“He set to work with the utmost eagerness. Out of a piece of hard wood
he sawed some thousand tiny blocks, a few inches long, and very narrow.
At one end he cut a letter in relief, and bored a hole through the
other. After having thus furnished himself with a considerable number
of the letters of the alphabet, he placed whole words together, and
arranged them in lines on a string, until they formed a page, when he
bound them together with wire, and so prevented their falling asunder.
He then blackened his wooden type with ink, and taking up the whole
together, pressed upon it a sheet of paper. And now let us place
ourselves in his position, and enter into his feelings as he beheld the
first fruits of his long, unwearied labors.
“With a trembling hand he caught up the printed paper. It had succeeded
beyond his expectation. Tears ran down his cheeks as he gazed on it
with ecstacy. It was the Lord’s Prayer, with which he had made almost
his first attempt at printing with types.
“Often had his lips uttered the words of prayer, whilst he was thinking
only of his invention; now, however, their meaning came clearly upon
his mind, and his grateful soul turned fervently to the Father of all
light, from whom this light also had come, which would enlighten men as
no other human invention could do. He fell upon his knees, holding the
sheet of paper in both hands, and repeated the prayer it contained with
his whole heart. O! it was not for the sake of worldly gain that he
rejoiced in his discovery. It was that it freed him from the debt that
he had long ago incurred. He might be called a dreamer and an idler: he
neither heard nor regarded.
“‘Anna!’ he cried, throwing his arms round her, ‘here is the gold
brocade cap, and all the rest besides which I promised you. I
have succeeded, and our fortune is made.’ His wife shook her head
incredulously, and said with a sigh:--
“‘I wish you would give up these fancies, and return to your work.’
Gutenberg smiled, but persevered.”
“My Anna!” said the inventor, some little time later, as he showed
her other specimens of his work, “I trust that our poverty will soon
be over. You shall yet ride in a coach, and dine like a queen. My
invention is a certainty.”
“I only wish comforts and a competence,” returned Anna tearfully.
“We are sure of both,” replied he, “Let me tell thee, wife, nothing
yet invented by man, ever made such inroads on ignorance as this will
effect. Almost everything we know, we have acquired through the medium
of either spoken or written language. The mass of the people are
only acquainted with the former. Everybody will, by and by, learn to
read and understand written language, and the knowledge locked up in
cloisters will be freely poured out to the thirsty multitudes. It is
through language that we become wiser and better; and if my discovery
succeeds, as it must, the knowledge of the arts, sciences, and religion
will be sooner or later spread abroad. Then, no more hoarding of
libraries that kings, prelates, and priests alone may read; but the
common people, too, will have their books.” Anna listened with pleased
interest, and he went on: “God has bestowed great honor on books, as
some of the devout authors say, in communicating with us through them;
and if holy men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost
had not written down what God taught them, where to-day would be our
knowledge of our sacred things? And if it was important for God to
record his will, may we not suppose that He will give wisdom so that a
way may be devised to publish his Word with facility?”
“I must think so, my Anna,” he added, “and I cannot doubt that He has
given me skill in what I have undertaken. It grieves me to think what
you must have suffered through it, but I trust our days of mourning are
ended;” and his happy smile lightened her heart like a sunbeam.
It was still quite early in the day when Gutenberg repaired to
Dritzhn’s shop, to exhibit to his associates his invention of separate
types. As he entered, he was struck with the settled gloom that rested
on Dritzhn’s face. “My improvement has occurred in good time,” thought
the inventor; “my partners are getting discouraged.”
“I have something new to show you,” said he to Dritzhn, who was busy
engraving the first verses of the third chapter of Matthew.
“New things have nearly ruined us!” retorted Dritzhn, looking up
moodily from his work.
“But this is a new method of imprinting, which will save much of our
labor,” said Gutenberg, showing the specimens of _bonus homo_ and the
“Lord’s Prayer.”
“How does this mode differ from ours?” asked Dritzhn. “You impress with
the block, do you not?”
“Nay; I first make letters on bits of wood, tie them together to
impress with, and, after using them, take them apart, and set them up
for new words.”
“And this tying together and taking apart would consume time,” objected
Dritzhn. “I see no advantage in this mode; in my opinion, it would
involve us more deeply.”
“But let us try it,” interposed Hielman; “if it will save labor, it is
a good thing.”
“Leave well enough alone! 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.”
“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.”
Gutenberg had failed in convincing these men, but he was confident that
the practical working of his separate types would yet be an argument
they could not resist. He persevered in his experiments, and, in place
of engraving on the block, busied himself in adjusting and readjusting
his type for the “Lord’s Prayer,” as he found a difficulty in keeping
them in place, when he took a second impression.
Dritzhn and Riffe, having little fellowship for this new way of
“spending time,” were ready to criticise when the types slipped out
of place, as Gutenberg tied them with thread or twine. But before the
day was over, he had managed to take several good impressions of the
“Lord’s Prayer.” This was well enough, Dritzhn said, but still insisted
that he did not see how it was better than if taken with an engraved
block, and was in no mood to investigate the matter with candor.
The partners had previously decided to publish the “Speculum Humanæ
Salutis,” and they now commenced upon it. The “Speculum” suited both
parties, as there were plenty of subjects requiring wood-engravings,
and the movable type could also be used in the written portion of the
book.
