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Show HOW JAPANESE BOOKS ARE MADE. An Interacting l'rnoii, Vry Different from Authorship Hereabouts. Tho Japancso author docs not write books. Ho paints them. As soon ni ho reaohes tho indispeusablo minimum of ideas he shuts himself iu his study, brightened slightly by a ,10ft light from a four-cornerud white piper lantern. Ho has before him a polished tublo, or.o foot high, on which Ho his idyllic writing material. The paper is of on ngrecabto yellow nnd is marked with perpendicular and horizontal blue linos. His ink is held in a rich obony plato, elaborately carved nnd with a doprcssloc in which tho black tnbloti are rubbed to nothing. The plato also carries tlvo bamboo brushes which serve as pons. As tho spirit moves the author bo-gins bo-gins painting nt tho back ond nt all the pagos that nro to swing Japancso hearts nnd heads. From the left to tho right of each page his brown hnndi sweep tho brush up and down tho j'er-pendtoulnr j'er-pendtoulnr bluo lines. With Inconceivable Incon-ceivable rapidity the pages aro covered , with dollcato and varied marks from tho brush. To a foreigner a volume just fresh from sucly a hand Is ono ol tho prettiest thingsjin tho world, and exactly the article t bo presented to s frleifd or patron ns bn edition de luxe. Dut tho first success W u work in Japan deponds so oxtenslvoly on tho artistic execution of tho bruit that uo authoi would think of letting nn autograph work leave his hands. When Unlshed the painted history, poem, nr novel ii intrusted to a professional copyist, who knows nbova nil others h'ow to paint words with skill. Uesldcs tho export-noss export-noss Of such n book painter tho scratching scratch-ing of a Eurupoan pen or tho click of s tvpowritcr seems as indclicuto-as splitting split-ting wood. Tho noxt stop ot tho author with the indispeusablo minimum of ideas is to Bond tho artistic reproduction of his painting to tho engraver, who prepares tho blocks, wets thttm with ink, layf ou tho paper sheet by shoot, nnd Unally presses it down, so that it may tako tho iiguros, with n great palm leaf pen. Tho leaves nro fe.stunrd togothor and bound in simple paper covers. Unlike tho Western book functor, tho Japancso Japan-cso book fancier cares Ilttlo for tho exterior ex-terior of his volumes Ho wishes no ornamont on tho binding, usido from tho marks of tho tltlo iu tho upper left-hand left-hand corner. Tho arrangement of a Japanese author with his publisher is astonishingly astonish-ingly simple. One recently answered tho question of a European on tho subject sub-ject thus: "I mysolf pay my publisher. I tnlot nil tho risk of losses from 111 works. I could not allow, on tho othdi hand, that any 0110 should prulit front my labor." Ar. Y. Htm. |