he determines its form and adornment, he doctors it in disease
and decay, and, not unseldom, dissects it after death.
Here, too, as through all Nature, we find the good and bad running
side by side. What a treat it is to handle a well-bound volume;
the leaves lie open fully and freely, as if tempting you to read on,
and you handle them without fear of their parting from the back.
To look at the "tooling," too, is a pleasure, for careful thought,
combined with artistic skill, is everywhere apparent. You open
the cover and find the same loving attention inside that has been
given to the outside, all the workmanship being true and thorough.
Indeed, so conservative is a good binding, that many a worthless
book has had an honoured old age, simply out of respect to its
outward aspect; and many a real treasure has come to a degraded end
and premature death through the unsightliness of its outward case
and the irreparable damage done to it in binding.

The weapon with which the binder deals the most deadly blows to books
is the "plough," the effect of which is to cut away the margins,
placing the print in a false position relatively to the back and head,
and often denuding the work of portions of the very text.
This reduction in size not seldom brings down a handsome folio
to the size of quarto, and a quarto to an octavo.

With the old hand plough a binder required more care and caution
to produce an even edge throughout than with the new cutting machine.
If a careless workman found that he had not ploughed the margin quite
square with the text, he would put it in his press and take off "another
shaving," and sometimes even a third.

Dante, in his "Inferno," deals out to the lost souls various tortures