In all these early German books, printed of course in Latin, the type used was the black-letter. Gutenberg, in designing his first font, evidently tried to imitate as closely as possible the angular gothic alphabet employed by the scribes in the best manuscripts. Not only were the letters identical in form with the engrossing hand of the monks, but the innumerable abbreviated forms used in the Latin manuscripts were retained. Thus a stroke over a vowel indicated an omitted =m= or =n=, a =p= with a stroke across it indicated the Latin prefix =per=, a circle above the line stood for the termination =us=, an =r= with a cross meant--=rum=, and so forth. These abbreviations, which make printed books of the earliest period rather hard reading today, were retained not only to save space but to give the printed page as nearly as possible the appearance of a fine manuscript. It was not at first the ambition of the printers and type-founders to make their books more legible or less taxing on the eyes than manuscript; their readers were accustomed to manuscript and felt no need of such improvements. The mechanical advance in the art of writing brought about by printing was at first regarded as consisting in the greater rapidity and lower cost at which printed books could be produced. But the new invention was at first looked upon by some famous scholars and patrons of learning as a detriment rather than a help. The great Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, wrote as late as 1494 in the following terms: "A work written on parchment could be preserved for a thousand years, while it is probable that no volume printed on paper will last for more than two centuries. Many important works have not been printed, and the copies of these must be prepared by scribes. The scribe who ceases his work because of the invention of the printing-press can be no true lover of books, in that, regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books, while with the scribe this is a labor of love."