which the other would fall, tooth and nail, as if he would eat them up. "I whispered to one of the attendants as he was about to leave the room, and found that these strange persons were chiefly authors, in the very act of constructing books." Irving goes on to say that he fell asleep and had a queer dream. Somehow the books had turned into clothing of all kinds and descriptions, and where the authors had sat at long tables, there was a lean and ragged crowd. Soon they were exchanging their tattered garments for the splendid but oldfashioned ones into which the books had turned. But, strangely enough, no person took a whole suit of one kind; but fitted himself out with a sleeve from one, a cape from another, a skirt from a third. Suddenly there was a cry of "Thieves! thieves!" The old authors were coming down from their frames, with fury in their eyes, to claim their property. What a hubbub and scampering there was! The whole scene was so funny that the dreamer burst into laughter and woke up. Let us return to our question, where do the thoughts come from? They come in part from other books, from all the thoughts stored up by the world for hundreds of years; partly they come from the mind-labor of the author himself. How many nights has he lain awake, thinking? Sometimes he has thinking? been unhappy, so unhappy! In this unhappiness, thoughts have come to him, and he speaks them for the comfort of all those others in the world who have suffered as he has suffered. And, strange as it may seem, sometimes when he is most unhappy he thinks such funny thoughts, that, when he tells them to us through the printed page, we laugh very heartily. But The thought, the author, the writing-in these we have one half of the making of a book, and the most important half. in the publisher, the artist or engraver, the printer, and the reader, we have the other half, which is only less important. The reader is important, because if there were no readers, the publishers would make no books, the authors would keep their thoughts to themselves, and the printers would have to work at some other trade. But let us glance for a moment at the work of the printer. Can you tell how many hundred thousand separate types the typesetter took from his case with his fingers, one at a time, when this book was made? There is a type for every letter and every punctuation mark, and in a book like the Bible there are millions. Even if the type is set by machines, as it sometimes is in these modern times, an operator must strike a key for every separate letter and punctuation mark. But oceans are made of drops of water and mountains of little grains of sand! Illustration by pictures is another most interesting part of book-making. The artist or designer sometimes draws these pictures from pictures which are in his mind. Sometimes he copies them in part from other pictures. At other times illustrations are made from photographs. By the use of much skill, gained by long and patient effort, the engraver or the electrotyper prepares the plates from which the pictures are printed. Yet type and illustrations alone will not make a book. Printing-presses are needed — printing-presses that are ideas in iron and steel. Is it not a wonderful machine that, in some cases, will print on both sides and fold ninety-six thousand eight-page newspapers complete in a single hour? Only a few hundred years ago books were not made in this way. There were no types and no printing-presses. Every book had to be copied by hand by men and women, who printed each letter with a pen and ink. As you may imagine, there were few books in those days; and, in fact, there were very few people who could have read them, even if there had been more books. But if there were in olden times few books, there were no fewer thoughts. So it happens that to-day authors often gather their thoughts from ancient books, as Irving saw them doing at the British Museum. Books moulder and decay; but thoughts live forever. We should love good books because they give us noble thoughts. SHERWIN CODY. ON MAY MORNING. Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. |