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COBDEN-SANDERSON AND
no breach of faith to reproduce it as a whole, but rather a
duty which I owe my fellow-workers to give them a fine
thought as an inspiration to finer effort:
    Dear Miss Preston: I hardly know what to sar to
your request to write about me. Such a proposa in-
volves so much, and the question is : What of me do you
propose to write about ? I do not want to be written
about as mere copy to satisfy for an infinitesimal moment
of time the insatiable hunger of journalism, but this, I am
sure you do not propose. If, on the other hand, my work
can be made the opportunity of giving one little push in
the right direction, then why not ? So use your own
discretion, and do your best for the cause, and remember
that the cause is not book-binding, nor a handicraft, nor
a pattern, nor getting a living, but that sound view of life
as a whole, which shallmake all other sound things pos-
sible, and among the sound things, some that may be
beautiful. Book-binding is but the illustration.
                       Very truly yours,
                               T. J. Cobden-Sanderson.
                         The cause certainly has never
had a stronger or warmer adherent than this one who
writes so eloquently of it.
                         Mr. Sanderson joined the group
of men who were following Morris at a time when there
was inspiration in the very enthusiasm which that great
leader created. It is said that he chose book-binding as
his work rather to express his conviction that manual
labour dignified man's existence, than for any attraction
this special craft had for him, but those who feel the charm
of his binding count this choice to have been something
more than chance.
                         It is of Cobden-Sanderson, the
craftsman, that I wish to write, but the salient points of
his career may be of interest to readers who know little
or nothing of his personality. By birth, he belongs to
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