinder, who removed the objectionable a and with
a camel's hair pencil substituted an e for it, so that the
demon was conquered after all, but only through great
trouble. How would it seem possible to reissue a printed
book, copy it exactly, and yet make an atrocious blunder?
The Type Spirit is equal to even this feat. The book was
a mathematical one, full of formulae. It was not repro-
duced page for page, so it was perfectly easy for a signa-
ture mark to get printed and appear in the middle of a
page mixed up with an equation, to the confusion of
American mathematical scholarship. More tragic were the
misprints in a work by the Italian poet, Guidi, which are
said to have hastened his death. In an interesting volume
by Henry B. Wheatley on "Literary Blunders," the Tricksy
[i56]
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE
Puck of the Press has revenged himself on the author for
his attacks by smuggling in a number of misprints, among
them one that he must have inspired in the mind of the
author, the spelling "Bride of Lammermuir," which has
no warrant in Scott's novel itself. In the same book is a
reference to Shakespeare that diligent search fails to verify.
Thus no knowledge or skill avails against the Kobold of
the Case. The most baffling device of the imp is to cause
a new error in the process of correcting an old one. This
residuary misprint is one against which there is no complete
protection. When General Pillow returned from Mexico
he was hailed by a Southern editor as a "battle-scarred
veteran." The next day the veteran called upon him to
demand an apology for the epithet actually printed, * ' battle-
scared." What was the horror of the editor, on the follow-
ing day, to see the expression reappear in his apology as
"bottle-scarred"!
Occasionally, however, the mischief maker takes a notion
to improve the copy set before him The world will never
know how often this has happened, for authors are just as
willing to take credit for excellencies not their own as to
lay on the printer the blame for their own oversights. In
one of Artemus Ward's articles he had spoken of a starving
prisoner as appealing for something to eat. The proof
rendered it something to read. The humorist accepted the
substitution as an additional absurdity. The French poet,
Malherbe, once welcomed a misprint as an improvement on
what he had written. There can be no doubt that, had there
been no misprints in Shakespeare's quartos and folios, half
the occupation of Shakespeare scholarship would have been
lacking. Sometimes the original manuscript turns up
unfortunately not in Shakespeare's case to confute some or
all of the ingenious editors. A learned professor changed
[i5 7 ]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
the word "unbodied" in Shelley's "Skylark" to "em-
bodied," and some critics approved the change; but the
poet's manuscript in the Harvard University Library makes
the former reading clear beyond question. One might say
that in these cases the Imp of the Perverse plants himself
like a fatal microbe in the brain of the unfortunate editor.
When that brilliant work, "The Principles of Success in
Literature," by George Henry Lewes, appeared in the ' ' Fort-
nightly Review," the expression "tilt stones from a cart"
(used to describe careless writing) was printed with / as the
first letter. When the chapters were reissued in America,
the proofreader, warned by the presence of numerous other
gross misprints, naturally corrected the meaningless "lilt"
to the obvious and natural "tilt." This change at first
escaped the attention of the American editor, who in the
second edition insisted on restoring the original misprint
and even defended his misjudgment in a note. It is worth
adding that the Oxford English Dictionary takes the mis-
print as too obvious for comment and quotes the passage
under "tilt."
The most daring feat of the typographic Angel of the
Odd to adopt another of Poe's expressions is the crea-
tion of what Professor Skeat called "ghost words," that is,
words that seem to exist but do not. A misprint in Scott's
"Monastery" of "morse" for "nurse" was accepted with-
out question by readers and gravely explained by scholars.
Some of these words, of which there are scores, are due to
the misreading of crabbed manuscripts, but not a few have
originated in the printing office. It must be remembered
that they make their way into the dictionaries. For another
instance let the reader open Worcester's Dictionary to the
word phantomnation. He will see it defined as "illusion"
and referred to Pope. In Webster's Dictionary, however,
[i58]
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE
he will learn its true character, as a ghost word formed by
running together the two words phantom nation.
The printing of poetry involves all the possible mistakes
liable to prose and, owing to the form of poetry, some new
ones. Thus in Pickering's Aldine edition of Milton, two
words of one line in "Samson Agonistes" are dropped
down into the next, making the two lines of uneven length
and very much hurting the emphasis. The three-volume
reprint of this edition dutifully copies the misprint. In
the Standard edition of Dr. Holmes's "Works" printed at
the Riverside Press, in the unusual case of a poem in stanzas
being broken up into a dialogue, the end of one speech,
carried over to the following page, has been assigned to
the next speaker, thus spoiling both the sense and the
metre. The most extraordinary instance that has ever come
under my eye occurs in a special edition of John Hay's
"Poems," issued as a college prize volume and very ele-
gantly printed at a well-known press. One poem has dis-
appeared entirely except a single stanza, which has been
attached to another poem with which it has no connection,
not even agreeing with it in metre.
The list of errata, the printer's public confession of fault, is
rather rare in modern books, but this is due as much to the
indifference of the public as to better proofreading. When
Edwin Arnold's " Light of Asia" took the reading world
by storm, a New York reprint was issued, which we com-
mend to anyone looking for classical examples of misprinted
books. It averages perhaps a gross misprint to every page.
Possibly extreme haste to beat the Boston edition in the
market may have suggested dispensing with the proofreader.
Of course a publisher who could so betray his customers
would never offer them even the partial amends of a list
of errata. Sometimes the errors are picked up while the
['59]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
book is still in press, and in that case the list of errata can
be printed as an extension of the text; sometimes the best
that can be done is to print it on a separate slip or sheet
and either insert it in the book or supply it to purchasers.
Both these things happened in the case of that early Ameri-
can book, Mather's "Magnalia." The loose list of errata
was printed on the two inner pages of one fold the size of
the book. In the two hundred years that have elapsed,
most of these folded sheets have been lost, with the finan-
cial result that a copy of the book with them will bring
twice as much as one without them, these two leaves
weighing as much in the scales of commerce as the other
four hundred. Sometimes a misprint establishes the prior-
ity of a copy, the error having been silently corrected while
the sheets were going through the press, and thus adds to
its value in the eyes of the collector. The extent of these
ancient lists of errata staggers belief. Cardinal Bellarmin
was obliged to issue an octavo volume of eighty-eight pages
to correct the misprints in his published works, and there
is on record a still huger list of errata, extending to one
hundred and eleven quarto pages.
But we must not suppose that misprints began with the
invention of printing. The name did, but not the thing
named. In earlier times it was the copyist who made the
mistakes and bore the blame. It is easy to see how in
Greece and Rome, when one reader read aloud a book
which perhaps a hundred copyists reproduced, a great
number of errors might creep into the copies, and how
many of these would result from confusion in hearing.
