Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 227
Scan 227
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
10 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3know what suits you, and that no doubt for practical purposes is the essential. You can hardly know what is genuine.
5Over and above culture and wide observation and experience, a certain instinct is required, and few are they that have it. Why, my friend, if William Ebsworth Hill, from whose judgment there was no appeal, got "his eye out" when only for a few weeks he left off looking at fiddles, or distrusted his own judgment on certain days, as to my knowledge was the case—for he was at once the most diffident and absolute of men—what chance have you? Why none at all!
7I will go further than this, and declare that half the violinists now before the public are no more judges of a genuine fiddle than my cook. A man may be a judge without being able to play, and a man may play divinely and not be a judge. At the same time Charles Reade's opinion would have been even more valuable than it was had he played himself. He never would have written those foolish paragraphs about modern-made fiddles sounding as well as old Cremonas had he played himself. It is all the difference between a man who looks at another man on horseback and one who has got to ride the horse himself; the first may not see much difference in two horses, but the second soon finds it out!
9Playing the fiddle won't make you a judge, but you will be a better judge if you can play the fiddle. I remember showing Remenyi a very fine copy of Strad which had deceived many. He walked up and down
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