The Yazoo Democrat., 1858-10-09
THE PRINTER AND HIS TYPE.

prise whose details are less understood by
intelligent people than the "art preserva-
tive"-the achievement of types.
| Every day, their life long, they are ac,
customed to read the newspapers, to find
fault with its statements, its arrangement,
its looks; to plume themselves upon the
discovery of some rogush and acrobatic
type that gets into frolic aud stands upon
its head or of some word with waste
letter or two in it-but Of the process by
which the newspaper is made, Of the myr
ads of motions and thousands Of pieces
necessary to its composition; they know little
and think less
They imagine they discourse Of wonder,
indeed, when they speak of the fair white
carpet woven for thought to walk on the
rags that futtered on the back of the beg
gar yesterday.
But there is something more wonderful
still. When we look at the hundred and
fifty two little boxes, somewhat shaded with
the touch of inky fingers, that compose the
prinler's case, -noiseless except the click,
ing of types, as one by Que they take their
place in growing line-we think we have
found the marvel of the art.
We think how many fancies in fragments
there are in the boxes, how many atoms Of
poetry and eloquence the printer can make
here and there, if he only has little chart to
work BY, how many facts in small handluls,
how much truth and chaos.
Now he picks up the scattered elements
until he holds in his hand a stanza of Gray's
Elegy Or a monody upon Grimes call but
toned up before" Now he "sets" puppy
missing" and now "Paradise Lost !" he
arrays bride in "sMALL oAps," and g
sonnet in nonparel" he announces tha
the languishing " live, in the next
A poor jest ticks its way slowly into the
printers hand like a clook just running
down, aud strain of eloquence marches
into line letter by letter. We fancy we car
tell the difference by hearing of the eur, bu
perhaps not.
The types that told wedding yesterday
announce burial tn.morrow-pe perhaps il
the self-same letters.
Tney are elements to make world Of
those types are, world with something il
it as beautiful as spring, as rich as summer
aud as grand as autumn flowers that fros
caunot wilt, fruit that shall ripen for al
time.
The newspaper has become the log booE
of the age it tells at what rate the worl(
is running; we cannot find our reckoning
without it,
Truey the green grocer may bundle up
pound of candles in our last expressed
thoughts but it is only coming to base uses
as its letters have done times innumerable
We console ourselves by thinking that
one can make of that newspaper what he
cannot make Of living oaks-a bridge for
time, that he can fling ii over the chasm Of
the dead years and walk safely back upon
the shadowy sea into the far Past The
singer shall not end his song, nor the true
soul be eloquent no more.
The realm of the Press is enchanted
ground. Sometimes the editor has the hap
pine's Of knowing that he has defended the
right, exposed the wrong, protected the weak
that he has given utterance to sentimen
that is not lost, a sentiment that has cheereC
somebody's solitary hour made somebody
happier, kiGdled a smile upon sad face, Of
hope on heavy heart.
He may meet with that sentiment many
years after it may have lost all traces of iu
paternity, but he feels an affection for it
He welcomes it as long absent child HI
reads it as for he first time, and wonders if
indeed, he wrote it, for he has changed sine,
then. Perhaps he could not give utterauc,
to the sentiment now-perhaps he would no
if be could.
1t seems like The voice of his former sci
calling to its parent, and there is somethin
mournful in its tone. He begins to thinl
to remember why he wrote it-waere wer
his readers then, and whittier have they gon
what he was then, and how much he ha
changed. So he muses., until be finds him
self wondering if that thought of his will
continue to float after he is dead, ant
whether be is really looking upon something
that will survive him. And then comes tn
sweet consciousness that there is nothing il
the sentence that be could wish unwritten =
that it is better part Of him-a shred from
the garment of Immortality he shall leav
behind him when he joins the innumerabl
caravan and takes his place in the silen
nails of death, ,-Bayard Taylor.