Th' adorning thee with so much artIs but a barb'rous skill;'Tis like the poisoning of a dart,Too apt before to kill

A beautiful hand-bound book is part skill and part art. It's fine for Claudia to say she's not an artist. But it can't be lost that the reason for her success is her sense of design and aesthetic. She may be a bookbinder first, but there's a lot of artistry involved.

Of all ills that one endures,/ hope is a cheap and universal cure.

Though you be absent here, I needs must say / The trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay, / As ever they were wont to be.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!