on 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 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 elements 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 element 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, especially
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 legibility 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