Part 8

Take paper from the mill, not as yet sized, and mix with it to six parts of turpentine two of mastic. This really makes a very clear, or at least diaphanous, medium, which may be used for temporarily repairing broken glass windows.

The same writer informs us that if we take fine parchment (_pergamenam hædinum_), prepared without lime, or naturally dried, we should lay it in water, which will just cover it, in which has been well infused boiled honey and the white of eggs. This was used to repair coloured glass windows.

There is also given in the _Zauberbuch_ of JOHANN WALLBERGER, Frankfort, 1760, a recipe for the same purpose:--

“Take parchment prepared without lime, and steep it in a mixture of thick gum-arabic dissolved in water, the yolk of eggs well shaken, and clarified honey.”

It is worth observing, as regards these recipes from old works, that while those founded on modern chemistry and experiment are generally cheaper and apparently better, the former are often more _durable_ in effect, and were, indeed, more thoroughly tested. There were a great many parchment windows in those days, and there are none now. And in these old works of PORTA, WECKERUS, TENZELIUS, KIRCHER, ALEXANDER OF PIEDMONT, MIZALDUS, VALENTINE KRAUTEMANN, and many more of which I have a large collection, there are many curious prescriptions, many of which I have seen revived from time to time of late years as modern scientific inventions--on which subject an interesting article could be written.

A weak solution of oxalic acid in water is often the best to remove ink and other stains from strong white paper or linen. It should be applied by gently pressing or _dabbing_ (not rubbing) with a cotton pad. As soon as the stain is removed, dab it again with clean water. Take good care, however, that there are no scratches or cuts on your fingers, for if the acid gets into them it will cause great pain.

I may here mention that the old bookbinders’ paste was made as follows:--

Take a quarter of a pound of starch, steep it a quarter of an hour in water, and stir it till it is milky. Add a pinch of alum, and boil it once more.

This was said to keep better than paste made from flour. (Add a few drops of oil of cloves or carbolic acid, and it will keep very well.) Flour can, however, be used instead of starch, and a good adhesive be the result. A little glue very much improves it. There is a great difference in the quality of cement made from bread, as the condition of the latter has been changed by fermentation.

BINDING.--Repairing books is nearly allied to _binding_, and the latter is, in perfection, a somewhat difficult art. Yet it is not at all difficult for a careful person to bind up many works in such a manner that they will bear much reading, and with a little artistic skill look very well. This may be effected as follows:--

When a book is stitched together, there are sewed into the back two or more cross pieces of string or strips of muslin, which project a little on either side, and which, by being pasted down inside the cover under a leaf, hold the book and cover together. This is further strengthened sometimes by another strip of muslin. When the back is firmly gummed or pasted to the book, so as to bend with it, it is called a flexible back, which also adds to the strength of the whole.

If the reader will now take a simply sewn or stitched book, without binding, and will place across its back two or more strips of parchment, and glue them on with the strongest possible cement--mastic being the best, but acidulated glue or flour-paste with glue, or even dextrine-paste, will answer the purpose--and if he will again paste up and down over these a strip just the width of the back, he will have all that is necessary to make a strong binding, for this will hold as well as the strings. Note that the parchment strips must first be thoroughly wet through and macerated, or crumpled till quite soft. Again, that when the paste is nearly dry the strip should be rubbed in.

Next cut out two pieces of _strong_ pasteboard, each a very little larger than the length and width of the book. These are the covers.

Now paste the outside of the _straps_ exactly to the inside of the covers, leaving just enough space for opening and closing. When dry, the book should open and close easily. Then take the outer cover of leather or cloth, which is cut in the shape indicated in the accompanying outline, paste it well over the back, and then turn the edges over and paste them down over the cover inside, so as to form a narrow margin, as may be seen by examining any book. Also turn down, before doing this, the edges at the ends of the book. The binding will be much stronger if, after pasting the ends of the parchment strips to the covers, we paste over them in turn good, strong pieces of paper, close to the back, to prevent the strips from pulling up.

If there be fly or blank leaves on the sides of the book, paste one of each down over the inside of the cover. This will conceal the margin and add greatly to the strength of the book. But if there be none, you can supply them, firstly, by a method which will make your binding even stronger than that of most books. Take a very strong piece, let us say, of Whatman’s or any other good tough linen drawing-paper, just of the size to cover the whole book--that is, back and sides. Cut in it four slits, and pass the strips which are to bind the book to the cover through, and gum them down, and then paste the fly-leaf thus added down over the strips. But it will answer every purpose if you simply gum fly-leaves on by a very narrow margin of “adhesive.” All of this will become clear to any one who will carefully examine a book. And anybody who has the dexterity to fold a letter neatly or do up a parcel properly, can in a short time, after one or two experiments, succeed in binding a book in this manner. I have observed that those who fail as amateur bookbinders generally do so because they attempt too much too soon, and aim at producing elegant masterpieces before they have learned to manage with ease such common work as I have described.

