The Stranger in Americ

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1835. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... is given. With the swiftness of the best compositor, it is put in type--it is printed--" There, sir, your whole name, and I add the surnames for nothing, sir, however long they may be; don't it look fine? You'd better take it." It is, perhaps, the first time our farmer has seen his name in print, and all over the world there is something flattering in this. I know that criminals, sentenced to die, will often find some satisfaction in the assurance that their whole process will be printed. The love of authorship is universal; it is as active in kings as in the secretary of the smallest town-meeting, who sends his report to the county-paper. By degrees, the farmer pulls out his quarter of a dollar, receives his name, puts it in his pocket, and--half ashamed --retires. Another has already begun to handle other types, to go through the same psychological process, founded upon some of the original principles of the human soul, and, therefore, is sure to produce the same result. After about half a dozen persons had thus been rendered happy by the contemplation of their own names, I stepped up to the seller of types, and, perceiving that his dialect was foreign, addressed him in French. In French, still worse than his English, this peddling disciple of Guttenberg told me, that he was a Dutchman; he was actually a Jew of Holland. I tried German; he spoke it. I now expressed my surprise at his success; but he assured me, that he had carried on this lucrative trade in battered types, for several years, every day going up the river, half the way to Albany, and returning, by another boat, the same day to New York. I freely acquainted him with my disbelief in the utility of these types to any one who had bought them. "They can't do any thing with them," he said. "But how is ...