If there was a formula for how fast information spreads it might read as: the speed of travel plus the speed of reproduction to the power of the number of copies. We can use Benjamin Franklin as an example. He wrote a funny letter to his friend John Baskerville in 1760. He probably used a quill pen at a writing desk, writing over the course of a half-hour or so. He placed it in an envelope, sealed it with wax and it sent by British Post from London, where Franklin kept a house on Craven Street and was living at the time, to Baskerville who lived in Birmingham. So a half-hour plus at least two days travel to the power of one copy. Not terribly swift information distribution by today’s standards.

But then the letter wasn’t all that important. Just an anecdote to his friend, which opened with the line “Let me give you a pleasant Instance of the Prejudice some have entertained against your Work.”

Baskerville was a printer, typographer and typefounder, which means he designed, cast and sold type. You could buy one “fount”, or font, of type from him which at a particular size (say, 14 point). One font consisted of upper and lowercase letters (with multiples of the more common letters), numbers, and punctuation. Ligatures, or certain letter combinations cast as one piece, were also included because with metal letters the tang on an f when next to another f or an i would overhang and the metal types would not sit next to each other. Once ordered, they probably came on a wood base wrapped in stiff paper. (I have a font of Futura made in the 1960s, wrapped in paper and cardboard. It’s a thing of beauty to hold, dense, weighty and satisfying.) A case of letters complete enough to print a pamphlet or broadside would likely take many fonts. Baskerville designed his primary roman typeface to be a refinement of the reigning champion of British typography, Caslon. That work is one of the reasons for the prejudice of which Franklin spoke.

“In the fortieth year of my life, I had achieved everything that I had wished for myself. I had achieved honor, power, wealth, knowledge, and every human happiness. Then my desire for the increase of these trappings ceased, the desire ebbed from me and horror came over me, dear friends. (footnotes suggest this is a reference to zarathustra and Dante. Entrance into the decline of the human life-cycle, etc…)

The vision of the flood seized me and I felt the spirit of the depths, but I did not understand him. Yet he drove me on with unbearable inner longing and I said:

‘My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you - are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life.

This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine. There is no other way, all other ways are false paths. I found the right way, it lead me to you, to my soul. I return, tempered and purified. Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.’