It was one of my greatest vexations that I could not find a fit instrument to hold my little wooden letters. I could not manage to get the impression straight and even, and strong enough to produce the engraving without seeing my letters constantly break, and fall out of place. One day, as I was seated alone in my workshop, a world of ideas passed through my mind, without my being able to realize any one of them; I became prostrate with the sense of my own weakness, and a feeling of despair, at seeing myself incapable of success, took such possession of me that I suddenly rushed out of doors, like a madman. I required to breathe the pure air of heaven, and I wished to try if in the midst of quiet fields, and gentle scenes, I might, for a few moments, forget my grief. It happened to be just that beautiful autumn season when the hills and the gardens around Strasburg, far and near, swarm with vintagers, young men and women gathering the grapes. My son! man is corrupt from his earliest years, and his heart is full of wickedness. My soul was bursting with the blackest, vilest envy. At the sight of these poor, happy work-people, I said to myself, each has his own place under the sun, each knows what he has to do, and I--I alone, am condemned to be a useless, unemployed wanderer! At this very moment, as if the Almighty wished to punish me in his own way, for my blind rebellion, a load of grapes was thrown just before me, under the screw of the wine-press; the machine began working immediately for the vine-dresser. Ah! it was as if scales had suddenly fallen from my eyes. I ran, I flew to my workshop; I worked the whole night, in concert with my faithful Lawrence Beildech, and in the morning, when Aurora appeared on the horizon, lighting up my poor dwelling with her rays, I had before me a printing press, rough and shapeless it is true, but the discovery was made! Claude, thou mayest believe me when I say that I could also have behaved like that great mathematician, of whom I have read somewhere, who, jumping out of his bath where he had solved a problem, ran naked through the streets of his native city, exclaiming, ‘I have found it! I have found it!’ Some day, perhaps, thou mayest thyself experience these ecstasies, when, after having long wandered in darkness, suddenly light breaks in upon thee, a delirium seizes one, the sinner falls down on his knees to thank God, from whom proceeds all light, that God to whom we, the ungrateful children of earth, do not fear, in our ignorant pride, to aspire to an equality!”