BENDING THE PURFLING.
What I have proved is the best way to bend the purfling is
this--place the heated iron (plate 5) in the bending socket, and,
when all is so that a smart rap of your hand on the metal shows you
the warmth is about as you want it, hold the purfling by the left
hand, the mitred end to the iron, so that when you bend, by holding,
say rasp 47 in the right hand firmly against the point, and _letting
the heat only make the curve you want_, or nearly without pressure,
you will, I think, not do bad work.
[Illustration: PLATE V.]
So I am now ready to fix this ornament in the groove prepared, and
have ready thin glue and a table knife to run it there, section by
section, as, in cold weather especially, the liquid sets so rapidly.
I select the middle bout of either side (it is not material which)
and lay in the glue rapidly, and yet more rapidly the slip for
insertion, merely at this stage laying it flat, and going to the
lower and upper bouts, joining the corners as mitred as well as I
possibly can. Then I press the purfling as deep as it will sink all
over, finally wiping all superfluous glue away with sponge and hot
water. But I have not done yet, for there may be a weak place or two
in my work that glue will strengthen, so I run yet a little thinner
all over the insertion, and let it rest until next morning, when it
will mostly have sunk somewhere.
When you are at this stage, great headway has been made; but you
must now make ready for greater exertions, and prepare to comply
with the requirements of the higher branches of this most exacting
art, which you will when you model the back as I now begin to do
this, which has dried overnight.
But I must pause to make you acquainted with the difference between
"outline" and "model" of a violin--not by any means synonymous, as
some have supposed and do yet suppose. I ought, perhaps, to have
done this before, but will no longer delay.
It always makes me feel very angry when I hear some person, palpably
ignorant in the matter, exclaim, "what a fine model" when he or she
means "outline." And again, "this is a grand 'copy' of so-and-so,"
when _example_ of such is meant; how can an example of, say "Mayson"
be a "copy" of him? A fine outline will naturally lead you to expect
a fine model--that is to say, arching of length and breadth,
graceful and perfectly relative as regards proportion, curves, and
an unmistakeable _oneness of expression_, if I may so speak, of
every part as a whole, nothing whatever of incongruity or want of
symmetry intruding to disturb once and always the gaze of the
connoisseur.
But it by no means follows that a grandly carved and completed model
has for its counterpart an equally bold yet subtly refined outline;
on the contrary, I have seen just the reverse, as I have also seen
most wretched modelling wedded to an outline fit to grace the finest
instrument extant. But it is not often so, for, as a rule, where a
mind is highly gifted, so that elegance breathes in what its body
creates, a broken line or curve comes as a great surprise, and one
is apt to doubt the same hand fashioned it all.
Be this as it may, call things by their proper names, and in elegant
terms where no quaint ones are sacrificed; and if you know better,
never let a false epithet pass unchallenged, for I do not see why a
refined, but _correct_, mode of expression should not be as
vigorously upheld in this fine art as in speaking of any of its
sisters. For surely vulgarity has no right of place in its
vocabulary, yet much language that is certainly not elegant, and not
of any particular force of expression, finds repose therein; and a
really beautiful and great work is neither made more lovely nor more
exalted through contact with that which has neither the status of
the one nor the other at heart, except that beauty or high estate be
ready ministers of a rapacity calculated sooner or later to bring
about its own terrible undoing.
So I resume, all being hard and dry, and begin to model the back.