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Show Japanese Bookmaking. Having resolved to "paint" a book, for the Japanese use a brush and not a pen, the author betakes himself to his workroom. It is a little room, a very little room. The author sits on the floor in a flowing flow-ing garment of brown silk, lined with blue, his legs disposed comfortably under him. In front of him stands a lacquered table, about a foot square, and upon it are his writing materials, which are as idyllic as his surroundingshis surround-ingshis paper is delicately tinted yellow, yel-low, with blue lines running up and down. His inkstand is a carved ebony slab, with one end hollowed out for water to rub his cube of india ink in, and holds the four or five daintily decorated bamboo bam-boo brushes which aro his pens. Naturally Nat-urally he does not write his novel, he paints it. Beginning at the end of the whole, at the left of every page and at the top of every line, straight down between the two blue parallels his small brown hand goes with quick, delicate, dark touches. Although the novelist's "copy" might seem to a stranger to be daintiness itself, it-self, yet ho always has it duplicated "by an artist" before sending it to the publishers, pub-lishers, the success of the book depending depend-ing so largely upon its artistic form. The "artist" to whom the "copy" is now intrusted proceeds to repaint tho long series of word pictures with a professional profes-sional dexterity which is something astonishing. as-tonishing. New York Journal. |