Emily C. Pearson

“ If the first printers could revisit the earth, with what interest would they make the tour of a modern printing-office! How would they call to mind their own narrow quarters, poor facilities, and creeping progress, contrasting them with the convenience, system, swiftness, finish, and grand results of to-day, in the now beautifully moulded and polished metal types, the success seemingly gained in setting type by machinery, and the comprehensive arrangements, of various perfected departments, all brought under the easy control of human skill! ”

“ He may have feared that a lawless mob would invade his shop, and scatter the proofs of his invention, and that some person of ingenuity would get a clew to the art, and rob him of his sacred rights. What hours, days and nights of solicitude he suffered! Those only, who in a good cause have met the scoffs and jeers of the rabble excited by unscrupulous leaders, can well imagine the inventor’s emotions.
Happily, Anna was equal to the emergency, and became a very heroine. ”

“ Benighted, Gutenberg, wrapped in his monk’s cloak, little heeded the roaring winds and cutting blasts, as, after destroying the work of years, he bade adieu to Dritzhn’s shop, and hurried homeward. The storm of life, the contest with his fellow-men, was more pitiless to him than the fierce raging of the elements.
It was quite dark when Anna, placing a light in the window, stirred the fire, and sat down to await his coming. The supper table was invitingly spread, and the covered dish of food placed by the fire to keep warm.
“Why does he not come? May God preserve him from unreasonable men;” ”

“ Peter felt ill at ease; and a consciousness of the despicable part he was playing, at times brought the mantling blush of shame to his cheek; but he hardened himself against conviction, by magnifying his own improvements and dreaming of future greatness. Besides, he had really been prejudiced by Faust against Gutenberg, and his mind was much occupied with the image of the amiable and charming Christiane; and he feared to offend the father lest he might not win the daughter. ”

“ Several type-setting machines have been devised, some of them very ingenious; but one after another failed to stand the test of actual work. It is not, however, half so strange that many should fail as that any should succeed in so great and delicate a work. So vast and difficult is the problem, that many of the best mechanicians of our day, whose knowledge of the capabilities of machinery gives their judgment peculiar weight, have pronounced it an impossibility, and have classed these efforts with the fascinating but visionary chase after a method of perpetual motion. ”

“ By lavishing time, ingenuity, and money on the Bible, the monks have produced some elaborate specimens. I see no reason why we may not rival them if we try.”
“Of all books the Bible should be in the highest style of our art,” remarked Schoeffer.
“True, it should be,” replied Gutenberg; “and as you have cultivated yourself in penmanship, I wish you to instruct the firm in type-cutting. I have thought of a plan by which we can have uniform and elegant letters. It is that you write them on the ends of the metal strips, and let others carve the type from your pattern. ”

“ It would be idle for us to print with gold, even if we had the abundance to warrant it. The monks are wealthy, and only lavish it on a single copy, once in many years; while if we issue one Bible, we shall imprint more than a hundred!”
“Aye, indeed!” exclaimed Peter Schoeffer, “What a magnificent thought! Truly we live in a wonderful age, when six men can make a hundred Bibles in six years!”
(But what would you say, Peter, could you witness the lightning-feats of the steam-presses of this day, dashing off a thousand copies of the sacred volume in one day?) ”

“ It is not the black art that I practice, but the art of printing. This newly discovered art was first devised by John Gutenberg of Mayence, and afterwards more fully improved by his journeyman, Peter Schoeffer, and myself. I can in a short time so describe the process to you that you may yourself set type and print. We employ young men to help in the work, and there is no more black art in it than there is in planting a garden. Think you the Evil One would lend his aid to the work of multiplying copies of a book that describes him and his wiles, warning men against him and predicting his doom! ”

“ But there were certain considerations which alleviated the poignancy of Gutenberg’s disappointment. He had the consolation of knowing that he had designed the enterprise of publishing the Bible, and that he had carried it successfully to its termination. And now, with the magnanimity of a great soul, he was willing that others should circulate it. Besides, he had at times a hope that he should yet have justice done him. It was as true then as now that a man may be disappointed in his greatest hopes in life, without, on that account, becoming unhappy ”

“ War, ever to be deplored as the author of almost unmingled evil, has turned attention to the cradles of printing,—Strasbourg and Mentz. Directly we recognize them, shake hands, and are at home with those glorious old Rhenish cities, made famous for all time.
It is an interesting fact that the final completion of the world-famed Minster or Cathedral of Strasbourg, closely preludes the time when the art of printing had its rise. Earth’s loftiest spire may well mark the place where Heaven gave the greatest treasure-art to man. ”

“ Thou art immortal; for thy discovery comes to give perpetual life to the genius which would be still-born without thee, and who, by acknowledgment, shall all make known in their turn the immortality of him who immortalized them! ”

“ You devised the ink, the forms for casting type, and the mixture of metals; and these are nearly all that has been invented. I regret to say it, but it would be a good thing for the firm if Gutenberg would even retire, so great is his extravagance. Why, he expended 4,000 florins before the Bible was half done! How he can ever pay me for the sums I let him have, I do not comprehend.”
“Economy is certainly useful,” observed Peter in a general way.
“A just and sensible remark,” replied Faust. “Your printer’s ink shows that you mean what you say; it is admirable, it is so cheap.” ”

