Defacing/Mutilating an Excellent Book

I admire the fact that someone at the library took the time to stick in a note about not writing stuff in this well-used (and, yes, excellent) book about language (click on the picture for a close-up of the note.)

I'm not sure if the note is generic or was crafted especially Mr. Howard's work. Either way, I definitely kept my pen out of my hand while reading; the handwritten comments mostly died out after the introduction.