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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: his books with a knife, hacking away very much like a hedger and ditcher.
Large paper volumes were his especial delight, as they gave more paper.
The slips thus obtained were used for index-making! Another, with the bump
of order unnaturally developed, had his folios and quartos all reduced,
in binding, to one size, so that they might look even on his bookshelves."
This latter was, doubtless, cousin to him who deliberately cut
down all his books close to the text, because he had been several
times annoyed by readers who made marginal notes.
The indignities, too, suffered by some books in their lettering!
Fancy an early black-letter fifteenth-century quarto on Knighthood,
labelled "Tracts"; or a translation of Virgil, "Sermons"! The "Histories
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