“What kind of work?” she asked.
“Along the same line,” Martin answered. He pulled an oilskin envelope from his pocket and carefully took out some papers. “I’m building a type design that I’ve worked on quite awhile. As an avocation I find a good deal of pleasure in it. Some of the letters got a little wet, but I think you can see what I’m trying to do.” He spread the papers out on a table and he and Deane bent over them. He pointed to one of the capital letters. “See, Deane?—The design is that of living forms—plant and animal. In the drawing, the bottom circles represent growth by cell structure in all life. By simply rolling up this series, beginning with the smallest cell, the face of the shell is seen, because that is the way shells grow—by rolling up themselves as they develop. Since the rate of development is normally the same, the flare of the sectors is constant.
“The black line of the drawing shows where the artist places the line for the letter stem, missing the center by half the radius. The blue line shows where the stem really should be placed. It looks much better that way. You will see that the straight line is intersected at an angle of about 100 degrees instead of the 90 degree angle.
“On the back of the drawing is seen how this measurement, ‘the square of root 2’ rule, is worked out for rectangular designs. The square root of 2 is 1.4141 etc.; its reciprocal, divided by 2, is .707 etc. That is, the strongest and most beautiful rectangle is 1.7 times as long as wide. Apply it to a book page. Width is determined mainly by size of type and number of columns per page. For a page 6 inches wide the length is 1.7 times 6 or 10.2 inches. This is the correct ‘golden’ or ‘sacred’ sector, used almost universally in the temples and sacred vessels. Textbooks give the page ratios 5 to 8 as the golden sector but it is not correct, neither is it so convenient or beautiful as the 6 to 10.2.
“The design is based on the soundest dimensional ratio known—‘dynamic symmetry.’ Many years were spent recovering this lost art, mainly in countries about the Eastern Mediterranean—Greece, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and so on. The findings were published in a beautiful volume[1] and it was there I got my information and inspiration to design a type face.
“It is a humiliating fact that no original type face has ever been designed in America. Our type designers have been modifiers of European types, adding what Mark Twain called ‘new and killing varieties.’”
Martin folded the papers and returned them to the oilskin envelope. He was absorbed by his subject and failed to notice Deane’s expression, or her flushed cheeks.
“I’m ashamed of myself, Martin,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize that you had such a definite structure running along with your life. Go on out now and try to get your job. And when you come back, I’ll have fixed our dinner.”
When she had tightly buttoned up his coat, he kissed her as a man would kiss his wife. She detained him for a second, ran into her bedroom and came out triumphantly waving a heavy muffler. After she had tied it properly around his throat, she threw her arms around him and sobbed quietly for just a moment. Then she shook the tears away in happiness, lifted her chin and gently pushed him through the door.
Martin, expressionless, with a steady tread, faced the sharp wind outside. He looked at the foot-prints on the thin film of snow that covered the sidewalks. He smiled. The passers-by could not tell whether his smile was that of a child, or of an idiot. He crossed the street.