Every copy was then an edition by itself and a possible
source of error, calling therefore for its own proofreading.
It is accordingly no wonder that the straightening out of
classic texts is still going on. Had Chaucer, who wrote
[160]
THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE
over a hundred years before printing was introduced into
England, been able to read once for all the proof of his
poems, he would not have had to write that feeling address
to his copyist, or scrivener, with which we may fitly take
leave of our subject.
Adam scryveyne, if ever it thee byfalle,
Boece or Troy his for to wry ten nuwe,
Under thy long lokkes thowe most have the scalle,
But afilter my makyng thowe wryte more truwe ;
So offt a daye I mot thy werk renuwe.
It to cored, and eke to rubbe and scrape,
And al is thorugh thy necglygence and rape.
[161]
A SECRET OF PERSONAL POWER
REATER efficiency is the watchword of the
hour. The pages of every technical and
even educational magazine bristle with
it. One is driven to wonder whether the
principle does not require that in every
printing office the word "efficiency" be
stereotyped to save the cost of setting. We are told how
one manager of a creamery saved annually the amount of
his own salary to the company by having the dents in the
supply cans pounded out and so getting more milk from
the farmers. But though the lengths to which the insist-
ence on efficiency is carried may sometimes provoke a
smile, we have no inclination to disparage it; we realize
that efficiency has far more than a mere money value to
society; it is rather our purpose in the present paper to
ask whether the efficiency man has ever thought to turn
his searchlight in upon himself and discover whether he
has not latent and unexpected powers that may be evoked
to the great increase of his own efficiency.
We have nothing historically new to offer, though the
principle we are to mention is practically unknown or at
least unutilized. It is the great, controlling principle of
Forethought, the application of which is far wider than
thought itself, extending to all the functions of the soul
and even affecting bodily energy and health. The action
of Forethought is based on the fact that there is more to
ourselves than we are aware of. We are not ordinarily
[r6a]
A SECRET OF PERSONAL POWER
conscious of our past lives, for instance, yet a supreme
crisis, such as falling from a height, may make a man's
whole past in an instant flash before him in review. Under
sudden stress a man may develop powers of leadership or
resolution that nobody could have foreseen and that he
himself cannot account for. Our selves as we know them
are, so to speak, only the top soil of our entire natures.
Every conscious personality is like a farm in an oil district.
It is underlain by an unrealized wealth that may never be
brought to light. Some accident may reveal the treasure,
but if the owner suspects its existence he may bore for it.
To show how this boring may be done is one of the pur-
poses of the present paper. But let us first assure ourselves
further of the existence of this hidden fund of energy.
If in the early fifties of the last century a vote had been
taken on the two men in America who ten years later would
stand head and shoulders above their countrymen in posi-
tion and recognized ability, it is probable that not one
single vote would have been cast for a slouchy Missouri
farmer or a shabby Illinois lawyer, certainly not for the
former. Grant and Lincoln themselves would not have
expected a vote. Yet their powers existed then, unrealized
by their owners, and only needing the proper stimulus to
bring them out. That stimulus was responsibility; and,
great as their achievements were under this stimulus, neither
man appears to have reached his limit; each apparently
had still a fund of reserve power to be expended on yet
greater occasions had they arisen. This is not to say that
all men have an equal fund of unrecognized ability. The
experiences of the great struggle out of which Lincoln and
Grant came supreme are alone sufficient to show how un-
equal are men's endowments. A McGlellan proves himself
an unsurpassed organizer, but no fighter; a Burnside dis-
[i63J
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
plays marked ability in leading fifteen or twenty thousand
men, but beyond this number he fails disastrously. Neither
Foresight nor any other device can create ability. A gallon
can will hold only a gallon, no matter how carefully its
sides are rounded. But in the case of any given man no
one knows his capacity until he has had a chance to show
it. His nature may hold only a pint, or, as with the men
who have mastered great occasions with still unexhausted
powers, it may seem like the horn which the god Thor
tried to drain but could not, for its base was connected
with the ocean itself. Not every man can hope to be called
to a responsibility that shall bring out his latent powers;
most of us, if we are ever to get the call, will first have to
show the ability.
How can a man tap the unknown resources, be they
great or small, of his unconscious self? The method here
to be suggested has at least the merit of great simplicity.
I have called it Forethought; it might perhaps as exactly
be called Forewilling. The point is that this unconscious
part of a man's nature is not out of his control; he can
send word to it and direct it, even if he has to do so by
a kind of wireless telegraphy. However mysterious this
may sound, there is nothing mystical about it, neither is it
something vague and indefinite, but a practice to be applied
to actual cases in hand. Suppose a business man is trying
to get an important contract, and is to have an interview
on the morrow that will decide the question. Let him,
before he falls asleep at night, go over the whole ground
in his mind, set before himself clearly the thing to be
done with the particular difficulties to be met, and let
him will himself to meet those difficulties, to carry his
case. Let him will that at that time he shall be cheerful
and vigorous ; and, having given these instructions to his
[i64]
A SECRET OF PERSONAL POWER
unconscious self which has perhaps heen waiting years
for just this chance to do its part in the common endeavor
let him dismiss the whole matter from his conscious
thought and go to sleep. On awaking in the morning let
him review the matter and again dismiss it from his mind
until the occasion arrives. If he will do this faithfully, he
may not succeed the first time in carrying his point, but
he will certainly feel a great increase of power, and ulti-
mately, if he persists in making his unconscious self an
active partner in his life, he will find himself far more
successful than he could have been while depending on
a single side of his nature. The same principle will hold,
of course, in a myriad cases; if we have to-morrow, or
even at a later date, to plead a cause, to make an after-
dinner speech, to write a report or an article, to learn a
lesson, to entertain guests, to handle a difficult case of dis-
cipline, we have only to take this counsel of our pillow, to
reenforce it with our first morning thought, and we shall
find ourselves making a new record of success.
It is obvious that a principle so effective cannot be limited
to the active or the intellectual life. If a man has a fault
or a besetting weakness or sin, here is a way out of it.
How long will a bad habit stand such an assault upon
itself as the evening and morning practice of Forethought?
One will actually feel the new force within him, like a gyro-
scopic stabilizer, holding him to his predetermined course.
There is literally a world of hope for mankind in the ap-
plication of this principle on its moral side. But the busi-
ness of our article is with other applications and we must
dismiss this, the greatest of all, with a mere mention.
