inting still present to the eye very nearly the blackest 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 darkening 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 character, will be
stiff and hard.

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 medieval 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 proportions of the
book, as the living nautilus controls its inclosing 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 astonishingly 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