Chapter XX: Part I: The Boy

Can English boys and girls living now in the nineteenth century, carry their minds back so far in time as to the period when our Henry the Fourth was reigning in England, and can they travel in thought so far distant as to the country called Germany, and picture to themselves the life of a little boy at that time and in that country? If so, we will tell them something of the life of Hans Gensfleisch, the only son of a poor widow, who lived about the beginning of the fifteenth century, not far from Mainz, or Mayence, a city built on the banks of the river Rhine, about half-way between its source and the sea. The father of Hans had been a dyer, and had at one time carried on rather a thriving business in Mainz; but after his death Frau[1] Gensfleisch had gone with her son to live at a little village called Steinheim, about three miles from the city walls, where, on a few acres of land, bought with her husband's savings, and laid out partly as garden, and partly as field and vineyard, she contrived to live with this, her only child. Hans and his mother cultivated the little garden, sowed their own crops of barley and flax in their little fields, and tended and trained the vines in their small vineyard. Strong and active, and fond of employment, the life of the little Hans was one long course of busy industry, from the sowing of seeds in Spring to the gathering in of their small vintage late in the Autumn. And in the long winter nights, there was always too much to do within the cottage walls, by the light of their pine wood fire, for him ever to find the time hang heavy on his hands. One night he would be busy helping his mother to comb and hackle her little store of flax; on another he would mend the net, with which he at times contrived to catch his mother a river fish or two for supper; and it would be _play_ to him when nothing else was wanting his help, to go on with the making of a cross-bow and arrows with which he intended some day to bring down many a wild duck or wood-pigeon.

The principal occupation of Hans was, however, to assist his mother in carrying on some part of her husband's former trade; she having become acquainted with many of the secrets of the art by which colors could be extracted from plants and mineral substances, so as to give to wool, flax, and silk, bright and unchanging colors. In those days such operations, instead of being carried on in large factories and workshops, and by wholesale as it were for the manufacturer of the material, were often done just as people wanted any one particular article of dress to be of a particular color. For instance, a woman who had fashioned for her husband a rudely knitted vest of wool of her own spinning; would bring the rather dingy garment to Frau Gensfleisch to have it made red or blue, so that, worn under his brown leather jerkin, it might look smart and gay;--or the young hunter, on going to the chase, would come to her to have the tassels of his bow or horn made scarlet or yellow;--or the knight equipping himself for war would send to her the soiled plume of his helmet, to be made of a brilliant crimson--to say nothing of the knight's lady, who, as she sat at home in her dismal castle, with little else to amuse her but the embroidery frame, would be forever sending down her maidens and serving-men into the valley with skeins of wool and silk, to be dipped into Frau Gensfleisch's dye-pots, and brought back to her of every color of the rainbow. In this way Hans' mother continued to make a comfortable living, and Hans himself was a very important help to her, in the carrying on of her little art.

It was Hans' business to collect the numerous herbs and plants that his mother required for the different colors. He not only knew well which plants would produce certain colors, but knew where they could be found, and at what seasons they were fit for use. Of some he carefully collected the blossoms when fully expanded in the mid-day sun--of others the leaves and stalks--while in many the coloring matter was to be extracted from the roots, which Hans would carefully dig up, knowing well by the forms of the leaves above ground, the kind of root that grew beneath the soil.

This kind of knowledge which Hans had been picking up ever since he was a very young child, made him at twelve years old a most useful little personage, and although he had never learned to read or write, or even been in a school, yet he could not by any means, be called ignorant, for he not only observed and remembered all that came in his way, but he turned his knowledge to the best account, by making it of use to himself and others.

We say that Hans could neither read nor write, but it must not therefore be thought that such acquirements were not valued in those days; on the contrary, it was considered at that time one of the very best and most desirable things in the whole world to be able to read, and one of the cleverest things in the world to be able to write; while he who was so happy as to be the possessor of a book, was esteemed one of the most fortunate of human beings.

This may seem strange to you little girls and boys, my readers, who ever since you were born have been surrounded with books of all sizes and shapes, and on all sorts of subjects, from the books of grown-up people that you could not understand, down to your most favorite story book that you do understand and like so well as to read again and again.