If anyone questions whether this principle is true or not,
the best answer will be to bid him test it. Though it be
true universally, some people may not easily apply it, and
['65]
THE BOOKLOVER AND HIS BOOKS
some may not have the patience to subject themselves to
such a discipline. But most will have no difficulty, and
many will succeed well enough to inspire themselves to
continue. Some, indeed, will say, and with perfect truth,
that there is nothing new in this doctrine, that they have
long known and applied it. The principle has doubtless
been known for thousands of years, but it has certainly
not been widely taken up by our race, which is curiously
external in its notions of self-education and self-control.
One American writer, the late Charles Godfrey Leland, a
man of the most varied powers and accomplishments, has
written in advocacy of it and gives us as his own experience
that after the age of seventy he was able to do a greater
amount of literary work, and with less fatigue, than ever
before simply by calling in the aid of his unconscious self.
If one were to read the lives and writings of eminent men
with this principle of Forethought in mind, one would find
numberless instances of its more or less unconscious prac-
tice. The best scholar in my own class, for instance, ap-
plied it to his studies. Does anyone suppose that the old
Puritan's sweetening of his mind with a little Calvin before
he went to bed was without its effect on his devotion to
Calvinism? Erasmus, the wittiest of scholars, writing
nearly four hundred years ago to his special friend, Chris-
tian of Lubeck, recommends the practice both of the even-
ing instruction and the morning review as something that
he himself has followed from his childhood; and we can-
not doubt that in it he reveals one of the secrets of his
world-wide influence. He says to his youthful friend: "A
little before you go to sleep read something choice and
worth remembering, and think it over until you fall
asleep. When you awake in the morning make yourself
give an account of it." Though this is clearly an applica-
[166]
A SECRET OF PERSONAL POWER
tion of the principle to study and the strengthening of the
memory, experiment will show that the potency of Fore-
thought is not limited to the memory or the intellect in
general, but applies to man's entire nature and equally to
the least and the greatest of its concerns.
[,6 7 ]
INDEX
INDEX
ABILITY, cannot be created, i64.
Accents, their help in reading poetry, 17, 18.
Aeschylus, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 67.
Aldine edition of the British Poets, by Pickering, 28, a 4-
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, his "Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book," 87, 88.
Aldus, Alduses and Elzevirs contrasted, 28; beauty in his work, 4; bindings of, 100;
his characteristic book, 21; his example followed by the Elzevirs, 22; his italic type
and its effect on the size and price of books, 20, ai; Pickering and other followers
of, 28, 24; vexed by misprints, 166.
Alphabet, Chinese, picture writing, 80, 81; derivation from picture writing, 81; sci-
entific and actual, 147; varieties in use, i46. See a Iso Type.
American Journal of Psychology, contains Sanford's study on " The relative legibility
of the small letters," 122.
Arnold, Edwin, misprints in his "Light of Asia," 169.
Art, art aspect of the book, 3, 49, n5; shares the prehistoric background of the book,
79, 80.
Artists not opposed to criticism, 62.
Assyrian clay tablet, 4-
Astor Library, size in 1876, io4-
Audubon, John James, his elephant-folio " Birds of America," 55.
Authors, reading by single authors and groups, 74-76; spoilers of books, 4o.
Authorship, rules of, 44-
BABYLONIAN book, 82.
Back numbers, unimportant contemporary works become, 77.
' Background of the book," 79-86.
Bacon, Francis, Lord, quoted, 106, 112.
Baird, John Wallace, directs Clark University studies on legibility, 124.
Ballads, Old English, Hazlitt on, i42.
Balzac, Honore de, expanded his novels in proof, i5.
Balzac, Jean Louis Guez de, acknowledged his indebtedness to the Elzevirs, 22.
Bamboo, source of Chinese paper, 85.
Barlow, Joel, place of his " Golumbiad " in modern printing, 10.
Bartlett, John, quoted, 128.
Baskerville, John, his smooth paper, 5.
Beauty, see Esthetics.
Beecher, Henry Ward, his "Norwood" in three volumes, 12; John Beattie Crozier on
his sermons, in.
INDEX
Beethoven, his Ninth Symphony as a product of genius, 65.
Bellarmin, Cardinal, list of errata in his works, 160.
Best books, need of provision for daily reading, 107. See also Books.
Bible, Hazlitt on its poetry, ii; influence on Bunyan, on Galhoun, no; misprints
in, 1 54, 1 56; various folio editions, 19.
Bible of humanity, Socrates in, 68.
Bigness, in books, 35, 36, 45, 47-
Binder, a spoiler of books, 4o, 4a; what the librarian asks of him, 48.
Binding, as an element of the book, 6; "The clothing of a book," 97-101; of the
book beautiful, 52-55; of the Chinese book, 88, 89; of the well-made book, 5a;
"Parchment bindings," 102, io3; unnecessary rebindings, 46.
Bion, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 68.
Birch bark, used for book of India, 85.
Bismarck, misprint concerning, i55.
Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, tribute to Shakespeare, no.
Blue and Gold editions, a favorite book size, 24-26.
Bodoni, Giambattista, his type commended, 58, 129, i3o.
Book, "The background of the book," 79-86; "blown" books, 35; "The book beau-
tiful," 49-62; "The book of to-day and the book of to-morrow," 33-37; Chinese,
84, 85, 87-91; "The clothing of a book," 97-101; a constructive critic of the,
38-43; elementsof, 4-6; "Fitness in book design," 9~i3; its structural contradic-
tion, 52; materials, 92; of the future, 95, 96; on its physical side an art object,
3; pre-Columbian Mexican, 6; printed, a "substitute" for manuscript, 4; subject
to laws of esthetics and economics, n5; tests of its utility, n5; well-made, not ex-
tremely costly, 7, not identical with beautiful, 52; worth writing three times, 44.
See also Design; Size.
Book buyers, how to educate, 87; spoilers of books, 4o, 42.
Booklovers, "Books and booklovers," 3-8; must first know books, 7; service in im-
provement of books, 48, 61, 62.
Book production, io5; elements added by printing, i4-
Books, as a librarian would like them, 44-48; "Books and booklovers," 3-8; the
greatest, few, 66; intellectual riffraff, 9; learning to love, 7; " Lest we forget the
few great books," io4-n4; perishable, 34, 45, 46; progress in legibility of, i32,
i33; small, commended by Dr. Johnson, 20; "The student and the library," iSg-
i44; that are not books, io5, 106; world's annual publication of, io5.
Books of Hours, dainty volumes, 20.
Boston Athenaeum Library, size in 1875, io4.
Boston Public Library, Address in, 3, footnote; size in 1875, io4-
Brandes, Georg, his "Shakespeare: a critical study," 72.
Brass, used for book of India, 85.
British Poets, rival editions of, by Pickering and by Little and Brown, 23, 24.
Brown, Horatio Robert Forbes, on Aldus and his italic type, 20.
