“Assuredly I am. Dost thou see, Anna, how much better these blocks are than the slower way of copying by hand? When they’re once cut many books can be printed as easily as one.”
“Aye,” answered his wife, “and they will be cheaper than the works written out by the scribes, and still be so costly that whoever can make them ought to grow rich from the sale. If thou canst do it, it will make thy fortune. Thou art so ingenious. Canst thou not make a ‘Bible for the Poor’?”
“Little wife, thou must be dreaming!” But John Gutenberg smiled, for he saw that she had discovered the thought that had been in his mind.
“But couldst thou not?” Anna persisted. “Thou art so good at inventing better ways of doing things.”
Gutenberg laughed and shook his head. “I have found new ways to polish stones and mirrors,” said he, “but those are in my line of work. This is quite outside it, and much more difficult.”
Nothing more was said on the subject that night, but Anna could see, as day followed day, that her husband was planning something, and she felt very certain that he was thinking out a way of making books more quickly than by the old process of copying them word for word by hand.
A few weeks later the young lapidary surprised his wife by showing her a pile of playing-cards. “See my handicraft,” said he. “Aren’t these as good as the Knave of Bells I gave thee?”
She looked at them, delight in her eyes. “They are very much better, John. The lines are much clearer, and the color brighter.”
“Still, that is only a step. It is of little use unless I can cut letters, and press them on vellum as I did these cards. I shall try thy name, Anna, and see if I cannot engrave it here on wood.”
He took a small wooden tablet from the work-table in his shop, and marking certain lines upon it, cut away the wood so that it left a stamp of his wife’s name. Brushing ink over the raised letters he pressed the wood upon a sheet of paper, and then, lifting it carefully, showed her her own name printed upon the paper.