“ At the close of the lawsuit, Gutenberg found himself overwhelmed with debt. His presses, type, and all his printing materials were destroyed. He was a poor man, and must start anew in the world. And such was the popular prejudice against his beloved art, that he saw it was useless to attempt it again. Besides, Riffe and Hielman were now wholly averse to the business; they urged that it had never been profitable, and that defeat and disaster had attended its prosecution. It only remained for them to resume the lapidary trade in the little shop of Gutenberg’s cottage. ”

“ If I leave the firm, I shall lose all chance of getting back the money I have lent them. I am in doubt what to do.”
“Leave it by all means!” cried Father Melchoir; “be sure no good will come of their arts.”
“I will see what I can do,” said Dritzhn, and he rose to go. As he entered the shop, he found Gutenberg, Hielman, and Riffe busy setting new type for another work. It was a dictionary, called a “Catholicon.” They were all eager in their toil, and spoke warmly of the ready sale it would find, and the money it would bring in. ”

“ Is there any inherent difficulty which makes it impossible to do the work of type-setting by mechanical appliances? The wonderful adaptation of machinery237 to all other forms of human labor and service suggests antecedently that it must be possible also here. Led by this faith in the possibility of the thing, and urged by the actual necessity of doing something to expedite this branch of the work, many inventors have of late years been studying upon this problem. But the mechanical type-setter is essentially a modern invention: it is the contribution of this age to the art. ”

“ Here rumbles the thunder of the269 modern steam-propelled printing-presses. What a clangor is made by the simultaneous revolutions of so much complicated machinery! Broad leather straps, rapidly revolving in every direction, cause you to start back, fearful lest you be caught in their toils. And yet how docile, how easily managed, how orderly, how almost human in intelligence,—and with what lightning swiftness the monster steam-presses throw off their work, so that the eye can scarcely follow the successively printed sheets! ”

“ Mentz, Strasbourg, Worms, and other municipal cities of the Rhine, were small federative republics; as Florence, Genoa, Venice, and the republics of Italy. The youth of our country find freedom favorable to thought and invention; thus young Gutenberg found it. Yet civil strife marked the history of those cities. “In them were the warlike nobility, the aspiring burghers, and the laboring people, who floated between these two contending classes, alternately caressed and oppressed by them, yet at times themselves striving for the supremacy. ”

“ Turning to a drawer of odds and ends, and taking out some bits of metal, he said, “Suppose we make our type of lead!” Faust took up a strip, and, commencing a rude letter on the end of it, said, “This will do, assuredly. It is hard, and yet we can cut it, and it will not become soft, as does wood, by absorbing ink.”
144 “We can at least test it,” said Gutenberg. “If it should not prove to be just what we need, it may suggest something useful. My progress has been made by a series of experiments; and because we fail once, is no reason for discouragement. We have only to try until we succeed.” ”

“ Let us break the seal which holds the holy things; give10 wings to the truth, that by means of speech, no longer written at great expense by the hand that wearies itself, but multiplied as the air by an unwearied machine, it may fly to seek every soul born into the world!”
If this was true of Gutenberg while young, no wonder that his manhood was crowned so gloriously. He placed before himself at the outset a great and worthy object; he felt through life the thrill of an inspiring purpose, which stimulated and ennobled his nature, and tended naturally to success. ”

“ Had he, like thousands, been contented to drift through the world with the current wherever it chanced to bear him, living for himself and the fleeting present, never should we have heard of John Gutenberg. ”

“ We moderns, seizing upon each item in the law records as a choice morsel of literary history, are prone to forget that they were made at the sacrifice of the peace and comfort of the inventor.
Especially was the writ of the notary public, summoning Gutenberg to the parlor of the Barefoot Friars, a crushing event. It came when he was just on the point of realizing his fondest hopes,—when the Bible was printed, and almost ready to be issued from the press. By this process of law, he was under the necessity of mortgaging his printing materials to Faust ”

“ His death seems like the calm, unclouded setting of the sun, after a tempestuous day.
Some one has said that genius, in its general sense, is universal; a possession belonging to all203 men, in some degree. Its greatest achievement is not in a great poem or painting, or any other work of art, but in a great life; and the strong heart and stout hands are its most miraculous organs. He who, by the majestic dignity of his daily walk, gives the beauty of truth to common life, is a great genius,—because he illustrates and sets forth, in its noblest form, virtue and true worth. ”

“ After his banishment, Gutenberg was not an idler. During his exile, we are told that he devoted time to travelling from city to city, studying monuments, and visiting men celebrated in art, science, or handicraft. For not only was he educated, but he cultivated a literary taste, and had chosen a trade, that of the lapidary, or polisher of precious stones. Then, in Germany, the artisan, or one trained to a trade, and the artist, held nearly the same rank; since the trades, scarcely discovered, were confounded with the arts. ”

“ I think we shall do better to keep on as we have begun,” said Riffe, with the air of one who had settled the matter.
“Block-printing is by no means to be despised,” answered Gutenberg, “in books of a few pages; but in a large book of many pages, we waste time in cutting letters, as they are only of use for that book, and cannot be taken apart and used for another.”
100 “I am opposed to any change,” Dritzhn reiterated; “we are sufficiently involved without any new experiments. We cannot do better than keep on with the block books.” ”