Brown, John Carter, patron of Henry Stevens, 38.
Brown University, misprint in quoting its charter, i54, i55.
Browne, Charles Farrar, adopts a misprint, 167.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, her "Wine of Cyprus" quoted, 67, 68.
[ '73 ]
INDEX
Buchanan, George, his Latin poems, commended hy Dr. Johnson, 28; published by the
Elzevirs, 28.
Bulk, in books, 92-96.
Bunyan, John, debt to the Bible, no.
Burma, book of, see India.
Burns, Robert, Hazlitt on, i^a.
Burnside, General Ambrose Everett, his limitations, 168, i64-
Burton, Sir Richard, his "Kasidah" in Mosher's tribute typography, 187.
Bury, Richard de, author of the "Philobiblon," 8.
Byron, Lord, hated Horace, 68.
VjAESURA, indication of, in print, 18.
Calhoun, John G aid well, reader of the Bible, no.
Calligraphy, see Manuscript.
Calvin, John, as a Puritan's spiritual nightcap, 166.
Cambridge University, student groups in, 189.
Capital letters, legibility, 121, 122, 126; Roman in origin, 118; Roman, superior to
black-letter in combination, 67; undersized, used by Aldus, 21.
Carlyle, Thomas, on Goethe, no; rewrote his books in proof, i5.
Caslon type, commended, 58, 117.
Catchwords, usage of Aldus, 2 1 .
Cattell, James McKeen, his investigations of legibility, 121, 122.
Cave men, pictures made by them, 79, 80.
Centaur type, commended, 182.
Century Dictionary, illustration of cerastes, 81; a triumph of typography, 16, i35.
Century types, commended, 127, 182.
Cervantes, "Don Quixote," character and meaning of, 70, 71, no final edition of, n,
on reading, i43, i44, translations of, i43, i44; his character, 70; later novelists
indebted to, i43.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, complaint of his scribe's errors, 160, 161; Hazlitt on, 142; his
spelling, i4g.
Cheapness, see Cost.
Cheltenham type, commended, 182.
Cherokee syllabary, i46.
Children, increase of near sight among, 120; legibility of books for, 5, 117.
Chinese, alphabet, conventionalized picture writing, 80, 81; book, 84, 85, 87-91.
Chiswick Press, 38, footnote; Pickering's books printed at, 4i.
Christian of Lubeck, letter of Erasmus to, quoted, 166.
Cicero, did not write for children, 68.
Clark University, studies on legibility, 124-127, 182.
Classroom, not equal to a good book, i4o.
Clay tablet, and booklovers, 4; described, 82.
Clodd, Edward, on discovery of British prehistoric antiquities, 79.
Cloister Oldstyle type, commended, 182; a safe norm for poetry, 58.
Cloth, used in binding, 53.
INDEX
Clothing of a book," 97-101.
Codex, Roman, form adopted for parchment books, 84; original of modern book form,
19, 62, 90.
Collins, Wilkie, tribute to "Robinson Crusoe," no.
Color, use of, 60.
Columbian type, first used in Barlow's "Columbiad," 10.
Columns, in wide pages, 47-
Community, value of reading to the, 28, 29.
Compactness and legibility, 117, 180, 181, i34, i35.
Compositor, a spoiler of books, 4o, 4i-
"Constructive critic of the book," 38-43.
Consumers, see Book buyers.
Contemporary writers, on reading their works, 76, 77.
Contrast of type, 16, 17.
Copperplate printing, in connection with typography, 60.
Cornell University Library, proof-sheets of the "Waverley Novels" in, i5.
Corrigenda, 162-161; lists of, 169, 160.
Cost, the book of to-morrow will be cheaper, 36; cheapened books, 45; of beautiful
books little more than of unsightly, 89; relatively small, of well-made books, 7.
Cowper, William, Hazlitt on, i42.
Crabbe, George, a favorite edition of, 24-
Criticism, "A constructive critic of the book," 38-43; not opposed by artists, 62.
Crozier, John Beattie, on reading, in, 112.
Culture cannot be vicarious, i4o.
DANA, JOHN COTTON, his analysis of the elements of the book, 4.
Dante, his "Divine Comedy," character of, 69, 70, i44; "fly's-eye" edition of, 55;
Hazlitt on, i4i; privilege of reading, 64; Professor Torrey on reading, 109.
Decoration, in bindings, 6, 99-101; use of color in, 60.
Defoe, Daniel, tribute of Wilkie Collins to "Robinson Crusoe," no.
Democratization of learning, by the cheap books of Aldus, 21.
De Morgan, William, quoted, 63, 72; value of his novels, 77.
De Quincey, Thomas, on possible amount of reading in a lifetime, io5.
Design, "Fitness in book design," 9~i3; of type, 5, 117, 118.
Diagonal of page, 67.
Dickens, Charles, his works in illegible print, i3o, on Oxford India paper, 94, on thick
paper, 96; on reading him, i43.
Dickinson, Emily, quoted, 3o, 3i.
Didot, Ambrose Firmin, his "microscopic" type, i3i.
Discovery of a great book, 108, 109.
Distinctions, to the eye, in manuscript and print, 16-18.
Don Quixote, see Cervantes.
Dordogne, France, its prehistoric pictures, 79, 80.
Dowden, Edward, his "Shakspere: his mind and art," 72.
Dry den, John, Hazlitt on, i42.
INDEX
ECONOMICS, the book within the domain of, u5, 116.
Edges, treatment of, 61.
Edison, Thomas Alva, would substitute nickel for paper, 92, footnote.
Editions de luxe, disapproved by Henry Stevens, 89.
Education, in appreciation of beautiful books, 5o; of book buyers, 87.
Efficiency, in modern life, 162; of the book, u5.
Egyptian, book, see Papyrus; hieroglyphics, picture writing, 81.
Elements of the book, 4-6.
Elimination, test of, applied to reading, 63, 64-
Eliot, Charles William, his Latin signature, 102, 108.
Elzevirs, compared with Aldines, 28, with Blue and Gold editions, 25; described, 21-
28.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his life and works, 76, 76; importance of his works, 112;
John Beattie Crozier on, 112; quoted, i44-
Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its two sizes of type, i35.
English, alphabets, 117, 118; book publication in 1918, io5; books, criticised, 38-
43; literature as aflected by reformed spelling, 149; poets, Ha/lilt's Lectures on,
i4i, i42; romancers, of the i8th century, i43; spelling, i45-i5i.
Engravings, see Illustrations.
Erasmus, Desiderius, letter to Christian of Lubeck, quoted, 166.
Errata, 162-161; lists of, 169, 160.
Errors of the press, 1 5 2-161.
