Books › Violin making, 1902 › scan 25
Scan 25
Violin making, 1902
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 13. See the scan on archive.org.
1the bridge, which I mark with a X. The tick-tack of the watch varies in strength as I get farther from or nearer to a nodal point, as, of course, it was bound to do; but, from experience, it is a fine-toned piece of wood. I detach it from the glass rod, and I try it by my finger and thumb test, and the vibrations and their quality are all I could desire. The signs of age appear genuine: the small pieces I cut from it do not give out any smell which they should not, and I pronounce the wood honest. I try the two whole backs, on the slab: both are good, one very fine in tone and handsome in appearance, which I finally select for the violin about to be made.
3Well, but you may say, in all your experiments, it appears to us the result is a question of degree. Exactly, a question of degree, as purity of air is, but who chooses the foul when he can live in the pure? As with flowers in their unassuming simplicity up to such elegance of form, colour and fragrance, that we stand amazed before them! As with man, from the worse than bestial state to which intemperance and crime have brought him, to the calm majesty of that eminence, attained only by the love of truth, of self-government, and scorn of evil-doing!
5This question of degree strikes at the root of the whole subject before you: for, upon how you answer it, or to what person or persons you repair for guidance in the selection of wood (being novices), will depend in a great measure your success or failure in the instrument yet unmade.
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