become the itinerant scribes (mostly of Germanic or of 
     Low Country origin) who wandered all over Europe in 
     these years, even working in Italy. Some scribes joined 
     forces with the enemy and became printers themselves—
     though some of those upon whom Fortune did not smile 
     later forsook the press and returned to their former 
     occupation. This is rather strong evidence for the belief 
     that a scribe, in the closing years of the fifteenth century, 
     could still make a living for himself with his pen. (pp. 
     26­7)

     Usher has made it plain that the cluster of events and 
technologies that got together in the mind and age of 
Gutenberg is quite opaque. Nobody is today prepared to say 
even what it was that Gutenberg invented. In the laughing 
phrase of Joyce we must “sink deep or touch not the Cartesian