BEAUTIFUL BOOK MAKING 
Mr. Louis Ely Carroll in his article on Irish 
Manuscripts written for the volume “The Glories 
of Ireland” (Washington, 1914), summed up the 
distinctiveness of the Book of Kells more concisely 
and completely than probably it had ever been done 
before. A little later in this chapter we shall touch 
on the fact that the human color sense is sometimes 
said to have developed by a process of evolution to 
a considerable extent in comparatively recent gener- 
ations. Any such development is evidently not true 
so far as the Irish are concerned for these ancient 
scribes possessed a marvelous color sense as is very 
well brought out by Mr. Carroll in his description 
of the Book of Kells. He said: 
“Into its pages are woven such a wealth of orna- 
ment, such an ecstasy of art, and such a miracle of 
design that the book is today not only one of Ire- 
land’s greatest glories but one of the world’s won- 
ders. After twelve centuries the ink is as black and 
lustrous and the colors are as fresh and soft as 
though but the work of yesterday. The whole 
range of colors is there — green, blue, crimson, 
scarlet, yellow, purple, violet — and the same 
color is at times varied in tone and depth and 
shade, thereby achieving a more exquisite com- 
bination and effect. In addition to the numerous 
decorative pages and marvelous initials, there are 
portraits of the Evangelists and full-page minia- 
tures of the Temptation of Christ, His Seizure by 
the Jews, and the Madonna and Child surrounded 
by Angels with censers. Exceptionally beautiful are 
these angels and other angelic figures throughout the 
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