We must, however, remind you, that books in those days were very different things from what they are now, and their great value arose from the fact that they were all written with pen and ink upon parchment; for although a kind of paper had been made at that time, it was not commonly used; and it was only after weeks and months of careful labor, that one of these written books could be produced, so that it is no wonder that a great value was set upon them. A book too was so prized, that people liked to ornament it as much as possible, and many of these written or manuscript books, which means _written by hand_, had not only beautiful pictures in them, but were bound in rich bindings, sometimes silk embroidered with gold and silver thread, and sometimes even the backs were of beautifully carved ivory, or adorned with filagree work, and pearls, and precious stones.

We value books in our time, but we do not ornament them so very much, because we would rather have twenty interesting books on our shelves to read by turns, than one precious volume locked up with clasps, and kept in a box only to be taken out on particular occasions; and instead of a man spending half his life over the writing of such a book, letter by letter, word by word, and page by page, a man who in the course of a little time has set the small metal letters together, which we call printing types, so as to form a number of pages, can print those pages if he likes on ten thousand sheets of paper, which will form a part of ten thousand books of the same kind, and which when finished can be read by _ten times ten thousand_ human beings!

But we will return to little Hans. We have said that he lived not far from the town of Mainz, in Germany, and we must mention that one of the most pleasant things he had to do in his little life was to pay a visit occasionally to this great town and see all the busy and wonderful things that were going on there. Mainz was a rich and important town at that time, and was governed by an Archbishop, who was called an Elector, because he was one of those who had the right of choosing an Emperor for Germany, when one was wanted. Many Princes had also this right, but the Archbishop of Mainz had the particular privilege of setting the crown on the new Emperor's head, when he was crowned in the neighboring city of Frankfort. Besides seeing all that was going on at Mainz, and purchasing the different things that his mother wanted in the market, Hans' great delight was to pay a visit to an uncle, who lived in the monastery of St. Gothard, near the great cathedral.

This uncle was a monk, and called Father Gottlieb, and was considered at that time a very learned man. He was good as well as learned, and full of kindness to his little nephew Hans, who, from having so early lost his own parent, looked up to Uncle Gottlieb as a real father, and loved him as one.

A monastery, I must tell you, was a place where a number of men lived together away from the rest of the world, in order, as they thought, to devote themselves more to the service of God, than if they were mixed up with the business and pleasure of life. Whether they were right or wrong in so doing, we will not now stop to inquire, but we must point out that this custom had at that time a great many advantages, and certainly enabled these monks to do a great deal of service to their fellow-creatures. One of the most important of these services was with regard to the making of books, such as we have before described. It was in these monasteries, or houses of monks, that nearly all the books of those times were written or transcribed, and a number of the monks were always employed, if not in writing books, at all events in making copies of those which had been written before. A room called the Scriptorium, or writing-room, was to be found in every monastery, and most of the monks could either write or read, and were looked upon in consequence as very learned and wise. This made the visits of little Hans to his uncle very pleasant. There was nothing he thought so great a treat as to have something read to him out of one of Father Gottlieb's books, for he possessed two of these precious volumes. One was a copy of the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, you know, and the other was a history of the lives of some of the holy men that have been called saints by the Catholics. Seated on a low stool at his uncle's knee, Hans could have listened for hours to stories of the patriarchs Abraham, and Jacob, and Joseph, which Father Gottlieb slowly read from the pale written volume; but the duties of the convent allowed him only short portions of time, in which, shut up in his own little room or cell, he could entertain his dearly loved nephew; and often when both were so engaged he had to jump up at the sound of a bell calling him to prayers, and then, hastily locking up the precious volume, he would kindly stroke the boy's curly head, and with a message to his mother, bid him farewell. At other times he would take Hans into the beautiful chapel belonging to the monastery, and show him its gaily adorned altars, and curious images; and once or twice Hans got a peep into the Scriptorium, or writing-room, were the monks were at work over their sheets of parchment, writing so carefully one after another the curiously formed letters which were then in use, and which are still used in the printed books of Germany. Being read to, and finding what pleasure arose from being able to read, and seeing so much of book-making and writing, made little Hans wish very much to be able to read and write. A few years before, he had thought that nothing could be so grand or nice as to be a knight and go to the wars, and he would make himself a helmet of rushes, and with a long willow wand in his hand for a spear, and his cross-bow slung at his back, he would try to fancy himself a warrior, and set off in pretence to the Holy Land, to fight against the Turks; but latterly he had begun to think that he should like nothing so well as to be able to read and write like Father Gottlieb, and the rest of the monks, and it was a great delight to him, when his uncle allowed him to take in his own hands one of the precious volumes to pick out the different letters and learn their names.

