Scan 111
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
2 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 59. See the scan on archive.org.
1patronage the makers were enabled to centre their attention on their work, and received reward commensurate with the amount of skill displayed. This had the effect of raising them above the status of the ordinary workman, and permitted them as a body to pass their lives amid comparative plenty. There are, without doubt, instances of great results obtained under trying circumstances, but the genius required to combine a successful battle with adversity with high proficiency in art is indeed a rare phenomenon. Carlyle says of such minds: "In a word, they willed one thing, to which all other things were subordinated and made subservient, and therefore they accomplished it. The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces, and will rend nothing." It may, therefore, be affirmed that the greatest luminaries of the art world have shone most brightly under circumstances in keeping with their peaceful labours, it not being essential to success that men highly gifted for a particular art should have this strength of will unless there were immediate call for its exercise. We need not go far afield for instances to prove the beneficial effects upon art generally of prosperous circumstances as compared with times of hardship. Well-known cases may be cited in relation to this subject, and notably that of Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. How marked the disturbance of mind pourtrayed in the Violins of Guarneri which are associated with his reported loss of liberty!
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