Though this manner of strip-binding is little known, it was, strange to say, the very first ever practised; for, according to OLYMPIODORUS, one PHILATIUS was the first who taught the use of _glue_ to fasten written or blank leaves together, for which great discovery a statue was erected to him. Binders were called among the Romans _ligatores_, as they are still in Italy, _legatori_; and it was here, indeed, that I myself learned the craft, as I now generally bind my own books. Those who prepared and sold the covers for Roman booksellers were called _scrutarii_.

There is a very easy way to bind up pamphlets, MSS., or letters when they have any margin for a back. If you cannot have them stitched--which, though difficult to an inexpert, can be done for a mere trifle--then sew them together across from side to side. Where the pages are of great value, gum them together by a _very narrow_ doubled or folded strip of adhesive. This done, bind as before, or else simply paste on a cover of drawing-paper at the back, and the fly-leaves to the sides. A great deal of loose literature, flying leaves, clippings from newspapers, letters, &c., can in this way, at no great expenditure of time or money, be converted into really valuable books.

I may here observe that cloth for binding, thin leather, and even common parchment or parchment-paper, are much cheaper than would be supposed, and that the average cost, all expenses included, of binding a duodecimo book in these would only be from threepence to a shilling. Any waste parchment will serve for binding.

Any person, however, who can emboss leather with tracer and stamp, even though but a little, after a week’s practice, can decorate and ornament books so as to greatly enhance their value. Nor do I exaggerate when I say that here is a field in which any person who can draw or copy decorative patterns moderately well might make a living. The reader will find the fullest details as to how this is done in my _Manual of Leather Work_. (Price 5s. London, Whittaker & Co., 2 White Hart Street, E.C.) In the present work I can only state that it is executed as follows:--Bind your book with cardboard in fairly thick, hard, and firm brown leather; there is a kind made for the purpose in Germany. Draw the pattern on it, or else draw it on paper with a crayon-pencil, and rub it from the back on the leather. This done, go over it with the fine point of a miniature brush in Indian ink. Dampen the leather slightly as you work with a sponge, and mark the outline with a tracer and stamp the ground with a matt. You may leave it brown, but if the work be coarse, I advise painting the whole with ink or Indian ink, and then coating it with SOEHNÉE’S varnish, No. 3. Rub this down well by hand.

If you can supply the design (which should always be bold and simple), any wood-carver will, for a few shillings, execute it in _intaglio_ on a block of wood, which should be at least one inch in thickness, and also have a transverse piece screwed to its back to prevent its warping. With this you can stamp off as many covers as you want. Retouch them by hand with tracer and stamp. If blackened, and then touched up with gilding and varnished, such books are very attractive, and should sell well. Any person who can design, or even trace, a pattern can have it cut on a block for a few shillings, and anybody having such a block can print off any number of impressions in damp leather, and retouch them with stamp and tracer, and glue them to cardboard covers, for books or albums, and sell them at a good profit. Yet, though this has been clearly set forth by me several times in manuals, &c., I have never yet met with a single amateur who has attempted it. There is as a rule far more suffering in this world from _laziness_, inertness, and an indisposition to _try_ to do something than from any other contaminating influences which lead to poverty.

When a book is even woefully dilapidated, so that there is no margin to stitch, do not despair. First separate every leaf, smooth it, and, if necessary, dampen it with a slight infusion of tragacanth. Then, if there is even the twentieth part of an inch of margin left, take strips of good, tough, thin paper, and with care stitch the leaves to these strips. For some severe cases you must use very thin transparent or tracing paper to gum over the text, but which must be visible through it. This, if neatly done, does not look so badly as it would seem. If one strip be folded and used to connect two leaves, the stitching and binding become easy. I have already described how to restore margins and fill worm-holes.

I think that if any person of literary habits will consider all that is written in this chapter, and will begin to practise it with deliberation and care, he will surely succeed, and find it a very profitable and agreeable occupation. All of such men have pamphlets, MSS., autographs, letters, newspaper clippings, and papers, which, if classed and made up into book-form, would be more available for use, and far more valuable. I say nothing of repairing old books; it speaks for itself as an easy and lucrative employment. And it may be observed that a young man who can thus bind and repair would make a most valuable assistant-librarian, though the business can be mastered very soon indeed; and it would often happen that in choosing a secretary, where there are many papers to file or a library to look after, or an assistant in an antiquarian book-shop--particularly the latter--preference would be given to one who had mastered practically what is taught in this chapter. And as on board ship the best sailor is generally the best mender--every old tar being proverbially skilled in repairing and having a quick eye for emergencies, even on shore--so the one who can rehabilitate and “form” books will probably be a good assistant in all things.

