I now realize as never before why it is that our busiest men of affairs, and scholars of renown, are actuated to serve so assiduously in this labor of love; for surely no amount of effort, however laborious, can be regarded as having been in any sense misguided or wasted when it elicits such approbation as expressed in the following letter from Charles A. Decker, Esq., a fellow member, of New York City:—
March 15th, 1904.
Mr. H. H. Harper, Treasurer,
The Bibliophile Society,
Colonial Building, Boston, Mass.
Dear Mr. Harper:—
My stock of superlatives is insufficient to adequately express my appreciation of "André's Journal." Keats must have had a psychic sense which enabled him to see the latest issue by our Society, and he had this in view when he wrote the opening line of Endymion. (Is n't "A thing of beauty," &c., the opening line?) Such books as the Council has planned are an education to bibliophiles; the work is progressive, for each issue is finer than the one which preceded it. Can any book be finer than "André's Journal"? If so, I can't conceive it. Such noble types, the pages so perfectly balanced; the margins so broad; the paper of such beautiful texture; the ink so brilliantly black; the maps so marvelously reproduced; the etchings so artistically conceived and executed and the title page so beautifully engraved; then the binding—real vellum—so rich, simple, and in such perfect taste; even the box-cover is fitting in every sense. A perfect book, it seems to me. If there are any shortcomings, and you know them, don't tell me of them, that in my ignorance I may be content.
Please thank all the members of the Council for me. Somebody must have spent many, many hours in arriving at a final judgment upon all the parts which make up such a beautiful whole.
I have yet to enjoy the pleasure of reading the "Journal," then I will be thankful to Mr. Bixby and to Senator Lodge.
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) Charles A. Decker.
Mr. Decker is one of the many pleasant and appreciative members of The Bibliophile Society whose personal acquaintance it has not been my good fortune to make, but from whom the Society has received many delightful and inspiring letters. The numerous communications thus received from all quarters have been placed before the Council, with the result that the individual interest of every worker has been greatly augmented in the Society's welfare. Indeed, I attribute no small measure of the success and the good name of the Society to the indirect influence of such words of encouragement and expressions of appreciation as have come from the members.
