he
inclination to take to the new methods, and, as regards criticism, it is
hardly to be expected that a reviewer who has a pile of illustrated
books to pronounce upon, should know the reason of the failures that he
sees before him. Thus the public is often misled by those who should be
its guides as to the value and importance of the new systems of
illustration.[24]

In conclusion, let us remember that everyone who cultivates a taste for
artistic beauty in books, be he author, artist, or artificer, may do
something towards relieving the monotony and confusion in style, which
pervades the outward aspect of so many books. It is a far cry from the
work of the missal writer in a monastery to the pages of a modern book,
but the taste and feeling which was shown in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries in the production of books, exists in the nineteenth, under
difficult conditions.

In the "book of the future" the author will help personally, more than
he has ever done, as I have already suggested. The subject is not
half-ventilated yet, nor can I touch upon it further, but the day is not
far distant when the power of the hand of the author will be tested to
the utmost, and lines of all kinds will appear in the text. There is
really no limit to what may be done with modern appliances, if only the
idea is seized with intelligence.

Two questions, however, remain unanswered--(1) Whether, as a matter of
language and history, we are communicating information to each other
much better than the ancients did in cuneiform inscriptions, on stones
and monuments. (2) Whether, as a matter of illustrative art, we are
making the best use of modern appliances.

Let us, then, cultivate more systematically the art of drawing for the
press, and treat it as a worthy profession. Let it not be said again,
as it was to me lately by one who has devoted half a lifetime to these
things, "The processes of reproduction are to hand, but where are our
artists?" Let it not be said that the chariot-wheels of the press move
too fast for us--that chemistry and the sun's rays have been utilised
too soon--that, in short, the processes of reproduction have been
perfected before their time! I think not, and that an art--the art of
pictorial expression--which has existed for ages and is now best
understood by the Japanese, may be cultivated amongst us to a more
practical end.

[Illustration: "TAKE CARE." (W. B. BAIRD.)

(_Royal Academy, 1891._)]