Page:A Desk Book on the Etiquette of Social Stationary.djvu/84

 write upon. It may be too smooth. The pen slips so easily that it does not leave a continuous line.

Texture is best studied by examining a sheet held to the light. The minute fibres which compose the paper should be so evenly arranged or felted together that the paper is all of one consistency, not mottled or clouded. The art of successful paper-making demands a uniform sheet. And not only uniformity in a single sheet, but each sheet should be exactly like another in texture, finish and color, so that envelopes, for instance, shall match the paper that goes with them.

But color is one of the most important things in selecting paper, and especially when that color is the color which is really absence of color—in other words, white.

So many things pass as white that are not white, that few people realize what a real white is. Most whites have in them some color. They shade off toward yellow or blue.

The production of a writing paper that is