The working object reveals itself by degrees. Before ornament, there is proportion; before effect, there is handling. The record begins at the point where observation becomes deliberate.
These notes preserve that interval without reducing it to instruction. They concern the material evidence of thought: the edge, the pressure of a thumb, a mark left on paper, the quiet decision to remove rather than add.
Clarity is not the absence of mystery. It is the structure that allows mystery to remain.
What survives the process enters the cabinet. What does not remains part of the method.