But what changes these books effected in the households blessed with their presence! “A man is known by the company he keeps;” and books are most influential associates. People who had not dreamed of being able to buy a book, by the skill of Gutenberg suddenly found themselves enriched with the treasure. How the reader of the family dwelt on the magic page! for seldom it was that more than one member could read. How the little circle gathered round the fireside of an evening, listening to catch each word of the wonderful volume, which was read and re-read, discussed, approved, and mostly committed to memory. This eagerness of the more enlightened classes to own and read a book, may seem strange to us who all our lives long have been surrounded with books of all sizes, from the abstruse tome we pore over to understand, to the charming literary favorite that we read once and again with delight. But our wonder will cease when we remember what a different state of things then existed. Books were so scarce,--and this very scarcity increased their value,--then they were made with pen and ink alone, except by Gutenberg, who kept the secret of his block process. People took it for granted that the books he sold them were manuscripts, slowly written by hand; and marveled much at their exactness and similarity. Still, with all the interest excited by his books, an edition of some fifty copies, sufficed to answer the demand. The mass of the people were too ignorant to aspire to the possession of a book. They could not read, and reasoned--if the subject came up--that books would be useless. To buy them, would be like purchasing a carriage when horses could not be had to draw it, or spectacles for a blind man, or shoes for one without feet. As was his custom, whenever a new book was issued, the inventor visited the Cathedral with the “Ars Moriendi” to make sales. The visit was an event of moment to the firm, far more than a trade sale is to a publishing house of this day. He first sought the Abbot in the library, whom he found sitting a little apart by a table, busily examining the work of the copyists. “Good-morning, holy Father!” said Gutenberg. “Good-morrow, my son: hast thou brought more of thy wonderful books?” “That I have, Father,” replied Gutenberg; and as he began to remove the coverings, several monks gathered around him. “What hast thou here?” asked Father Gottlieb, a gray-headed friar; “more of thy magical books?” “I claim no powers of magic, Father; it is simply patience that has done it!” and opening an “Ars Memorandi,” he passed it to the critical monk. Then taking a copy of “Ars Moriendi” he courteously presented it to the Superior. “Thank you, my son!” rejoined his Reverence graciously. “It is a pleasure to examine thy manuscript.”