The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1866-09-14
The Art Of Printing.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR

Perhaps there is no department of
enterprise whose details are less un-
derstood by intelligent people than the
cart preservative the achievement of
types
Every day, their life long they are
accustomed to read the newspaper, to
find fault with its statements, its ar
rangement, its looks; to plume them
selves upon the discovery of some
roguish and acrobotic type that gets
into frolic, and stands upon its head;
or of some waste letter or two IN it;
bat Of the process by which the news
paper is made, OF the myriads of mo-
tons and thousands Of pieces neccs-
sary to its composition, they know lit
tie and think less
They imagine they discourse of Won
der, indeed, when they speak of the
fair carpet, woven for thought to walk
on--of the rags that futtered upon
the back of the beggar yesterday.
But there is something more Won
dertul still When we look at the
hundred and fifty-two little boxes,
somewhat shaded with the touch of
the finger, that compose the printers
cease -noiscless, except the clicking
of the types, as one by one they take
their places in the growing line-we
think we have found the marvel of the
art.
We think how many fances in frag
ments there are in the boxes, how
many atoms of poetry and excellence
the printer can make here aud there,
if he only had little chart to work
how many facts III a small 'handfu"
how much truth in chaos.
Now he picks up the scattered ele-
ments, until he holds in his hand a
stanza of "Gray's Elegy,' or monody
upon Grimes "all buttoned up before" .
and now Paradise Lost he arrays
bride in small caps, and a sonnet in
"nonpariel;" he announces that the
languishing Give, in one sentence
transposes the words, and deplores the
days that are few and evil in the
next
A poor jest tricks its way slowly in
to the printers hands like clock just
running down, and strain of elo-
quence marches into line letter by let
ter We fancy we can tell the differ
ence by hearing of the ear, but per-
haps not
The types that told a wedding yes
terday announces burial tomorrow
perhaps the self same letters.
They are the elements to make
world of--these types are world with
something in it as beautiful as spring,
as rich as summer, and as grand as
autumn flowers that frost cannot wilt
fruit that shall ripen for all time.
The newspaper shall become the
log book of the age; it tells at what
rate the world is running; we cannot
find our reckoning without it.
True, the green grocer may bundle
up pound of candles in our last ex-
pressed thoughts, but it is only coming
to base uses, and that is done times
I innumerable.
( We console ourselves by thinking
that one can make of that newspaper
7 /, fiat he cannot make of living oaks
bridge of time that he can find it
over the chasm of the dead years, and
walk safely back upon the shadowy
sea into the fair 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 happiness of knowing that he has
defended the right, exposed the wrong,
protected the weak; that he has given
utterance to sentiment that had
cheered somebody's solitary hour,
made somebody happier, kindled a
smile upon sad face, or hope in a
heavy heart.
He may meet with that sentiment
many years after it may have lost all
charm of its paternity, but he feels at
lection for it. He welcomes it ms n
long absent child. He reads it as if
for the first time, and wonders If, in
deed he wrote it, for he has changed
since then. Perhaps he could not
give utterance to the sentiment now
perhaps he would not if he could.
! 1t seems like the voice of his former
self calling to its parents, and there is
a something mournful i'll its tone. He
begins to think-he remembers why
he wrote it, where were his readers
then, and whittier they have gone
: what he was then, and how much he
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 really looking