Essays, in a favorite book size, 24-
Esthetics, beauty in typography, 186-188; "The book beautiful," 49-62; the book
subject to the laws of, u5; harmony between beauty and use in type design, 182;
in choice of type, 127, 181; involves sacrifice of utility, 116; its demands must be
met in a favorite book, 24, met by the Little Classic editions, 26; of the book, 3,
9; printer's duty to, 18; relation of thickness and thinness to, 28, 24; sacrificed to
legibility, 117.
Etymology in spelling, i48.
Eumenes II, originates parchment, 83, 84-
Euripides, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 68.
Everyman's Library, in a favorite book size, 24-
Eves, binders, their work, 100.
"Exceptions to the rule of legibility," i34-i38, 180, 181.
Expression in typography, 9-18, 187, 188.
Eyes, see Sight.
r , the letter, origin and derivatives, 81.
Fairy Queen, see Spenser, Edmund.
"Favorite book sizes," 19-27.
Favorite literature, in appropriate typography, 187.
Fielding, Henry, a favorite edition of, 24; on reading him, i43; an unattractive edi-
tion of, 12.
Fields, Annie Adams, her "Beacon Biography" of Hawthorne, 76.
INDEX
Finishing, see Binding.
Fitness, between illustrations and type, 6; in book design, 9-18; in typography, 187,
i38.
Fitzgerald, Edward, at Cambridge University, 189.
Forethought, " A secret of personal power, " 162-167.
Forewiiling, "A secret of personal power," 162-167.
Format, see Size.
Forwarding, see Binding.
Franklin, Benjamin, quoted, 35, 128.
French, alphabet, i475 hook publication in 1918, io5; type, faults of, 117, 120, 128.
Frowde, Henry, publishes "The Periodical" in form of a Chinese book, 88, 90.
GrALILEO, acknowledged his indebtedness to the Elzevirs, 22.
Garfield, James Abram, recommends reading of fiction, 107.
Gems, in bindings, 6.
Genius, its bad spelling, i5o, 161; its monuments in the various arts, 65.
German, book publication in 1918, io5; spelling reform, 147, i48, i5o; tribute typog-
raphy, 187; type, faults of, 117, 122, 128.
Ghost words, i58, i5g.
Gilding, see Binding; Edges.
Gladstone, William Ewart, a literary blunder of, i52, i53.
Goethe, Carlyle on, no; his greatness, 78; John Beattie Crozier on, 112; on Sir
Walter Scott, 1 10.
Goffered edges, 61.
Goudy, Frederic W., his Kennerley type commended, 182.
Grace before reading, 77.
Grammar of book manufacture, 4o, 42.
Grant, Ulysses Simpson, his coat of arms, 3o; his greatness brought out by responsi-
bility, 1 63.
Gray, Thomas, small bulk of his work. 69.
"Great books, Lest we forget the few," io4-n4.
Greek literature, masterpieces of, 66-68.
Greeks, surpassed by moderns in knowledge, 3o.
Green, John Richard, quoted, 5o.
Grolier, Jean, bindings made for, 100.
Groups, reading authors by, 74, 75.
Guide, in reading, i4o-i42; none to love of books, 7.
Guidi, Carlo Alessandro, killed by misprints, i56.
HABIT, and forethought, i65.
Haggard, Bider, his "Mr. Meeson's Will," 86.
Hallam, Arthur Henry, at Cambridge University, 189.
Handwriting, see Manuscript.
Harte, Francis Bret, on reading his works, i43.
[176 ]
INDEX
Harvard University, course in printing, 43; Library possesses manuscript of Shelley's
"Skylark," i58; size of Library in 1876, io4-
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on reading him, 74, 75.
Hay, John, his reading in college, 189; a remarkable misprint in his "Poems," i5g.
Hazlitt, William, as a guide in reading, i4i, i4a; Lamb and Stevenson on, i4i.
Headlines, Henry D. Lloyd on, 182.
"Hibbert Journal," bulkiness of, g5.
Hieroglyphics, see Picture writing.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, his life of Longfellow, 76.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, the Blue and Gold edition of his " Poems," a4, 26; his life of
Emerson, 76; member of New England group of authors, 76; a misprint in his
"Works," i5g; quoted, 24, 80, 102, 106.
Holt, Henry, on simplified spelling, 147, footnote.
Homer, did not write for children, 68; Hazlitt on, i4i; his works, 64, 66, 67; Keats's
sonnet on, 108, 109; not out of date, 77; why his works are divided into books, 83.
Horace, hated by Byron, 68; his works, 69; in Bodoni's 1791 edition, 129, 180; more
modern than the Puritans, 69, than Dante, 70.
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, publish books resembling Chinese, 87, 88.
Hours, books of, dainty volumes, 2O.
House of Representatives Library, size in 1878, io4-
Hudson, Henry Norman, his edition of Shakespeare, 71, 72.
Huey, Edmund Burke, his "Psychology and pedagogy of reading," commended, 124.
Hull, Mass., as misprinted, i54-
Humanistic type, see New Humanistic.
Hunt, Leigh, his characterization of the "Divine Comedy," 70.
1, the letter, discussions regarding its dot, 61.
"Idler," a favorite edition of, 24-
Illumination, 5i; indication of initials for, 21.
Illustration, as a feature of the book, 6; of the book beautiful, 60.
"Imitatio Christi," in Updike's specimen pages, 186.
Incunabula, relatively cheap, 49-
Indecency in misprints, i55, i56.
Indenting, as affecting the book beautiful, 69.
"Independent," compactly printed, 96.
India, book of, 85, 86.
Individual, value of reading to, 29-82.
Initials, colored, 60; spacing and mitering of, 5g.
Ink, best for the eye, 116. 120; blue, for legibility, 5; an element of the book, 5;
maker, a spoiler of books, 4o, 4a.
Interpretative typography, 9-18, 187, 188.
" Interpreter of meaning, Print as an," i4~i8.
Invention, in book production, 33, 34-
Irving, Washington, book design in editions of his "Knickerbocker," 10, n; unfor-
tunate use of his " Sketch Book" as a school book, 68, 69.
INDEX
Italic type, invention and use by Aldus, 20, 21.
Italy, annual book publication, io5.
JAPAN, annual book publication, io5.
Javal, Dr. Emile, his investigations of legibility, 120, lai, 128.
Jenson, Nicholas, beauty and grandeur in his work, 4; descendants of his types, 182;
facsimile page of, frontispiece.
Johnson, Rossiter, his Little Classic editions described, 25, 26.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, commends small books, 20, 22, 28; a favorite edition of his
Idler," 24; his "Prayers" in tribute typography, 186; on our knowledge of
ancient Britain, 79.
