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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 richness 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 skillful 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 emphasize 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 forsakes 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 treatments; it may bear the material either of the outer
covering or of the pages within. So it may display, for instance, 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 esthetic advance in papermaking since the earliest days in
that they are not all dead white. Some of the books of the first age of
pr