Pleasure and Knowledge, each with her offer of satisfaction and reward. The motto, Courage le diable est mort, is seen on the broad ribbon which is laid about the picture.
The plate of Adam Van Allen, of Albany, is copied from the plate of the brothers Goncourt, and represents the left hand with a pair of dividers held by the third and fourth fingers, while the first and second are placed upon a sheet of paper bearing the initials V A.
Several peculiar plates remain to be mentioned, which belong to no style, but are examples of the individual taste of the owners, which is now so marked a feature of book-plate designing. Not, as formerly, are we controlled as to the style which we shall adopt, but each book-lover can, without appearing eccentric, place whatever design he chooses within his book-covers.
The plate of the well-known litterateur, W. Irving Way, of Chicago, is simply a very small bit of paper with his initials in cipher upon it. The plate of Fred J. Libbie, of Boston, one of the largest collectors of plates, is a cryptogrammic arrangement of the letters forming his name.