Josephus, Flavius, book form inappropriate to, 5o.
Justification, requirements of, 58, 69.
Justinian, facsimile page of his " Digestum novum," frontispiece.
K.EATS, JOHN, folio inappropriate to, 5o; inappropriate Forman edition of, n; "On
first looking into Chapman's Homer," 108, 109; small bulk of his work, 69.
Kelmscott Press, see Morris, William.
Kennerley type, commended, 182.
Kipling, Rudyard, on reading him, i43.
"Knickerbocker," Irving's, book design in editions of, 10, n.
Knowledge, necessary to success in life, 3o; obtainable in its fulness only through
books, 3o; progress possible only in, 29, 3o.
Kuran, sources from which it was compiled, 86.
LAMB, CHARLES, on grace before reading, 77; on Hazlitt, i4i.
Large-paper copies, condemned, 56, i3i.
Latin literature, masterpieces of, 68, 69.
Leadership developed under stress, 168.
Leading, as affecting legibility, 120; as affecting spacing, 58, 5g.
Leather, employment in binding, 52-54.
Le Gascon, binder, his work, 100.
Legend, of pictures, proper place of, 60.
Legibility, elements of the book as related to, 116-118; "Exceptions to the rule of
legibility," i34-i38, i3o, 181; influence on, of paper, type, and ink, 5; "Types
and eyes: The problem," 120-127, "Progress," 128-188.
Leland, Charles Godfrey, on forethought, 166.
Length of line, 117.
Lenox, James, mortified by a misprint, i56; patron of Henry Stevens, 38; " Recollec-
tions of," by Stevens, 38, footnote.
Le Sage, Alain Rene, his "Gil Bias," i43.
"Lest we forget the few great books," io4-n4-
Letters, see Capital letters; Manuscript; Minuscules; Silent letters; Type.
Lewes, George Henry, a misprint in one of his works, i58.
[ '78]
INDEX
Librarians, "Books as a librarian would like them," 44-48; a duty to their succes-
sors, 108; meeting of British, in 1882, 38.
Libraries, as affected by spelling reform, i5o; development in the United States since
1876, io4; electrical batteries of power, 3o; put to needless expense for big books,
36, for rebindings, 46; "The student and the library," i3g-i44-
Library Company of Philadelphia, size of library in 1876, io4-
Library hand, Bodoni's italic resembles, i3o.
Library of Congress, size in 1876, io4.
Lightness, in books, deceptive, g3, 94.
Lincoln, Abraham, his greatness brought by responsibility, i63.
Lincoln cent, lettering on, i34.
Line, endings should not show too many hyphens, 5g; normal length for legibility,
117.
Linnaeus, quoted, 33.
Linotype, gives a turned line, i53.
Literature, the book beautiful of service to, 62; its treasures, 63-78; print a contribu-
tion to, i5; type appropriate to, i36-i38.
Little and Brown, publishers, their "British Poets" compared with Pickering's "Al-
dines," 24-
Little Classic editions, 20, a5, 26.
Littre, Emile, typography of his " Dictionnaire," i35.
Lloyd, Henry Demarest, on headlines, quoted, i32.
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, inappropriate edition of his "My Confidences," 12.
London Registrar General, misprint, i55.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, book design appropriate to his "Works," u; his
"Michael Angelo," 87; his sonnets on Dante, 70; holiday edition of his "Skeleton
in Armor," 187; "Life," appropriate edition of, 12; quoted, 68.
Lowell, James Russell, member of New England group of authors, 76.
MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, knew "Paradise Lost" by heart, 7 3.
McClellan, General George Brinton, his limitations, i63.
Malherbe, Frangois, welcomes a misprint, 167.
Mammoth, picture of, a prehistoric book, 79.
Manuscript, chief difference from print, i4; distinctions in, 16; importance to book-
making, 5i; limitations of, 16; Ruskin on, 5i; still used in private records, i5.
See also Papyrus; Parchment.
Margin, size and proportions of, 56, 67.
Marriage service, misprint in, i54
Material of the book, changed twice in two thousand years, 92.
Materials of writing, 86.
Mather, Cotton, list of errata in his "Magnalia," 160.
Mathews, William, as an author, 63; his memory of choice passages, 63; on reading
ten pages a day, 108.
Maxim, Sir Hiram, quoted, 92.
"Meaning, Print as an interpreter of," i4-i8.
[ 179 ]
INDEX
Mearne, Samuel, binder, 100.
Memory, Erasmus on art of strengthening, 166, 167; value of a well-stored, 63.
"Men of the Time," famous misprint in, i53, i54-
Menage, Gilles, acknowledged his indebtedness to the Elzevirs, 22.
Mexican book, pre-Columbian, ornamented, 6; described, 85, 86; picture writing of,
81.
Michelangelo, his " Moses" as a product of genius, 65.
Milton, John, debt of Daniel Webster to, no; gave metric hints by spelling, 18; Haz-
litton, i4a; his greatness, 72, 78; his spelling, 1^9, i5o; Lamb would say grace
before reading, 77; a misprint in "Samson Agonistes," i5g; on the deprivation
caused by his blindness, 63, 64; a spelling reformer, 1^9.
Minuscules, legibility, 122-124, 126; of late origin, 118.
Misprints, "The perversities of type," i52-i6i.
Montaigne, "Journal of his travels," in three volumes, 12.
Morgan, Lloyd, cited, 87.
Morris, William, as printer, 33, 34; confesses faults of ignorance in book making, 5o;
his Kelmscott editions, " tribute typography," 137; on shape of dot of i, 61; on
types, 5, 129, i3o.
Mosher, Thomas Bird, his "tribute typography," 137.
Motteux, Peter Anthony, his translation of "Don Quixote," i44.
Moulton, Charles Wells, "Library of Literary Criticism," its attractive book design, i3.
NAMES, place of, in development of the alphabet, 81.
Near sight, 120, i3o.
Necker, Jacques, student's blunder concerning, i54-
New England, its communities of readers, 28, 29; its group of authors, 76, 76.
New Humanistic type, commended, i38; special form of a, 123.
New York Mercantile Library, size in 1875, io4.
Newspapers, extraordinary development of speed and cheapness in i4; legibility, 5,
117, 182, i33; opponents of spelling reform, i45; place in reading, 106.
Newton, Sir Isaac, quoted, i44-
Nickel, as a substitute for paper, 92, footnote.
Novels, in a favorite book size, 24; in illegible type, i3o; on reading, 107; three-
volume, 12; typical book of to-day, 35.
"Nuremberg Chronicle," a characteristic folio, 19.
OCULIST'S tests of legibility, 120.
