THE BOOK BEAUTIFUL AS A WHOLE
FINALLY, if the Book Beautiful may be beautiful by virtue of its writing or printing or illustration, it may also be beautiful, be even more beautiful, by the union of all to the production of one composite whole, the consummate Book Beautiful. Here the idea to be communicated by the book comes first, as the thing of supreme importance. Then comes in attendance upon it, striving for the love of the idea to be itself beautiful, the written or printed page, the decorated or decorative letters, the pictures, set amid the text, and finally the binding, holding the whole in its strong grip and for very love again itself becoming beautiful because in company with the idea.
This is the supreme Book Beautiful or Ideal Book, a dream, a symbol of the infinitely beautiful in which all things of beauty rest and into which all things of beauty do ultimately merge.
ΒΆ The Book Beautiful, then, should be conceived of as a whole, & the self-assertion of any Art beyond the limits imposed by the conditions of its creation should be looked upon as an Act of Treason. The proper duty of each Art within such limits is to co-operate with all the other arts, similarly employed, in the production of something which is distinctly Not-Itself. The wholeness, symmetry, harmony, beauty without stress or strain, of the Book Beautiful, would then be one in principle with the wholeness, symmetry, harmony, and beauty without stress or strain, of that WHOLE OF LIFE WHICH IS CONSTITUTED OF OURSELVES & THE WORLD, THAT COMPLEX AND MARVELLOUS WHOLE WHICH, AMID THE STRIFE OF COMPETITIVE FORCES, SUPREMELY HOLDS ITS OWN, AND IN THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE WRITES, UPON THE ILLUMINED PAGES OF THE DAYS, THE VOLUMES OF THE CENTURIES, & THROUGH THE INFINITUDES OF TIME & SPACE MOVES RHYTHMICALLY ONWARD TO THE FULL DEVELOPMENT OF ITS ASTONISHING STORY THE TRUE ARCHETYPE OF ALL BOOKS BEAUTIFUL OR SUBLIME.
This Tract, written by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, was printed by him & Emery Walker at The Doves Press and finished Oct. 19, 1900. Compositor J. H. Mason. Pressman H. Gage-Cole. Sold at The Doves Press.