Leg over Leg: Volumes Three and Four

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5.6.1

NOTICE: it is the habit of the abovementioned professors and those like them who have written something in Arabic to excuse their terrible mistakes by putting the blame on the printer and typesetter, saying that the mistakes are due to the latter’s ignorance of the language, or so I was told by Conte Alix Desgranges,⁷⁶⁵ who was reporting the words of Professor Caussin de Perceval. This is an excuse worse than the offense, for the typesetter does exactly what you ask of him and whatever rules you lay down he obeys. Do you not observe that M. Perrault, of Rue de Castellane, 15, Paris, even though he knows nothing about the Arabic language, has followed with the utmost care our instructions in terms of corrections and changes and gone to great lengths to compose the letters correctly and produce an excellent piece of printing, so much so that he has come up, praise God, with the best thing ever printed in our language in Europe? We commend him, therefore, to any who wish to print anything in Arabic; there can be no doubt that they will praise his efforts and be happy with his work, even if he is not with the Imprimerie Nationale, the excellence of the work being its own recommendation.

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