Uncut

‘Uncut’ might apply to gems, to cards, or to the locks of the Bolsheviki; but in this instance it refers to books. Many a time I have been told that the true lover of books sits with paperknife in hand, cutting his new book in leisurely fashion as he reads, thus gaining a certain fine, deliberative pleasure in his perusal of a volume. This might be a good subject for a statue, The Cutting Man, for it is certainly a most perfect pose. The man or woman who says that he or she likes to read a book in this fashion is incapable of really understanding what is read. Only pretenders can enjoy the barbarous experience of trying to read a work while the reader is ripping his way through a new purchase in print. I propose to reveal the truth in this matter, though I know that trenchant words will be applied to me by those who have the cutting habit.

A few days ago I purchased a new edition of one of the three best books on Browning. I had looked forward for several days to the reading; but when the volume arrived, I found it was uncut. Seizing my paper-knife, I began my work of making the book fit to read, and I soon discovered that the paper was of a very closely woven substance which cut with difficulty, throwing off a by-product of fine cottony substance that magnified and accumulated to a dreadful degree. I went to the diningroom; I sat down at the table, and I devoted myself to manual labor, turning the book now on one side, now on the other, to get the pages clearly and carefully separated from corner to binding. At the end of twenty minutes — voilà: one book at last ready to read; one blunt knife, one lame wrist, a pile of white literary fluff conspicuously scattered over the mahogany table, and a pair of ears irritated by listening to the faint rasping sound of paper being slit without ceasing. Had I read as I cut, I should have lost all sense of continuity; the ideas, interrupted by a furious struggle to reach the next page, would have been decapitated.

This is war to the knife — the paperknife. Reader, what sort of cutter do you use when you find that the volume you had expected to enjoy is uncut?

Do you always have a paper-cutter at hand, or do you resort to expedients — stiff cardboard, a hat-pin, a penholder? Perhaps the average man has a knife always within reach, but the average woman has not. Did you ever put down a new book because you were too tired or too dismayed to go in search of a cutter? Did you ever tear a new book, just because you forgot that some books have to be cut at the bottom of the page? Have you ever lent a book which you have read, only to have your caustic friend return it with the remark, ‘I hope you won’t mind my having cut some of the pages you skipped’? Were you ever caught cutterless, out of doors, at the foot of a page, unable to turn to 2 or to any other page before 8, just because the leaves were so folded that you had to cut once at the top and twice at the sides before you could get at the text? Did you ever, of an evening, sit around a reading-table with a group of people, and did you ever cut surreptitiously with that stealthy clip, clip, clip, which is to the unhappy listener like the famous drop, drop, drop, of the water used in the torture chamber of the Inquisition?

In a college classroom, a teacher asks the students to turn to a certain page in a volume of one of the English poets. There ensues an attack upon the uncut poet. Young women use the hairpin; young athletes, I am told, use the forefinger. The results need not be described.

A canny suggestion to publishers may have its effect. People like to get books from a public library, partly because these books are always cut. People will buy twice as many books if they can be sure there will be no need to dawdle over the business of hewing the pages apart. In fact, we should all be delighted to turn over new leaves, were they only cut in advance!