Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 16
Scan 16
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
14 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1PRELUDE
3belly, which to his eyes are alive with swelling and undulating grace;—and then think of the varnish like a sheet of thin jasper, at once shielding from decay, whilst revealing as years roll on the transparent filaments of the mottled maple or sycamore and the pine, and crossed between the fibres with millions of tiny rays which betray the desiccated cells—now fit for resonance—through which the sap once flowed!
5But I must not anticipate matter which more properly belongs to violin manufacture. I only wish to affirm, in justification of the existence of players, hearers, and collectors alike, that the violin charm has its own rationale.
7I may perhaps be pardoned if I close this prelude with some words which I used before the Royal Institution in 1872.
9"The violin is perennial. It grows old with its perpetual youth. There is no reason why it should ever wear out. It sings over the graves of many generations. Time, that sometimes robs it of a little varnish, has no power over its anointed fabric.
11"The hard durable substance steeped in silicate-like varnish has well-nigh turned to stone, but without sacrificing a single quality of sweetness or resonance.
13"The violin is the only fossil which still lives, and lives with a fulness of life and a freshness that contrasts quaintly enough with the fleeting, sickly, and withering generations of man. Even should mishap bruise or break its beauty it can be endlessly restored. It is never fit for death; it survives a thousand calamities;
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