Sugar planter. [volume] (West Baton Rouge [i.e. Port Allen, West Baton Rouge Parish, La.]) 1856-1925, 1866-12-08

THE PRINTER AND HIS TYPE.
The following heaa,tiful extracts from

The following beautiful estractlis from
the pen Of Benjamin F. Taylor the printer
peet.A5zzzEGI1 T+ID3JlA
Perhaps there is no department Of en-
t~erprise whose details are less under
stood by intelligent people than the art
pr~eservative the achievement of types.
Every day their life long they are &C
customed to read the newspapers and
find fault with its statements, its ar
engagements, it's looks to plume them
selves upon the discovery of some rogu-
ish acrobatic type that gets into a frolic
and stands upon its head, or Of some
waste letter or two in it /; but Of the
process by which the newspaper is made,
of the myriads of motions and thousands
of pieces necessary to its composition,
they know little and think less. They
imagine they discourse Of a wonder, in
decd, when they speak Of the fair white
carpet, woven for thought 10 walk on, OF
the rags that huttered on the back OF
The beggar yesterday. But there is
something more wonderful still. When
We look at the hundred and ffty-two lit
tie boxes, somewhat shaded with the
touch of inky fingers, that compose the
printers case," noiseless, except the
clicking Of the types, as one by one they
take their places il the growing line, We
think we have found the marvel of the
art. We think how many fancies 10
fragments there are in the boxes how
many atoms of poetry and eleguence the
printer can make here and there, if be had
only a little chart to work BY, how many
facts in a small handful" how much
truth in chaos. Now he picks up the
the scattered elements until he holds in
his hands a stanza Of "Gray's Elegy," or
a monody upon Grimes' "All Buttoned
up Before" Now he sets up puppy
missing" and now Paradise Lost +; be
arrays a bride in "small caps" and a
sonnet in nonpariel = he announces the
languishing Give" in one sentence
transposes the word a~ndIdeplores the days
that are few and " evil in the next" A
poor jest tricks its way slowly into the
printers hand, like 8 clock Just running
down, and a strain of eloauence marches
into the line letter by letter. We fancy
VIZ can tell the difference by hearing by
the ear, but perhaps not. The types that
told q wedding yesterday announce a
burial to-morrow-perhaps the same let
tiers. They are the elements to make a
world of--thoss types are a world with
something IN it as beautiful as Spring, as
rich as Summer, and as grand as Autumn
flowers that frost capnoa wilt. Fruit that
shall ripen for all time. The newspaper
has become the log.book of The age. 1t
tells at what rate the world is running /:
we cannot find our reconing" without
it. True, the green grocer may bundle
up q pound of candles in our fast express
ed thoughts, but it is only coming to base
uses, something that is done time innu-
merable. We console ourselves by think
ing that D can make of that newspaper
what he cannot make with living oaks.
q bridge for time, that be can fling over
the chasm of the dead years and can
walk safely back upon the shadowy eea
into the fast past. The singer shall not
end his song, nor the soul be eloquent no
more.
The realm of the press is enchanted
ground. Sometimes the editor has the
happiness Of knowing that he has defend
cd the right, exposed the wrong, protect
ed the weak that he has given utter
ance to a sentiment hat has cheered
somebody's solitary haur, made some
body happier, kindled a smile upon a sad
face, or a hope in a heavy heart. He
may meet with that sentiment many years
after it may have lost all charms of its
paternity, but he feels affection for it,
he welcomes it as a long absent child.
He reads it as for the first time, and won
ders if, indeed, be wrote it. for be has
changed since then. Perhaps he could
not give inference to the sentiment now
perhaps he would not if he could. It
seems like the voice of bis former self
calling to his parents, and there is some
thing mournful in its tone. He begins
to think-to remember why he wrote it,
who were bis readers then, and whittier
they have ~gone--what he was then, and
how much be has changed. So he muses.
until he finds himself wondering if that
thought of his will continue to float after
he is dead, and whether he is looking up
on something that will survive him. And
then comes the sweet consciousness that
there is nothing in the sentences that he
could wish unwritten--that it is a better
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