“What is the most wonderful thing that you have seen in your travels?” asked the landlord.
“There is nothing more wonderful to me than the general ignorance of the people,” said Gutenberg. “They seem to know nothing about the country in which they live; they know nothing about the peoples of other lands; and, what is worse, they know nothing about the truths of religion. If there were only some way to make books more plentiful, so that the common people could buy them and learn to read them, a great deal of this ignorance would be dispelled. Ever since I was a mere youth at school, is this thought has been in my mind.”
“Well,” said the landlord, “we have a man here in Haarlem who makes books; and, although I know nothing about them myself, I have been told that he makes them by a new method, and much faster and cheaper than they have ever been made before.”
“Who is this man? Tell me where I can find him!” cried Gutenberg.
“His name is Laurence Coster, and he lives in the big house which you see over there close by the market place. You can find him at home at all hours of the day; for, since he got into this mad way about printing, he never walks out.”
John Gutenberg.