As Gutenberg wrought at his types, he had still to combat the
difficulty of making them hold together with sufficient firmness. At
first he used strings, then wires. These were easily displaced, and
cost him many a hard job of repairing damages, which confirmed Dritzhn
and Riffe in the opinion that it was useless to attempt to make them
work. It was not reasonable, the former said, that such bits of wood
could be made serviceable in book-making. There was some sense in
a solid block, and his advice was to keep on in the old way, with
which, however, he was often finding fault, for he had enlisted in the
enterprise not so much for the love of the art as the love of money.
Months of toil and large expenditures had brought comparatively small
returns. Some of the firm even began to talk of returning to the old
occupation of polishing stones. Riffe continued to echo Dritzhn’s
criticisms and complaints.
“Why not keep on with block-printing?” asked the latter, as Gutenberg
was busy cutting out his type, or _stucke_ as it was called. “I’ve just
got my hand in, and do not wish to give up the trade for whittling
sticks, of which I do not see the use.”
“Let me try once more to explain the use,” pleasantly replied
Gutenberg. “Suppose the letters of the alphabet were tied together
so that you could not separate them, how could you spell words? The
letters on a block cannot be taken apart to form other words; but with
the separate types it is very different;” and to illustrate his meaning
he set up a word in type, printed with it, took the letters apart, or
“distributed” them, and framed another word.
Although slow to be convinced, his associates finally acknowledged the
necessity of movable type and began to acquire some degree of skill in
making them.
An advance on the method by cords and wire, was Gutenberg’s invention
of a frame with wedges to keep the types in place. This had the
approbation of his partners. It was a great gain, and there was much
congratulation when he succeeded in firmly adjusting the _stucke_ so
that they had all the advantage of the solid block, with none of its
disadvantages.
Taking impressions of the type on paper by friction was slow and
unsatisfactory; and Gutenberg, after many experiments, contrived a
press to imprint with, and employed a skillful mechanic to make it.
This saved, besides other labor, the trouble of pasting the blank backs
of the leaves together, as both sides of the paper were imprinted.
A distinguished writer, who assures us that he has had access to the
archives of Strasbourg, thus vividly describes this discovery; “Months
and years had been consumed--his fortune also and the funds of the
association--in patient experiments, in successes, and in reverses. At
length, having made a small model of a _press_ which appeared to him
to combine all the conditions of printing as he then understood it, he
hid the precious miniature under his cloak, and, entering the city,
went to a skillful turner in wood and in metal, named Conrad Sachspach,
who dwelt at Merchants’ Cross-roads, to ask him to make one of a large
size. He left the secret in the machine, only telling him that it was
a contrivance by which he proposed to accomplish some _chefs d’œuvre_
of art and mechanics of which a slower process was known. The artisan,
taking, turning, and re-turning the model in his hands, with a smile of
disdain at the rough sketch completed by Gutenberg, said to him, with a
bantering air:--
“‘This is only a simple wine-press that you ask me to make, Master
John!’
“‘Yes,’ replied Gutenberg in a serious and dignified tone, ‘it is a
wine-press in effect, but it is a press from which shortly shall sprout
forth floods of the most abundant and the most marvelous liquor that
has ever flowed to quench the thirst of man. By it God shall spread
his Word; from it shall flow a fountain-head of pure truth. As a new
star, it shall dissipate the darkness of ignorance, and cause to
shine on men a light hitherto unknown!’ He withdrew. The mechanic, who
understood nothing of these words, executed the machine, and returned
it to Gutenberg at the monastery of Arbogast. This was the first press.
“In giving it into the hands of Gutenberg, the workman began to suspect
some mystery. ‘I see clearly, Master John,’ said he to Gutenberg, ‘that
you are indeed in communication with celestial spirits; so hereafter I
shall obey you as one of them--as a spirit!’”
This first press, contrived in the gloomy recesses of the old
monastery, was set up in the printing rooms of Dritzhn’s dwelling, but
was not at first fully appreciated.
Two years passed, the company cutting a supply of movable type. Some
sales were effected, but financial affairs were not flattering.
Meanwhile a new cause of disturbance occurred to impede progress, and
waken in Gutenberg’s partners doubts of his uniform infallibility in
invention.
It was discovered that ink softened the type, and injured the shape of
the letters.
Riffe, one of the first to notice it, became alarmed.
“It is my mind,” said he, “that the bubble has burst. We may as well
give up, and engage in our old trade. These uncertainties will never
bring grist to the mill.”
“The type does not print as well after it becomes softened by the ink?”
said Dritzhn inquiringly to Gutenberg.
“We must expect difficulties,” was the reply, “and seek to overcome
them. We must make more fresh type until we can contrive a way of
hardening the wood.”
At this the firm murmured against him afresh; nor were they better
satisfied as time went on, and “John Dunnius’ bill of one hundred
florins was sent in for press-work.”
“Monstrous!” exclaimed Hielman; “we can never afford it.”
“It is all pay out in this business,” Dritzhn added, “and almost
nothing coming in to balance the loss.”
“Wait a little,” was Gutenberg’s reply; “we are now sowing the seed;
by and by we shall reap our harvests.” And he further appeased their
agitation by calling attention to the satisfactory working of the
press, and reminded them of the great service it was to them.
“Do you not see,” said he, “that our labor of making _stucke_ is nearly
useless without the frame and press? We must either give up the art,
and disband, or make the necessary improvements as they are called
for.”
While feeling keenly the murmurings of his associates, most indomitable
was the spirit that he cherished, having the indispensable attribute
of the true inventor,--a passion for his calling, and confidence in
ultimate success.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]