As a good man who has gained an audience by a favourable introduction I would leave the author to do the rest. When once the reader has started on the story, he (the reader) does not feel grateful for any distraction. If the book is worth reading he wants to get right on with it without any interruption; if, however, it fails to interest him, he will lay it down after a few chapters and most likely send it on to some friend, or lend it out, or bestow it upon some charitable institution, or sell it with other works of the same kind to a second-hand bookseller. In a scientific work or a book treating on special subjects which strictly require illustrations, so that the reader and author may be _en rapport_, the illustrations may be few or many as the text requires. This may be left to the author and the publisher entirely, because the reader lays aside his artistic sense of unity for the sake of the information he requires. A properly illustrated book should be illustrated on every page. My ideal of such a book is to have to every chapter a head and tail piece, with marginal designs, running up and down wherever the text appears, in pen-and-ink or etching, for I hold that only outline drawing can harmonise with type as highly ornamental as possible. No tone-drawing should ever be introduced where type appears; but each chapter or poem ought to be separated by a full-page plate in tone, wood-engraving if possible, or the best process tone-work. As much attention should be paid to the index and fly-leaves as to the other portions, whilst the binding should be in perfect harmony. So the _édition de luxe_ will be looked at and admired with the respectful care shown to a lady at a ball, while the book with frontispiece and vignette will be fondled over as affectionate husbands ought to fondle their well-dressed, but not over-dressed, wives. [Illustration: A PANEL OF BLACK AND GOLD] CHAPTER VIII _ART IN MINOR DIRECTIONS_ THE ART OF GRAINING [Illustration: C]HARLES READE, in one of his smart romances, makes his Bohemian hero learn the art of graining in an _hour or two_, sufficiently well to be able to go about the country and make a good living by giving lessons to and painting show panels for the master painters. This lively novelist, with his customary happy Hibernian manner of jumping at conclusions, reveals his own ignorance of the subject he had taken up, by giving the reader minute details as to the way his hero worked. Thus, he landed at a country shop, had a panel planed and prepared, and grained it _the same day_, getting his cash and the admiration of the country house-painter, and striking another village or town the next day.