Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 136.djvu/821

 only when he felt his hand would naturally alter the design if he were writing the line instead of setting the type. The experiments required to perfect an ink that should successfully print on the oily parchment were not completed without disappointments and misgivings; the scrupulous care required in reading proofs, perfecting the spacing, was laborious and monotonous; the scrutinizing of the sheets as they came from the press was made happier when the success of the lapis-lazuli ink was assured.

The rewards came when Professor Norton gave the volume his unqualified approval—‘so interesting and original in its typography and in its illustrations, so admirable in its press-work, its paper, its binding, and its minor accessories, a noble and exemplary work of the printers’ art’; when George W. Jones, England’s greatest artist-printer, selected the humanistic type as ‘the most beautiful face in the world,’ and promised to use it in what he hopes to be his masterpiece, an edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets; when the jury appointed by the Italian Government to select ‘the most beautiful and most appropriate type-face to perpetuate the divine Dante’ chose the humanistic type and placed the important commission of producing the definitive edition of the great poet, to commemorate his sexcentennial, in the hands of that splendid printer, Bertieri, at Milan. Such rewards are not compliments, but justification. Such beauty as the humanistic type possesses lies in the artistic ability and the marvelous skill in execution of the scribes. My part was simply seizing the development of a period apparently over-looked, and undertaking the laborious task of translating a beautiful thing from one medium to another.

The Quest of the Perfect Book must necessarily lead the seeker into far varying roads, the greatest rewards being found in straying from the main street into the fascinating bypaths. My quest has resulted in giving me greater appreciation of the accomplishments of those who successfully withstood opposition and persecution in order to make the printed book a living vehicle to convey the gems of thought from great minds to the masses, never forgetful of the value of beauty in its outward aspect. I believe it possible to-day to perpetuate the basic principles of the early artist master-printers by applying beauty to low-cost books as well as to limited editions de luxe. The story of the printed book itself is greater than that contained between the covers of any single volume, for without it the history of the world would show the masses still plodding on swathed in theological and encyclopedic bonds, while the few would still jealously hoard their limited knowledge.