A limited edition is in effect
a guarantee -- somewhat crude, it is true -- that this book is
scarce and that it therefore is costly and lends pecuniary
distinction to its consumer.
The special attractiveness of these book-products to the
book-buyer of cultivated taste lies, of course, not in a
conscious, naive recognition of their costliness and superior
clumsiness. Here, as in the parallel case of the superiority of
hand-wrought articles over machine products, the conscious ground
of preference is an intrinsic excellence imputed to the costlier
and more awkward article. The superior excellence imputed to the
book which imitates the products of antique and obsolete
processes is conceived to be chiefly a superior utility in the
aesthetic respect; but it is not unusual to find a well-bred
book-lover insisting that the clumsier product is also more
serviceable as a vehicle of printed speech. So far as regards the
superior aesthetic value of the decadent book, the chances are
that the book-lover's contention has some ground. The book is
designed with an eye single to its beauty, and the result is
commonly some measure of success on the part of the designer.
What is insisted on here, however, is that the canon of taste
under which the designer works is a canon formed under the
surveillance of the law of conspicuous waste, and that this law
acts selectively to eliminate any canon of taste that does not
conform to its demands.
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