Ormsby, John, his translation of "Don Quixote," i44-
Ornamentation, in bindings, 6, 53, 100, 101; in type, 121.
"Orthographic reform," i45-i5i.
Ossian, Hazlitt on, i4i.
Owen, Robert, a famous misprint concerning, i53.
"Oxford Book of English Verse," thin-paper edition preferred, gS.
"Oxford English Dictionary," corrects a misprint, i58; its typography, i35.
[ 180]
INDEX
Oxford India paper, 92, 94, 96; miniature editions on, i3i, i3a.
Oxford students cause a misprint in the marriage service, i54.
Oxford University Press, reward for misprints, i56.
PAGE, proportions of, 4, 4a, 56-67.
Palm leaves, used for book of India, 85.
Pannartz and Sweynheym, grandeur in their work, 4-
Paper, best for the eye, 116, 120; buff tinted, for legibility, 5, 6; determines the expres-
sion of the book, 4, 5; introduced into Europe, 84; of the book beautiful, 54;
of the Chinese book, 88-90; "Thick paper and thin," 92-96; three elements of, 5.
Papermaker, a spoiler of books, 4o, 4a.
Papyrus roll, and booklovers, 4; described, 8a-84.
Parchment, origin, 83, 84; " Parchment bindings," 102, io3; parchment book and
booklovers, 4.
Payne, Roger, binder, 100.
Peacock, Thomas Love, his novels in thick and thin paper, 94, 96.
Peel, Sir Robert, misprint concerning, i55.
Penmanship, see Manuscript.
Pergamum, origin of parchment in, 83, 84-
"Periodical, The," resembles a Chinese book, 88, 90.
"Personal power, A secret of," 162-167.
"Perversities of type," 162-161.
Philadelphia Mercantile Library, size in 1876, io4.
" Philobiblon, " by Richard de Bury, significance of the title, 8.
Photogravures, in connection with type, 6.
Pickering, William, a disciple of Aldus, 23; his characteristic books, 23, 24, compared
with Little and Brown's "British Poets," 24, their predecessors, contemporaries,
and successors, 24; his "diamond classics" on large paper, i3i, 182; method of
book design, 4i; publisher, 38.
Picture writing, 80, 81.
Pictures, earliest books were, 79-81. See also Illustrations.
Pillow, General Gideon Johnson, misprints concerning, 167.
Pindar, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 68.
Plato, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 68; contributor to Bible of humanity, 68;
riches of, 68.
Pocket editions, 22, 23.
Poe, Edgar Allan, quoted, 28, 162, 168; small bulk of his poetry, 69.
Poetry, Hazlitt on, i4i, i42; print as an interpreter of its meaning, 17, 18; type
appropriate to, 187, i38.
Pope, Alexander, a ghost word referred to him, 168, 169; Hazlitt on, i42.
Possessions, distinguished from Property, 3i, 32.
"Power, A secret of personal," 162-167.
Powers of leadership developed under stress, i63.
Pre-Columbian book, see Mexican.
Prehistoric background of the book, 79-81.
INDEX
Press, errors of, 1 5 2-161.
Pressman, a spoiler of books, 4o-4a.
Presswork, requirements of, 58.
Prices, as affected by italic, 20, by the small books of the Elzevirs, 22; fancy, what
they mean, 7; of choice books compared with those of other art objects, 9; of
choice books not excessive, 7.
"Print as an interpreter of meaning," i4-i8. See also Typography.
Printer, as affected by spelling reform, i5o; a spoiler of books, 4o, 4i; what the libra-
rian asks of him, 47, 48.
Printer's errors, i52-i6i.
Printing, added only speed and cheapness to book production, i4; distinctions to the
eye in, 16-18; of Chinese books, 88; "Printing problems for science to solve,'*
nS-iig; would be benefited by contemporary calligraphy, 5i. See also Typog-
raphy.
Privilege of the reader, 68-78.
"Problems, Printing, for science to solve," nb-ng.
Progress, possible only in the field of knowledge, 29, 3o.
Proof, authors' additions in, i5.
Proofreader, requirements of, 58; a spoiler of books, 4o, 4i.
Property, distinguished from Possessions, 3i, 82.
Proportions of the page, 4, 4a, 55-57.
Prosody, see Poetry.
Public, value of reading to the, 28, 29.
Publication of books for 1918, io5.
Publisher, librarian's grievance against the, 45-4?; a spoiler of books, 4o, 4i-
Punctuation, and legibility, 121; in poetry, 17-18.
Puritans, less modern than Horace, 69; a Puritan's devotion to Calvin, 166; Shake-
speare best reading for, 72.
Putnam, George Haven, on the Elzevirs, 22.
RAPID reading, i4-i7-
Rare books, relatively cheap, 49.
Readable print, see Legibility.
"Reader's high privilege," 68-78.
Reading, aid of print to, i4, 17; amount possible in a lifetime, io5; Erasmus on art
of, 1 66; John Beattie Crozieron, 111,112; " Lest we forget the few great books,"
io4-n4; means intellectual effort, 74; of contemporaries, 76, 77; results of ten
pages a day, 108; "The student and the library," 189-144; systematic, 74-76;
true end and aim of, 78; value, to the public and to the individual, 28-82; when
travelling, 22, 28.
Reading aloud, print as an aid to, 17, 18.
Rebindings, costly, unnecessary, 46.
Rebus, place in development of alphabet, 81.
Reference books, i35; effective typography of, 16, 17.
Reformed spelling, i45-i5i.
INDEX
Registration, requirements of, 5g.
Rembrandt, his drawing of the elephant, 80; his "School of Anatomy," as a product
of genius, 65.
Reprinting of perishable records, 46.
Responsibility, a stimulus to greatness, i63.
44 Respublicae Variae," published by the Elzevirs, described, 22, 28.
44 Rhetoricorum ad G. Herennium Libri IIII," the Aldus edition of i546 described, 21.
Roethlein, Barbara Elizabeth, on "The relative legibility of different faces of printing
types," 124-127.
Rogers, Bruce, his Centaur type commended, 182.
Roll, see Papyrus.
Roman alphabet, see Alphabet.
Roman codex, see Codex.
Roman literature, masterpieces of, 68, 69.
Romance literatures, i44*
Romans, surpassed by moderns in knowledge, 3o.
Royal octavo, pitfall of the book designer, 12, i3.
Ruskin, John, editions of his works contrasted, i3; on manuscript books, 5i; on read-
ing Sir Walter Scott, 109.
Russia, annual book publication, io5; illiterate communities of, 28, 29.
SANBORN, FRANKLIN BENJAMIN, his "Beacon Biography" of Longfellow, 7 5.
