Some complain of this, and call it vulgar. No doubt it often is so. But a gift-book is produced for a definite purpose, and the public would be surprised, and probably annoyed, if it were not as gorgeous in gold and colours as it was expected to be. Gold and colours are what are wanted, and the publishers do well to supply them. One thing, perhaps, is too little considered--that a book is, in most cases, intended to be read and to be preserved. Certain books are not issued for that purpose, but are deliberately manufactured to be thrown away when read. The shilling novel, one may presume, is not designed for a permanent existence. If it is, why is it so frequently brought out in a paper cover, which either comes off altogether, or else curls up at the edges in the most irritating fashion? It must be confessed that a paper cover is an infliction, demanding the eventual destruction of the book or its prompt rebinding in more durable style. But it is not sufficient only that a volume should be bound. It should be bound so that it can be opened and perused with comfort. It should not be in too stiff a cover, or it will be awkward to hold. And the cover should not be in white or in too delicate a colour, or one will not care to handle it. Nor should a book be bound too limply, for the cover will soon begin to look shapeless. A parchment binding is charming to gaze at for a time, but how quickly its glory fades! I should say to the ordinary bookbuyer, in metaphoric language, Avoid the kickshaws and stick to the solids! In other words, leave the delicacies to the connoisseur, and give your attention to the books so clothed that you can read and keep them as you will. THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE. I make no allusion here to the heroine of Mr. Haggard's well-known romance. What I am thinking of at the moment is not the impossible 'She' of recent fiction, but the 'not impossible She' of Master Richard Crashaw--the 'perfect monster,' in female form, who was to 'command his heart and him,' and whom he was good enough to sketch for us in advance within the limits of some forty verses--the damsel whose beauty was to 'Owe not all its duty To gaudy tire or glistering shoe-tye;' whose face was to be 'Made up Out of no other shop Than what Nature's white hand sets ope;' who was to have 'a well-tamed heart,' 'Sidneian showers Of sweet discourse,' and so on, and of whom the poet was so kind as to say that, if Time knew of anyone who answered the description, 'Her that dares be What these lines wish to see-- I seek no further--it is She.'