the poem: ‘Reader, your soul upraise to see.’ But it had yet to be mounted on a wooden block in order to p. xiiraise it to the exact level of the type. At last this was done. A proof was run off. But the impression was unequal. Oh, the disappointment! Author and publisher gazed at each other in misery. But woman’s wit came to the rescue. Why not build it up with cigarette papers? ‘Bravo, Fanny!’ The author set to work, deftly and skilfully. Then more proofs, more cigarette-papers, more running up and down stairs to the little boy’s room, which in temperature hovered about zero. But what was temperature? The thing was a success. The little boy, entranced beyond measure, printed copy after copy from the sheer pleasure of seeing the wet ink magically reproducing the block.

p. xi

p. xii

The next day the little boy was sent to a dying Swiss—half the population of Davos were coughing away the remnants of life—who lived with his poverty-stricken family in one room, earning their bread by carving bears. A model block was shown him. p. xiiiCould he reproduce a dozen exactly like it, but in a wood without any grain? The dying Swiss said he could, leaving his bear forthwith, and applying himself to the task. The pinched-face children looked on amazed; the little print of ‘Reader, your soul upraise to see’ was passed from hand to hand with exclamations of astonishment. The dying Swiss gave the little boy the blocks, beautifully and faultlessly finished. Would the little boy care to buy a bear? No, the little boy didn’t. He scurried home through the snow with the precious blocks.

p. xiii

Thus ‘Moral Emblems’ came out; ninety copies, price sixpence. Its reception might almost be called sensational. Wealthy people in the Hotel Belvidere bought as many as three copies apiece. Friends in England wrote back for more. Meanwhile the splendid artist was assiduously busy. He worked like a beaver, saying that it was the best relaxation he had ever found. The little boy once overheard him confiding p. xivto a visitor: ‘I cannot tell you what a Godsend these silly blocks have been to me. When I can write no more, and read no more, and think no more, I can pass whole hours engraving these blocks in blissful contentment.’ These may not have been the actual words, but such at least was their sense.

p. xiv

Thus the second ‘Moral Emblems’ came out; ninety copies, price ninepence. The public welcomed it as heartily as the first, the little boy 

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