As soon as I did not need any longer to give up my time to earning a mere livelihood, I began seriously to plan publication of my lithographic text-book, the first number of which had appeared previously and been well received. But the skill of the various lithographers made noticeable advances every day, so that I was not content with the specimen pages that had seemed so satisfactory a year earlier. At last I fell under the delusion that it was absolutely vital to my honor that everything that might appear in my text-book must represent the _non plus ultra_ of the process. Therefore I decided to suppress the first number entirely, because there were sample pages in it that represented a style which had been done much better since then. However, many obstacles opposed me. For instance, good artists are very costly, especially if they must learn new methods and practice them. I felt, also, that many of my inventions still demanded many improvements before I could intrust them to the hands of any artists. Still, I hoped finally to accomplish my plan for publishing a splendid work which should be unique, because I invented improvements and perfections daily. When my dear friend Andre came to Munich in 1811, I laid my project before him and he was so taken with it that he offered his cordial coöperation. We agreed that the work was to be done by Frankfurter artists and printed there. But when I journeyed to Offenbach some months later, I discovered that the right kind of artists were not so easy to find as Andre had led me to hope. Some, who might have been competent, demanded such exorbitant terms that the work would necessarily have been published only at a huge loss. "Copper-etching," said they, "we understand. Stone-etching we must learn. The latter seems to us, who are unpracticed in it, three times as difficult. Therefore it is but fair that we shall be paid three times as much." This sort of reasoning led me to return to Munich to print the work there. Now two years passed with many experiments. Many a plate was made, printed, and discarded because meantime I had found something better. Then I lost my beloved wife in child-bed, and in my anguish over this loss, irredeemable as I thought at the time, I forgot all my projects till my second wife, a niece of our worthy Choir-Master Ritter von Winter, reconciled me with Providence, notably through her truly motherly behavior toward the son left behind by my first wife. I considered it my duty now to publish my work, that in case of my death their claims to honor should be established. Without this incentive, it would have been much more indifferent to me what men might think of my art or its inventor.