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Scan 184
Old violins, 1905
6 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 164. See the scan on archive.org.
1would have been quite thrown away on the old sawing and scraping school of the seventeenth century. The very Cremona violins, beginning to mature as the century waned, called aloud for a suitable and sympathetic companion to caress, excite, charm, draw from them their sweetest tones and most vigorous powers.
3François Tourte was rescued from the clock-making business, to which he had been early apprenticed, by the sheer bent of his own genius. His brother, who worked with his father, was not the genius, and, as is often the case, the father failed to see which of the two sons was to carry on the fame of the house, and there may have been jealousies and disputes besides. The poor stuff given François to work upon when, after eight years of watch-making, he was allowed to enter the parental workshop a little, suggests that he was the male Cinderella of the family.
5He had to deal with strips of old sugar-barrels and fashion them into bows, which he sold for about fifteen-pence each. But as soon as he got a free hand he experimented with all kinds of wood, and arrived at the conclusion that the only wood suitable for his purpose was Fernambuc wood. It combined stiffness and lightness, but was very difficult to obtain, on account of so many ports being in those disturbed times blockaded. Fernambuc wood was only imported for dyeing purposes, and the price had risen in Paris to five francs a pound. Then, as only pieces with straight grain were required, whole trees might be cut up in search of a
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