Books › The Story of the Violin, 1914 › scan 27
Scan 27
The Story of the Violin, 1914
8 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Story of the Violin
3this is not all: imagine this frail and shaken body which weighs no more than about 8 1/2 oz. avoirdupois, supporting—by a marvellous adjustment of its parts (by which resistance and elasticity of structure are held in perfect equilibrium)—supporting, I say, a tension, longitudinally, of about 88 lb., and a pressure, vertically, of 26 lb., or altogether a weight of over 100 lb. on its chest. A herculean task! Where, under such hard usage, would be the strongest engine ever devised by man? Worn out, disabled in a few years, the mighty steel bars would be tottering in their sockets.
5Consider now what seems almost the crowning glory of this little miracle. The stamp of greatness is simplicity: we have it here. Some one has said you can construct a violin with a penknife as your only tool. That may be possible, be it little satisfactory. At all events it demonstrates the great simplicity of construction of an organism, the perfection of which has ever filled the thoughtful mind with awe and admiration. Wood and again wood, and fish-glue to hold the boards and blocks together, and the strings, besides this the varnish, that is all.
7What can be simpler? Yet simplicity of fabric is here the outcome of the grandest complex labour of invention. Alter one item and you mar, if not destroy the whole. Change the position of the ff holes or the form of bridge, leave out the sound-post, and you take away the tone. As in the human body every part has respect to the whole and the whole to the parts, so
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.