What brought Hans at this time very often to the monastery, was, that his uncle, whose turn it was to be purveyor or provider for the convent, had employed his mother to make what they called writing color or dye, for the copyist. This was, of course, something the same as what we call _ink_ and it so happened that Frau Gensfleisch was in possession of a secret by which a black dye could be made, which would not turn brown with time, as that of many of the manuscripts. Every ten days or fortnight, therefore, it was Hans' business to take to the convent a small flask of the valuable fluid, which his mother had carefully prepared, from certain mineral and vegetable substances, and it was no fault of his, if he did not on each occasion, somehow or other, add to his own stock of knowledge; getting at one time perhaps a verse or two read by his uncle, which finished the history of Joseph, or puzzling out for himself the difference between the shape of a C and a G, till he could quite distinguish them; or being told by his uncle some wonderful legend or history connected with the paintings and carvings on the walls of the convent; so that it may be said that the education of little Hans was slowly proceeding in those matters, which at that time was considered learning and science. In the midst of all his other employments which did not require thought, Hans' mind would be occupied with this new knowledge; and as he worked in the garden, or weeded and dressed the vines in their little vineyard, the remembrance of the stories Uncle Gottlieb had read to him or told him, would come into his mind, and the pictures he had shown him appear as it were before his eyes. At night too, as he sat by his mother's spinning-wheel, he would try to trace on the sanded floor the letters he had learned from the books, or begging a drop of black dye, he made attempts with a pointed stick to mark them on the wooden table. Wherever he was, in fact, and whatever he was about, letters would dance before his eyes, and his former hopes of being a famous hunter or warrior when he grew up were all lost in the one great hope, which now filled his mind, of one day becoming a learned copyist or scribe. Such was the change that had taken place in the mind of little Hans, when, on visiting the convent one day, he found to his great dismay that his good uncle had gone on a journey to the city of Frankfort, which lay some thirty or forty miles off, upon the banks of the same river Maine, which just by Mainz empties its waters into the Rhine. It was the time of the great Frankfort Market or Fair, and Father Gottlieb had gone there to purchase for the convent all that was wanted for the next year. He had gone up the river in a boat with a party of monks and merchants, and was not expected to return until the next week, as he would wait to bring with him all the merchandise he purchased. It was a great trial to Hans to have another whole week to wait before he saw his dear uncle again, but then what a pleasure had he in his next visit to the convent; not only Uncle Gottlieb to see, but all the beautiful and wonderful things which he had brought back from the Frankfort Fair, and his own present to receive too, which the kind uncle had not forgotten amid all his bustle and business. This was no less than a knife--the first that Hans had ever possessed of his own. It had a pretty stag's-horn handle and a green leather sheath, so that, stuck in his girdle, it looked quite like that of a real woodsman or hunter, and made Hans not a little proud.

Then what wonderful things had not his uncle to relate of the large and rich city of Frankfort. Of all the beautiful works in gold and silver with which the shops were filled; of the grand old hall where the Emperors were elected and the chapel in which they were crowned; and then of the curious people called Jews, who live in such numbers in one part of the city, who did not worship Christ or the virgin, and were the same people whom he had heard about in the stories of Jacob and Joseph. Long after his usual time did Hans stay listening to all these matters, and it was nightfall ere he got back again to his mother's cottage with his present to her of a piece of fine cloth for a new head coif, which Father Gottlieb sent her.

For many days Hans could think of nothing but his new knife, and well pleased was he to show it to his young companions, many of whom had never before seen so polished a piece of iron. In his herb-gatherings for his mother, too, how useful it was to him in cutting through the tough stalks of some of the plants and in digging up the roots; and what fine things it enabled him to cut and carve for his mother,--new comb for her flax amongst other things, and a spoon to stir her pots of dye.

