Scan 540
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
2 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 462. See the scan on archive.org.
1take the importuning Fiddle and string it in order to test its qualities. His request being acceded to, he carried it away. Upon reaching home, he took it from its case, and gently removed the dust of years. The varnish appeared to him as something very different from any he had ever seen before on a Violin; and being an artist by profession, qualities of colours were pretty well understood by him. With the Violin poised on his knee, somewhat after the manner seen in the well-known picture of Stradivari in his workshop, he thus communed with himself: "I have never seen the much-spoken-of Cremonese varnish, but if this instrument has it not, its lustre must indeed be more wondrous than my imagination has painted." After again and again examining the Violin, he retired to rest, but not to sleep. The Fiddle persisted in dodging him whichever way he turned on his couch. At the dawn of day—five o'clock—he was up, with the Fiddle again on his knee, thinking he might have been labouring under some infatuation the night before which the light of day might dispel. Convinced he was under no such delusion, he soon made for the music-seller's establishment, whom he delighted by paying the price demanded for the Violin. It was now time, he felt, to obtain professional advice on the matter; in due course he paid me a visit. Upon his opening the case I was unable to restrain my feelings of surprise, and demanded
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