It may often happen to a writer or copyist that he has occasion to erase a word, and cannot write over the space lest the ink should spread. In old times this was remedied as follows:--A very little juniper gum, levigated to the finest powder, was rubbed over the spot with a soft linen rag.

In all kinds of repairing or technical work it is sometimes necessary to draw circles when the artist has no compasses. Yet this can be done to perfection, almost by free-hand, and very easily. Take several sheets of paper or a blotter; lay on it the piece to be drawn on. Take a pencil in the fingers, as is usual, rest the hand on the nail of the little finger as a point--having previously pulled the sleeve of his coat well up, so as to get a full view--and then with the left hand draw or revolve the paper. In most cases a perfect circle will be the result. This is admirable practice for learning to draw circles entirely by free hand, as may be found by experiment.

Paper can be made, if not absolutely fire-proof, at least deprived of inflammability, by being steeped in alum-water, or in _oleum tartari per deliquium_, or oil of tartar. Stationers might find a sale for such paper. If the document which was thrown by a certain Duchess into the fire had been thus prepared, it might have been rescued by a bystander before it perished.

The art of preservation, or prevention of injury, is allied to restoration, for which reason it would be well if more people who send books by mail would use protecting corners, which can readily be made by anybody with a pair of strong scissors from thin sheet brass, tin, or iron. Take a piece of metal of a rectangular shape, as follows:--

Then double it into a triangle over a piece of cardboard, or of wood, exactly the thickness of the cover of the book:--

Very valuable books should be kept in boxes of thin metal, especially in India. Such cases should not be made to open and shut with a hinged lid, but with a covering, and like a cigar case. Such cases, or at least metallic guards, should also be used when a book is wrapped and tied in the usual manner and sent by mail. I am quite sure that at least every other book which I have received by mail during the past year has shown on its edges melancholy scars from its strings, reminding one of the wounds which the heroic red Indian retained from his bonds. A guard is simply a piece of sheet-metal, bent as follows, once or twice:--

These guards are invaluable for packing books in trunks. Their price is trifling, and in the end there would be great economy in using them. Books should not be packed very tightly together on their shelves. It bursts the binding, especially of modern works in boards and paper. The old parchment flexible bindings were in every respect better, and they could even now be made far more cheaply than is generally supposed to be possible. I have before me a book nearly three hundred years old, bound in skiver parchment (split, or very thin), which has evidently been much used, yet which is still in good condition. But parchment need not be prepared very carefully for ordinary binding, and it could be sold for half the price charged by law stationers for what is used to write on. In the United States one must pay much more for a sheepskin than for a sheep, indeed in some cases three or four times as much--that is to say, the skin as a parchment in New York costs as much as three sheep in the Far West--and yet the expense of bringing the skin to the East and of tanning it are in no proportion whatever to the stationer’s profits.

Any one who will examine an ordinary old parchment-bound book, such as lies before me, will see at a glance why it must be more durable than a modern binding. In the modern book the _stiff_ back rises full to the edge, or generally _above_ the level of the sides, and is made of muslin, paper, or at best of soft leather. Therefore in time it breaks from pressure and friction, or wears away. The parchment or vellum had in most cases this back-edge put back or kept down as much as possible, and the tough covering was all in one piece. It is very true that it is not possible to obtain plain, old-fashioned parchment now, and that those who would have vellum, or even sheep, must pay an enormous price for it. This would not, however, be the case long if there were as great a popular demand for parchment binding as there now is for flimsy muslin. Those who prefer the former will find no difficulty in having it made for them, and in binding their books themselves according to the directions which I have given.

I shall in the chapter on _Papier-mâché_ show how covers for books may be cheaply made at no great expense, which may be beautifully embossed and are extremely durable. This is, briefly, by having a flat mould or die, on which lay alternate coats of paper and firm paste (into which glue and alum enter), then passing over them a bread-roller, continually adding paste and paper till the whole is complete. When finished, rub in black or any other colour, then rub in oil, rub again, apply SOEHNÉE, No. 3, and finally rub by hand. This will make very beautiful binding.