He grew very expert in using his knife, and cutting and carving with it almost put out of his head his dearly beloved letters that he had taken such pains to learn.

It happened, however, one day, that after having been some hours out on the hills, behind his mother's cottage, collecting a quantity of acorns and oak-galls, which his mother required to make her black dye or ink, a very violent storm came on, which obliged him to take shelter under a large spreading beech tree, behind whose trunk he crept while the wind and hail beat fiercely down. The storm lasted long, and to amuse himself Hans began to exercise his carving powers upon the smooth bark of the beech tree which sheltered him.

He carved some letters upon it; cutting away the bark of the beech and leaving the letters white. Some he cut deep into the wood in sharp furrows like the letters on a seal. Then he tried cutting away the bark and leaving the letters stand out _in relief_ as it is called, from the tree, like the letters on the impression of a seal. This was the prettiest way of all, and he began to carve the letters of his own name. The word _Hans_ he could manage very well, for he knew well the letters which formed it, and he got on very well with the rest of his other name as far as _Gens_,--but here, alas! he was stopped, for he did not know how to make an F. He had learned how his name was spelt, but it had never occurred to him before to write it; but it did not matter--he was going the very next day to the convent, and he would learn how an F was made, and then too he could also make himself sure of the C, which he had always a difficulty in distinguishing from G, as he had never learnt the alphabet in proper order. The next day accordingly, on visiting the convent, after delivering his flask of ink, he asked his uncle to show him once more the different letters which he did not yet know perfectly; and his uncle not only did this, but on a strip of old parchment he kindly wrote down all the letters from A to Z, so that at any time Hans could use it as a copy when he wanted to put letters together so as to make words.

Hans was greatly delighted. It seemed to him now as if he had got possession of a key which locked up a great deal of valuable knowledge, for his alphabet would not only help him to write but to read also. He could not rest that evening, even before he had taken the bowl of milk and piece of black bread that his mother had left for his supper, till he had climbed the hill to the great beech tree, and carved upon it the other letters of his name. When finished, his name reached half round the tree, and each letter was nicely formed and neatly cut. All the lines were straight, and the little points were all sharp and clear. Written in those (to us) old-fashioned letters it looked perhaps something like this:--

Hans wished his mother could but see it!

"Do mother, I pray thee, come up the hill as far as the great beech tree," said he one evening as he thought of his nice piece of writing; "I want to show thee how strangely the elves have marked the bark." This he said in jest, hoping to entice his mother to see the wonder.

"Nay, child," said she, "my old bones are too stiff for climbing now-a-days, and nought that the elves can do can make me wonder, seeing, as I do, all the strange new things that are coming every day into the world." And it was In vain that Hans tried to persuade her.

Some days after this, however, Hans on paying a visit to the tree and finding that the white wood of the beech, from which he had peeled away the bark, was becoming brown, so that the letters no longer looked out plain and distinct, the thought came into his head of cutting each of these raised letters away from the tree and taking them home. He did so--slicing them carefully off, so that they were not split or broken, and he was thus able to carry home to his mother, as she would not come to see them, this first specimen of his own writing.

We shall see how the carrying home of those letters was afterwards to influence the fate of Hans Gensfleisch--and of the whole world!

Proud was Hans that evening, when after his frugal supper was over, he swept away the crumbs from off their little table, and arranged side by side the letters of his name before his astonished mother--so that when she compared them with his name upon the slip of parchment which was the register of his birth, she could see that it was really and truly her son's name that the curious signs signified. She thought her Hans very clever, and she was pleased. We are not sure that Hans did not think himself very clever too!

Hans put his letters carefully away in an old leather pouch which had once belonged to his father, and often after his day's work was done would he pull them out and arrange them on the table or on the hearth before the fire. He soon found out that besides making his own name, he could put together several other words which he had learned to spell. Out of the letters which formed Hans Gensfleisch, for instance, he could make the word _fisch_ which is the German for fish--_lang_, long--_schein_, shine; and it was a great delight to his mother as well as to himself, when he found too that he could put together the letters of her name, _Lischen,_ just as they were also written on the parchment register of his birth.

