BOOKS BEAUTIFUL
SIR,—Mr. Bctjeman is not alone in wondering if some British books do not fall short of perfection. Unfortunately, his supporters are scattered. if you would allow us to meet, Sir, in your columns, much valuable advice may he offered to our publishers and they. We can be sure, will be correspondingly grateful. limiting myself to two features. I would like to begin with the title (book or chapter) set across the top of each page. It generally lies much too close to the text, as if it were a fo'c'sle lid battening down the cargo all snug and shipshape, as if it were a paper-weight or trouser-flattener, or a too-large wideawakc crammed down to the eyes and cars of a stocky and high-shouldered curate, lending him a tough, congested air totally at variance with his calling. Placed as it is commonly placed, this line distracts the attention and repeats its message as obstinately as the vernal cuckoo. If the text were to begin a little lower on the page, the heading could hover like a deity in a cloud, aloof. yet not beyond the range of entreaty, allowing us, however predestined, the illusion of free will.
My second comment is also concerned with spacing—not spacing from top to bottom (i.e., between the lines) but from left to right. It seems that our printers have conceived a loathing for the harmless necessary hyphen. What's wrong with the hyphen ? Nothing that I know of; and if anybody knows of something wrong with the hyphen, I bet the something wrong with the hyphen that he knows of isn't half as had as the hash produced by the printers' mad scramble toavoiddividingaword.
More powerful (but not more leaky) pens will, 1 hope, pursue the subject until the punctured full stop, the question mark with its face pushed in, the grey ink on grey paper having all disappeared, the day will dawn when even the horrorrcomic is presented in a form so satisfying to the eye and ennobling to the spirit that young readers barely notice its contents.—Yours faithfully,
Yattendon, near Newbury
ARNOLD PALMER
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