It is much to be regretted that, although there has been of late years, owing to machinery and patent processes, such immense production of cheap and showy binding, as shown in photograph albums, there has been as steady and rapid decrease in quality, strength, and durability. It is becoming unusual, even in very expensive books, to find one which can be honestly and well opened or is well stitched. I have, since writing that last word, tested it with two books recently published, one costing six shillings, the other a guinea. The latter was fairly well put together and “held,” but was warped in the stitching and pasting. It was “bad work.” As for the six shilling book, it cracked _clear through to the back_ at every page which I opened, and yet I did not open it very widely. I should say that any amateur who could not learn to bind books better in a month or six weeks than these were bound must be stupid indeed. The examination of a number of other books shows that what I have said is now generally true, and that even very expensive and pretentiously elegant works are not half so well bound in reality as were common and cheap school-books two hundred years ago. This I have also confirmed by examining a number of the latter bound in parchment, which bid fair to last for centuries to come.

Should this cheap, trashy, and showy style of binding continue, and with it a constant rise in the price of everything made by hand, the result will be that everything durable will be made by “amateurs”--that is, by people who to artistic spirit unite a certain personal independence. Owners of libraries will bind their own books, or else employ people who will work as artists, and not like mere machines. The vulgar and ignorant will continue to buy showy, cheap duplicates--induced by hearing, “’Ere’s an harticle, mum, that we’re sellin’ a great many hof”--while the cultured will prefer the hand-made, which is not necessarily more expensive. In fact, if the unemployed in England--or the victims of the wholesale steam trash-maker--could be taught easy hand-work, as they all _can_ be, it would be possible to not only vastly relieve national poverty, but we could have a variety of articles of better quality. For it appears to be, by some strange law, a _fact_ that, with all the improvements in machinery, men can still make by _hand_--and well--pictures, clothes, shoes or boots, bookbindings, and works of art generally--that is to say, anything in which skill or character can be shown; while, on the contrary, in all such matters machinery, instead of making any progress, is, owing to competition, actually falling behind! Scientific and other journals are continually boasting of new discoveries and improvements, but despite this the jerry-built houses of three-fourths of London, the sawed and glued cheap and vile furniture (made by scientific steam) with which they are filled, the average quality of everything into which skill and taste are supposed to enter, show that this boasted “end of the century” is also rapidly coming to an end in good taste and the quality of its work.

He who will learn to _mend_ with care, taste, and skill, firstly his books, will find that to progress from this to binding and to making elegant covers is only going from A to B. The binding of the olden time, while it was incredibly strong, vigorous, and quaint, was extremely easy to make, as I have satisfied myself by much examination and personal practice. The stitching was not with the weakest and cheapest cotton-thread; still less was it with wires too thin for the purpose; it was executed with linen pack-thread, _from the top to the bottom of the page_, in three or four stitches, so that the book could really be opened and bent back till the covers touched without injury to it. All of which could be given to-day with the parchment covers at the same price which the book now costs, and to pay the same profit, were it not that public “taste” prefers showy trash. Beyond good, strong _stitching_, all the _necessary_ process of binding is very easy. It requires neatness and care, and some practice, but it is decidedly not difficult. He who has mastered it will find that other kinds of mending, and also the practice of allied minor arts, are simply the succeeding letters of the alphabet.

It is a fact, to which I invite attention, that dilettante amateurs of books invariably understand by binding nothing more than its refinements and easily ruined adornment, which books had better be without. Amateurs of this class always attempt at once the most difficult work, and generally fail. As a rule, almost without exception, the prize specimens of modern binding seen at exhibitions are chiefly remarkable for ornament, which will not endure handling or rubbing, such as surface-gilding.

Pamphlets or letters, &c., can be bound with “eyelets,” and the clamp or punch which is sold with them. Or they may be simply gummed together, in which case use the powerful fish-glue, which holds perfectly.

The easiest and most effective method of side-binding, or where leaves are held together by passing the tie through from side to side, is as follows:--Have by you strips of metal, say sheet-tin, one-fourth or one-third of an inch in breadth; also small rivets or tacks. Take two strips of the same length as the pamphlet or papers to be bound, and strike holes in them with a brad-awl and hammer, on a solid piece of wood, at regular distances. Then place these strips on the book, and drive the rivets through the holes. Turn the whole round, and laying the other side on an anvil or a reversed flat-iron, flatten the points of the rivets so that they will hold. Any old tins, such as are thrown away in such numbers, can be made to supply strips. A strip of parchment or strong paper bent over to form a back can then be pasted over the strips to improve the appearance of the volume. Any tinman will, for a trifle, supply these strips and punch the holes neatly for use. They should be found in every library, and ought to be in every stationer’s. It may be observed that in inserting the rivets or tacks you should place them alternately, one on one side and one on the other. A lighter form of this binding is to take a flat-headed drawing-pin, similar to those used by artists, and have a round, flat tin or brass disc, like a thin sixpence or threepenny-bit, corresponding to it. In the latter punch a small hole, and rivet as before. Tinmen will also punch these discs; in fact, they often throw away a great many cut from certain kinds of work.