Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/691

Rh several crafts to the one common end of the book beautiful, and the binder is in the unfortunate position of coming last, to inherit all, and be helpless under, the mistakes of his predecessors the paper-maker, printer, and publisher.

Modern binding may be divided into two main divisions: 1. Bindings for use. 2. Bindings for beauty's sake. I do not say that the divisions can be precisely defined or that the useful may not be beautiful, or that the beautiful may not be useful. I mean only that of a certain class the utility of the binding is the main characteristic, and that of a certain other class not the utility of the binding but the beauty of the decoration is the prominent and delightful feature. All bindings may be, and most bindings are, decorated in some form or other, but I would deprecate the decoration in gold of cloth or paper bindings; the material is too poor and the kind of binding is unsuitable for elaborate invention. Decoration should be reserved for cases in which a permanent pleasure is aimed at, and decoration in all its affluence exclusively for bindings of the best kind, and for books that are in themselves, apart from their apparel, beautiful and worthy of conspicuous honor.

The binding of a book, to come closer to our subject, is a series of processes too numerous to be entered upon in detail, in so short an account of bookbinding as the present, but the main operations are as follows:

 1. The sheets are folded so that the headlines of each page shall, if possible, be at a uniform height throughout the book. 2. The sections are then sewn to cords, set and held at equal distances from one another in a frame, and at right angles to the sections. 3. The ends of the cords are frayed out and laced into and fastened to rectangular pieces of millboard (called boards), cut to the size of the sides of the book, which they protect. 4. The boards and back are then covered with leather or other suitable material, and the last and first sheets of the book (added to the book proper for the purpose) are pasted down upon the inside of the boards.

The book so treated is completely “forwarded,” as it is called, and ready to pass into the hands of the “finisher” to be tooled or decorated, or “finished.” The decoration in gold on the surface of a bound book is wrought out bit by bit by means of small engraved brass stamps called “tools.” The steps of the process are shortly as follows:

 1. The pattern is first worked out with the tools blackened in the smoke of a candle or lamp, upon a piece of paper cut to the exact size of the portion of the book to be decorated. 2. The piece of paper with the pattern upon it is then applied