Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1889 — BOOKCASES. [ARTICLE]

B OOKCASES.

Sow the Best Ones Are Made end the Books Arranged. The beat bookcases are those made half high, not those cumbrous, glassfloored edilces which indicate that the •contents are made to look at, not to read. The wood may be either hard like cherry, ash, mahogany, or black walnut, or merely pine-stained to represent either, according to the finish of the room, saxs Good Housekeeping. The simplest bookcase is best of all. End pieces about five feet high, with grooves on the inside to hold the shelves, the fronts of which are either rounded or finished with strips of pinked leather, and the shelves themselves can be made by an ordinary carpenter. Let it fill in the space between the chimney and end of the Toom or the entrance doorway and the side, varnish it, or stain and varnish, ;and then proceed to arrange the treasures of many a lifetime. Do we realize that these best works of good men and women are the epitomes of vast labor, research and thought? Then let us house them with genuine tenderness. It is a good plan to have the bottom shelf broad enough to hold atlases and books of reference, like heavy cyclopedias when laid on their sides, unless we have for them special rests or tables. Large, heavy leaves are inclined to break away and drag down from the back, and then a book soon goes to ruin. That is the reason why children should be taught never to pick up a book by one cover only. It tears the cover loose from the back. For no reason ought a child to be taken by the ear except to show it how a book feels—or to a book lover seems to feel —when dragged about by a single cover. After the books are arranged in the case there is left the upper shelf for a couple of pictures on easels, with a central flower vase or bronze. But to dedicate the space to an indiscriminate lot of bric-a-brac is a desecration. Nor should it be used for an old paper shelf; let papers be relegated to their proper receptacles. It is, though, a place for current magazines and a book or two subject to daily perusal. But the bookcase is not yet finished. In front, depending from a brass rod, let us hang a curtain of India silk, the color of which shall harmonize with the prevailing tint of the room. This curtain should be drawn only when the room is dusted. On sweeping day a muslin cover, kept for this purpose, is thrown over the top, and reaches to the floor, for our book lovers do not tolerate dust on their volumes.