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Far subtler, even at her years, than Aileen, Stephanie gathered a very good impression of the former, of her mental girth, and how to take her. She made friends with her, made a book-plate for her, made a sketch of her. She confided to Aileen that in her own mind she was destined for the stage, if her parents would permit; and Aileen invited her to see her husband's pictures on their return.
From the lonely perspective of a tiny coral isle, a system, or systems, codes of conduct, or morals, built up for the swarming millions, so to speak! could not but possess fascination for one to whom those millions had become only as the far-away shadows of a dream. You will find a few of those books, minus fly-leaf and book-plate, it shames me to say! still in my library, and "
This often saves time, as you may not want an edition of old date, or vice versa, while the place and date enable readers' tickets to be filled out quickly without the book. The name of the library might well be lettered also on the back, being more obvious as a permanent means of identification than the book-plate or inside stamp.
He is brought face to face with that enemy of his species, the borrower, and dares not speak with him in the gate. If he had a book-plate he would say, "Oh! certainly I will lend you this volume, if it has not my book-plate in it; of course, one makes a rule never to lend a book that has."
A book of George Washington's containing his book-plate has an added interest, though the plate itself is an armorial design, not at all well executed. Its motto is "exitus acta probat" the event justifies the deed. From its rarity and the high price it commands, it has probably been the only American book-plate ever counterfeited.
To have one's horizon bounded by a book-plate, to have no hope, no wish in life, beyond a first edition! The workers, however sectional, have some place in the text of the great book of life, but such mere testers and tasters of existence have hardly a place even in the gloss, though it be printed in the most microscopic diamond.
This is necessarily very much smaller than the book-plate: in fact, it should not be larger than three-quarters or seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and even smaller for the thinner volumes, while in the case of the very smallest, or thinnest of books, it becomes necessary to paste the labels on the side, instead of on the back.
Gosse, for example, has expressed a touching faith in the efficacy of the book-plate. He has but to explain that he "makes it a rule" never to lend a volume thus decorated, and the would-be borrower bows to this rule as to a decree of fate. "To have a book-plate," he joyfully observes, "gives a collector great serenity and confidence."
Not one, I suppose, but was ushered into the world with pride and glee, with a flushed cheek and heightened pulse; not one enjoyed a career that in all points justified those ample hopes and flattering promises. The outward and visible mark of the citizenship of the book-lover is his book-plate.
I should like a pictorial book-plate representing Dr. Johnson, in gown and nightcap, sitting up in bed reading the Anatomy of Melancholy, with Hodge, the cat, curled up contentedly at his feet. It would be interesting to know whether Johnson ever read, in bed or out, a book called Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit.
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