Sanford, Edmund Clark, on "The relative legibility of the small letters," 122-124.
Scaliger, Julius Caesar, his learning, 106.
Schiller, cited, 62.
School books, misfortune of treating classics as such, 68, 69; type in, 5, 117.
School children, increase of near sight among, 120.
School of typography, proposed by Henry Stevens, 4o-43.
Science, "Printing problems for science to solve," iiS-iig.
Scott, Sir Walter, alterations in the proof-sheets of his "Waverley Novels," i5; a
ghost word in his "Monastery," i58; Goethe on, no; Ruskin on, 109.
" Secret of personal power," 162-167.
Sequoyah, his Cherokee syllabary, i46.
Serifs, necessary to prevent irradiation, 128; source of confusion in types, 128, 124.
Shakespeare, William, "Hamlet" preferred in youth, in; Hazlitt on, i42; his
"Apocrypha," on thin paper, 96; his character and greatness, 70-78; Lamb would
say grace before reading, 77; "Lear" preferred in old age, in; misprints in his
works, 167; privilege of reading, 64, 71, 72; quoted, 9, 54; reading, 77; the
spelling of his works, i4g, i5o; tribute of Blackmore to, no.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, an editor's error in his "Skylark," 167, i58; inappropriate
Forman edition of, 11; read by young men, III.
Shelton, Thomas, his translation of "Don Quixote," i44-
Sight, relation of the elements of the book to, 5, 6, 116-119; "Types and eyes: The
problem," 120-127, "Progress," 128-188.
Sign language, 80.
INDEX
Silent letters, cost to English world, 1^7.
Size, determines expression of the book, 4; " Favorite book sizes," 19-27; of books
preferred by librarian, 7; of letters and legibility, i34, i35; question of an ideal
size of type, 117; standardization of book sizes, 26, 27. See also Bigness; Thick-
ness; Thinness.
Skeat, Walter William, on ghost words, i58.
Smirke, Robert, illustrator of Barlow's "Columbiad," 10.
Smollett, Tobias George, on reading him, i43.
Society of Printers, address under its auspices, 3, note.
Socrates, in a Bible of humanity, 68.
Sophocles, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 67, 68.
Southey, Robert, a favorite edition of, 24-
Spacing, between words, 121; of letters in words, 120.
Spain, illiterate communities of, 28, 29.
Spanish, language, i44; spelling, 147.
Spectacles, a measure of civilization, 120.
Spedding, James, at Cambridge University, i3g.
Spelling, Milton gave metric hints by, 18; "Orthographic reform," i45-i5i.
Spenser, Edmund, Hazlitt on, i4a; his spelling, 149; Lamb would say grace before
reading the "Fairy Queen," 77; Milton's spiritual kinship to, 72.
Standardization of book sizes, 26, 27.
Sterne, Laurence, a favorite edition of, 24.
Stevens, Henry, "A constructive critic of the book," 38-43; detects a misprint, 166;
his "My English library," 3g; his "Recollections of Mr. James Lenox," 38, foot-
note.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, on Hazlitt, i4i.
Stoddard, Richard Henry, on Cervantes and Shakespeare, 70.
Storage of books, see Bigness, Thickness, Thinness.
Strassburg Cathedral, as a product of genius, 65.
"Student, The, and the Library," 189-1 44-
Study, art of, 166, 167.
Success, won by knowledge, 3o.
Swedish spelling, i48.
Sweynheym and Pannartz, grandeur in their work, 4-
TASTE, see Esthetics.
Tauchnitz editions, compared with Little Classic editions, 26.
Tennyson, Alfred, and his brothers at Cambridge University, i3g; inappropriate edi-
tion of his "Life," n; a novel reader, 107.
Tests, of the utility of the book, n5; of type, 120-127.
Thackeray, William Makepeace, at Cambridge University, i39; on reading him, i43;
quoted, n; works in illegible print, i3o.
Theocritus, as characterized by Mrs. Browning, 68.
Thickness, in books, esthetic effect of, 23, 25; "Thick paper and thin," 92-96.
Thinness, in books, esthetic effect of, 23; "Thick paper and thin," 92-96.
Thompson, Francis, indicated caesura by an asterisk, 18.
INDEX
Thomson, James, Hazlitt on, i4a.
Thoreau, Henry David, member of the New England group of authors, 75, 76.
Thou, Jacques Auguste de, binding made for, 100.
Title-page, problems of, 69.
Torrey, Joseph, on reading Dante, 109, no.
Translations of "Don Quixote," i43, i44-
Tribute typography, 9-18, 186, 187.
Type, aims in its design, 5, 117, 118; Chinese, 80; contrast of, 16, 17; "Exceptions
to the rule of legibility," i35-i38, i3o, i3i; faults of German and French, 117;
in relation to the book beautiful, 67-59, 61; page, 56, 67; "Perversities of type,"
i5a-i6i; reform of, 118; "Types and eyes: The problem," 120-127, "Prog-
ress," i28-i33. See also Italic; Page.
Typewriting, a form of print, i5.
Typography, primarily a reduction of cost, n5; school of, proposed by Henry Stevens,
4o-43; tribute typography, 9-18, 186, 187; a triumph of, 16. See also Print.
UNITED STATES, annual book publication, io5; library development since 1878,
io4.
Updike, Daniel Berkeley, his comic edition of Irving's "Knickerbocker," 10, n; his
specimen pages of the " Imitatio Christi," 186.
'* VALUE of reading, to the public and to the individual," 28-82.
Values, two great classes, 81, 82.
Vergil, Dante's master, 69; did not write for children, 68; his Aeneid, 69; scanty
punctuation in earliest manuscript of, 17.
Verse, see Poetry.
Vision, see Sight.
WARD, ARTEMUS, pseudonym, adopts a misprint, 167.
Webster, Daniel, debt to Milton, no.
Webster, Noah, his "Collegiate Dictionary" on thin paper preferred, g5; his "Un-
abridged Dictionary" on large paper, 181.
Wendell, Barrett, on Barlow's "Columbiad," 10.
Wheatley, Henry Benjamin, on "Literary blunders," i56, 167.
Whitman, Walt, on the world's greatest books, ii3, ii4-
Whittier, John Greenleaf, member of New England group of authors, 78.
Whittingham, Charles, method of book design, 4i; printer, 38.
"Who spoils our new English books?" by Henry Stevens, 38.
Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, a famous misprint concerning, i53, i54.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, on favorite books, 3.
Wordsworth, William, a favorite edition of, 24; read by old men, in.
World Almanac, commended, 180, 181.
Writing, see Authorship; Manuscript; Materials.
, contributor to a Bible of humanity, 68; did not write for children, 68.
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The booklover and his
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