A PERFECT METAL.
“I AM not very sorry,” observed I to the Thimble, “that careless Miss
Lily has forgotten to replace our companion, Mrs. Scissors, in the box.
Her manners are so sharp, her remarks so cutting, that I take little
pleasure in her society.”
“She has a little speck of rust on her, I own,” quietly replied my
philosophic friend; “but we must all learn to bear patiently with the
weaknesses of others, and see that we keep our own metal bright.”
“You have no difficulty about that,” I observed.
“Pardon me,” answered the Thimble; “silver is not subject to rust, but
it tarnishes, especially if exposed to impure, smoky air.”
“And was your origin as low as mine?” I inquired; “were you also dug
from the earth?”
“I was dug out of a mine in Norway; I have been, like you, purified in a
furnace, and exposed to heavy blows of the hammer.”
“I wonder how long it is,” exclaimed I, “since man first found out the
use of metals, and employed them in making whatever he requires!”
“The use of metals was known before the time of the Flood, more than
four thousand years ago. Tubal-Cain is the name of the first man who is
recorded to have worked in metals.”
“Oh!” cried I, “how much I should like to know who it was who first
invented needles!”
“I dare say that the invention is of early date,” replied the Thimble,
“though the needles of ancient times were probably far inferior to the
polished, delicate articles of which I see so fine a specimen before me.
I have heard that needles were first manufactured in England by an
Indian, in the reign of stout Harry the Eighth, upwards of three hundred
years ago.”
“Well,” I exclaimed in admiration, “what it is to have a thimbleful of
information! I shall always couple silver and knowledge together, the
best metal and the best thing in the world!”
“Ah, there you are wrong!” said my bright companion; “there is a metal
far more precious than silver, and a possession even more valuable than
knowledge. What is learning compared to virtue! what is silver compared
to gold!”
“Gold! what is that?” said I. You must remember that I was but a young
needle, with little information, but eager to obtain more.
“Gold is what is called a perfect metal,” replied the Thimble; “it is
injured by neither fire nor water, and it is reckoned of great value in
the world. It is found chiefly in South America, California, and lately
in the immense island of Australia.”
“And has it to submit to the hammer as well as we?” I inquired.
“It has much more wonderful power of enduring it than either silver or
steel,” replied the Thimble. “It never breaks beneath the heaviest
stroke, but it spreads itself out beneath it, and that to such an
amazing extent that I have heard that a bit of gold not so large as a
halfpenny can be beaten out into a wire a thousand miles long.”
I was not a little astonished to hear this, and I was still more so as
the Thimble proceeded.
“Look around you, and, even in this room, you will see wonderful proofs
of the malleability of gold—that is the name given to this curious
property which it possesses. See the picture-frames glittering in the
light, the shining pattern on the paper on the wall, the edge of all
those gaily bound books; they owe their beauty to a layer of gold so
thin that, though that metal is one of the heaviest known, the gentlest
sigh would have blown the leaves away.”
“And is gold useful for anything but gilding?” said I.
“It is much used in various ways,” she replied; “amongst others, it was
formerly much employed in medicine, and is now used in giving a fine red
colour to glass.”
“And is this beautiful and wonderful metal also dug out of the earth?”
“It is procured in some places,” answered the Thimble, “by washing
carefully sand drawn from the beds of some rivers, which is mixed with
particles of gold; but it is chiefly found by digging.”
“Well, then,” cried I, rather triumphantly, “though silver and gold be
both esteemed more perfect and more precious than iron and steel, man
would have very little chance of gaining either of them without the help
of a humbler metal! If silver be like knowledge, and virtue like gold,
to what shall iron be compared.”
“To firm resolution,” said the Thimble thoughtfully, “without which man
would acquire little of either.”
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