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THE ART OF

form part of the page, should be a part of the whole schemeof the book. Simple as this proposition is, it is necessaryto be stated, because the modern practice is to disregard therelation between the printing and the ornament altogether,so that if the two are helpful to one another it is a merematter of accident.” To resume, “The pidture-book isnot, perhaps, absolutely necessary to man’s life, but it givessuch endless pleasure, and is so intimately connected withthe other absolutely necessary art of imaginative literature,that it must remain one of the very worthiest thingstowards the production of which reasonable men shouldstrive.”

With the exception of the figure-subject illustrations,Mr. Morris designed with his own hand every ornamentfor the Kelmscott publications, from the minute leaves andflowers, forming a sort of “ glorified full-stop,” to whichexception has been taken by some, to the large bordersand titles for folio-size pages. Although it is true thatthe same borders and initials do sometimes recur in oneand the same work (recur indeed too often to please certainof the artist’s critics) in many, perhaps in the majority ofinstances, the ornaments were designed, one by one, asoccasion demanded, for any given page, and moreover witha view to each one’s position on the page. The artistwould be provided with a sheet of paper from the Press,ready set out with ruled lines, showing the exadt place andspace that was required to be occupied by initial, borderor what not, and he would fill accordingly. Morris de-signed the ornaments, not with a pen, but with a brush.It was most usual during the last few years of his life, oncalling, to find him thus engaged, with his Indian ink andChinese white in little saucers before him upon the table,its boards bare of any cloth covering, but littered withbooks and papers and sheets of MS. He did not placeany value on the original drawings, regarding them as justtemporary instruments, only fit, as soon as engraved, to bethrown away. Many an exquisite design of this sort hasbeen rescued from the waste-paper basket by Morris’sfriend, Emery Walker. Morris used to keep what he