But he had other discoveries still to make with regard to his letters; for one evening it so happened that as his mother was busy over a boiling of ink that he was to take the next day to Mainz, and had put some of it out in a sort of saucer or bowl upon the table to cool, Hans in playing with his letters let one of them fall into the black color, and pulling it hastily out again he popped it on to the first thing that lay near, which happened to be a piece of chamois leather which was stretched out after being cleaned ready for dyeing.

Scarcely had the letter laid an instant on the white leather than Frau Gensfleisch, turning round, saw with dismay the mischief that was done;--a large =h= was marked upon the chamois skin!

"Ah Hanschen! Hanschen!" cried she, "what art thou about--thou hast ruined thy poor mother. See, lackaday! the lady of Dolberg's beautiful chamois skin that was to be dyed of a delicate green for her ladyship's slippers. See the ugly black marks that thou hast made upon it! This comes of all thy letter making and spelling of words and names. Away with the useless--things! Thou canst do better with thy knife and thy time than to be bringing thy mother thus into trouble." And in her anger the Frau Gensfleisch swept the precious letters off the table and threw them into the fire.

Hans started forward in dismay to save them but it was too late. One =g= alone remained of his treasured letters, but it was enough. He had his knife and he could make others--and more than that, there was left with him a valuable thought. The impression left on the white chamois skin by the blackened letter had caused a new idea to flash into his mind--the idea of Printing. On that evening, and in that little cottage, in fact, the _invention of Printing_ took place.

It was something to have a lucky thought come into one's mind, but it is quite another thing to have patience and industry and perseverance enough to put that thought into action as it were, and make it turn to profit and use. Luckily for Hans and for the world, he had these good qualities even when thus a little boy, and from that time he made it the business of his life to turn the thought to good account. We do not say that the little boy Hans Gensfleisch could at that time foresee any but a very small part of the good which might arise out of the invention of printing. He could not possibly tell before-hand, how through its means, knowledge would be spread all over the face of the earth, nor that that book which was then only to be found in convents and monasteries--locked up and rarely opened--read by a few learned monks, and seldom or ever read to the people;--that this book, or the Bible, would through the invention of Printing, be distributed all over the world, and that rich and poor, wise and simple, young and old, would be able to possess it, and read it, and learn from it the Word of God:--he did not foresee this; but he saw that there might be an easier and a quicker way of making books, and this he felt would be a good and useful thing to bring about, and he resolved that he would do it. He saw that instead of spending so much time in shaping over and over again the same letters, that it would be a great saving of trouble, if letters were to be carved out of wood or any other hard substance, and then blackened with ink and pressed or _imprinted_ on the parchment, for then the same letters could be used many times in making different words in different books.

Hans saw this plainly. He was sure of it, and he was almost sure that no one had ever thought of it before. With a very natural feeling, and certainly not a wrong one, he determined that it should be himself who should bring about this new method of writing. He would keep it secret from every one until he could _prove_ that it was a great and useful discovery.

In the meantime, however, he had much to do. First, he must learn to read and spell, and then he must also be able to write well, so as to shape all the letters correctly when he carved them. From that time Hans lost no more time in play. His cross-bow was laid aside, and he seldom or never joined the other boys of the village in their games of running and wrestling, nor did he follow the hunters to the chase on the hills as he had been accustomed to do, or spend time in loitering with his net along the river side. Instead of all this, he would go on every possible pretext into the town and to the monastery to visit his uncle and get all the knowledge he could. And after some time he told his uncle of his great wish to learn to read and to become a scribe, and begged him to persuade his mother to let him follow out his wish.

Father Gottlieb was pleased with the boy's earnest desire. He was good and pious, and when he saw how full of this high hope was the mind of the young boy, he said, "It is the will of God. He makes the humblest of us tools for the furtherance of his wise designs. His will be done!" And he talked to the Frau Gensfleisch upon the matter, and though he did not think it right to tell her that her son might one day become a great and learned man, yet he persuaded her that it would be wrong to oppose the earnest wishes of Hans who had always been a good, and dutiful, and loving son; and so it was settled between them that henceforth a part of the widow's savings were to pay for the labor which was required for the field and garden, and that Hans was to come to the convent every day to be taught by the monks to read and write.

Henceforward Hans was to be a scholar, and his joy indeed was great.