Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1861-05-24
A Wonderful Architect.

10 you know the type setter is wonder
iul architect? You see those bits of lead
and zinc lying over, across and against each
other, like the tangled bIads of mermaid's s
hair? And yet they form an army more
powerful than ever fought on tented field
Yesterday they stood up proudly, profess
sionally speaking, in one "form truly,
in thousand forms. You may look
upon the little bits with smile on your
lip, but you little dream they are stronger
and wiser than you-that they will speak
when you are dead and forgotten They
have sometimes made you smile and some
times shudder. "Stocks p Isn't there some
thing in that wcrd? Haven't you been head
and heels in them for years, and don't your
feelings rise and fall with them alternately !?
a little further on you come to the word
Married" All! I thought that would
make you smile. I saw you kiss a baby
then and that word unravels it all You
haven't forgot the day when you went court
ing, have you? Then there was magic in
the utterance. You stood at the altar on the
strength of the happiness you felt, and if you
have not always loved the girl as you ought
to-, there is no one you love as well. You
secretly bless the day when the single word
married was wrcathed like a sacred arch
way over the joys of You and yours. Don't
you remember little Minnie-she whom you
loved so well-she with the blue eyes and
auburn curls? When Deaths dark Angel
folded her little delicate hands over her
snowy bosom, and sealed her loving eyes
with its icy fingers, don't you remember
how the great tide of sorrow came surging
DER your smittcn heart? You little thought
the other day when you picked up the pa.
pers-that the word "Died," of only four
letters which you laughed at as they lay
dusty and dirty in their square homes
would make you wecp--woud make you
think of her whom God hath taken.
If you come to his office tomorrow the
printer will show you how to distribute
knowledge He will pull to pieces tough,
wiry arguments that yesterday defied the
world. Those pretty palaces which the poet
wrought will have to come down, and their
golden fancies become tomorrow the integu-
ments of the politicians prose. In they go
those metallic dwarfs, scattered broadcast
like good seed, which shall bring forth sixty,
aye an hundred fold "Sixty lives lost"
and Prentices last joke march in together,
and the printer whistles Yankee Doodle as
carelessly as if human life was below par,
eA''u ~ ~ io' LIS 10 Siic HitVi . NIC
business. ....
A Printing Office is a great bowling alley.
The printer sets up pins-the world keeps
tally, the editor puts the ball in motion, and
away it goes, carrying death and destruction
in its front, sending pin here and pin
there, while noisy rabble always stand by
to cheer and hiss down the players. Some
play for money; and few-a very few-do
it to patronize the boss and bless mankind
No matter what the balls are made Of or how
they go, if they only hit the mark. The
crowd pocket the spoils and the honors are
left to the proprietor, who goes behind the
scenes and starves in his shirt sleeves. And
such is life.
When the printer dies, the world just
catches glimpse of his value as his coat
tails vanish into glory, and then it looks
very bad, rubs its head little, calls him a
clever fellow says his only fault was in be-
ing poor, and then the world shoyes his
sympathy out of sight into that idiom, the
human heart, and on rolls the Juggernaut as
though nothing had happened.
Some day the people will wake up and
find screw lost in the jagged machine of
human progress. If you do, don't waste
more sympathy than possible on those myth
illogical fellows who print your books and
papers.