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To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk:
HARTFORD, Jan. 5, '89.
DEAR ORION,--At 12.20 this afternoon a line of movable types was
spaced and justified by machinery, for the first time in
the history of the world! And I was there to see. It was done
automatically--instantly--perfectly. This is indeed the first line of
movable types that ever was perfectly spaced and perfectly justified on
this earth.
This was the last function that remained to be tested--and so by long
odds the most amazing and extraordinary invention ever born of the brain
of man stands completed and perfect. Livy is down stairs celebrating.
But it's a cunning devil, is that machine!--and knows more than any man
that ever lived. You shall see. We made the test in this way. We set up
a lot of random letters in a stick--three-fourths of a line; then filled
out the line with quads representing 14 spaces, each space to be 35/1000
of an inch thick. Then we threw aside the quads and put the letters into
the machine and formed them into 15 two-letter words, leaving the words
separated by two-inch vacancies. Then we started up the machine slowly,
by hand, and fastened our eyes on the space-selecting pins. The first
pin-block projected its third pin as the first word came traveling along
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