down, and any tears at the top of back above the head-band reenforced from
the inside with strips of cloth or paper.

The outside of a soiled cloth binding often may be cleaned by means of a
soft pencil-eraser. If this is done, the cloth should afterward be
freshened by a thin coat of sizing.

If these operations are carefully and thoroughly carried out, the book
should then be in a solid and satisfactory condition and capable of
standing any reasonable amount of wear.

CHAPTER II

_REMOVING STAINS_

TRANSLATED FROM BONNARDOT

[Illustration: VELLUM BINDINGS

(1674 AND 1878)]

Before discussing the means of attacking stains which may blemish a book
or a precious print, I am going to say that, in certain cases, it might be
very desirable to allow them to remain. If I possessed, for example, a
missive addressed to Charles IX during the night of Saint Bartholomew, and
stained with bloody finger-prints, I would take great care not to disturb
these marks which, supposing their authenticity established, would
increase tenfold the value of the autograph. If the custodian of the
Laurentian Library at Florence should efface, from his Longus manuscript,
Paul Louis Courier's puddle of ink, he would commit an act of vandalism,
for that ink stain is a literary celebrity.[2]

To speak of more ordinary examples: one often finds on a book or print, a
signature or inscription which may sometimes be an autograph well worth
preservation.[3] I very rarely efface signatures or the notes of early,
unknown owners; I find it pleasanter to respect these souvenirs of the
past. In the same way, some curious objects have certain defects which, I
think, add to their interest. For example, a statuette of the Virgin, in
silver or ivory, of which the features and hands are half effaced by the
frequent contact of pious lips. Restore such worn parts, and the sentiment
is stripped from a relic of past ages. It is far better to leave untouched
such scars, which attest the antique piety of the cloister. A vellum Book
of Hours of the Fifteenth Century, worn and soiled through prayer, has, to
my mind, acquired a venerable patina. Here, a spot of yellow wax; there,
the head of a saint blemished by the star-print from a tear of devotion:
are not these stains which should be respected? On the other hand, a blot
of ink or an oily smear point only to carelessness and should be removed.

About the year 1846, I was invited by M. A. Farrens, a sk