Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/60

 caprice of individuals, and subject to the ravages of time and the ordinary accidents of circumstance. Happily, more and more of our books, of our permanent treasures, are being published. Can we not give a further appreciation of the value to the individual and the active life of our people of our books? Can we not, for instance, more and more encourage those who desire to place the great thoughts of the world, not on miserable paper with bad type and characterless binding without any illustration except, perhaps, an engraving or some thoroughly cheap and handy reproduction from a photograph, can we not in one way or another, either individually or collectively, encourage these beautiful arts, of printing well, of illustrating well, and of binding well. If individually we do this and encourage this, I believe we shall give an enormous impetus to one of the noblest forms of decorative art in Wales, and is it not high time that we should in this way treat the Mabinogion? These are racy of the soil of Wales, in one and all of these you feel as you read them, as you