Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1867-01-04
THE PRESS AND THE TYPES

The following beautiful extract is from the
pen of Benjamin +. Taylor, printer poet Per-
haps there is no department of enterprise whose
details arc less understood by intelligent peo-
pie than the "art preservative the achieve
ment of types Every day their life long, they
are accustomed to read the newspaper aud find
fault With it's arrangement its looks; to plume
themselves upon the discovery OF some rogulsh
and acrobatic type that gets into trollc 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 myrlads OF motions
and the 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 beautiful carpet,
woven for them TO walk on, made OF the rags that
fluttcred on the back Of the beggar yesterday.
But there is something more wonderful still.
When we look at the hundred and hfty-two
lrtlc boxes, somewhat shaded with the touch
Of inky fingers that compose the printer case
II ,i,eIess, except the clicking of the type,as ono
by on5 they take their place In the growing
linc-we think we have found the marvel of
the art. We think how many fancies in frag-
ments there are in the boxes how many atoms.
The types that told wedding yesterday an-
nounce burial TO- -morrow-perhaps the same
letters. They arc the elements to make a
world of-those types are world with some
thing in it as beautiful as Spring, as rich Us
Summer, and as grand as Autumn flowers that
frost cannot 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 reckoning
without it. True, the green grocer may bundle
up a pound of candles in our last expressed
thoughts but it is only coming to base uses;
something that is done times innumcrablc.
We console ourselves by thinking that ono can
make of that newspaper what he cannot make
ol living oaks,-a bridge for time, that he can
fling over the chasm of the dead years and
walk safely back upon the shadowy sea into
the lar past. The singer shall not end his
song, nor the soul bc eloquent no more. The
realm of the press senchanted ground. Some
thing, 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 has chccred some
body s solitary hour, made somebody happier,
kiDdled a smile upon sad face or a hope in
a heavy heart.
He reads it as for the FIRST time, and wonders
if, indeed he wrote it, tor 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 for.
mer self calling to his parents and there is some
thing mourntu in its tone. He begins to think
to remember why he wrote it, wko were his
readers then, and whittier they have gone
what he was then, and how much he has chan
ged. So he muses., until he finds himself won
dering if that thought of his will continue to
float after he is dead, and whether he is looking
upon something that will survive him. And
then comes the sweet consciousness that there
is nothing in the sentence that he could wish
unwritten, that it is better part OF him, "a shred
from garment Of Immortality he shall leave
behind him when he Joins the innumerable
caravan" and takes his place in the silent halls
of death