CULLET.

"Good morning! Is it really a rainy day?" asked Miselle, imploringly, as

she seated herself at the breakfast-table, and glanced from Monsieur to

the heavy sky and the vane upon the coach-house, steadily pointing west.

"Indeed, I hope not. Are you ready for Sandwich?" smilingly replied the

host.

"More than ready,--eager. But the clouds."

"One learns here upon the coast to brave the clouds; we have, to be

sure, a sea-turn just now, and perhaps there will be fog-showers

by-and-by, but nothing that need prevent our excursion."

"Delightful!" exclaimed Optima, Miselle, and Madame, applying themselves

to eggs and toast with that calm confidence in a masculine decision so

sustaining to the feminine nature.

The early breakfast over, Monsieur, with a gentle hint to the ladies of

haste in the matter of toilet, went to see that Gypsy and Fanny were

properly harnessed, and that a due number of cushions, rugs, and

water-proof wrappers were placed in the roomy carriage.

Surely, never were hats so hastily assumed, never did gloves condescend

to be so easily found, never were fewer hasty returns for "something I

have forgotten," and Monsieur had barely time to send two messages to

the effect that all was ready, when the feminine trio descending upon

him triumphantly disproved once and forever the hoary slander upon their

sex of habitual unpunctuality.

With quiet self-sacrifice Optima placed herself beside Madame in the

back of the carryall, leaving for Miselle the breezy seat in front, with

all its facilities for seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing; and let us

hope that the little banquet thus prepared for the conscience of that

young woman gave her as much satisfaction as Miselle's feast of the

senses did to her.

Arching their necks, tossing their manes, spattering the dewy sand with

their little hoofs, Gypsy and Fanny rapidly whirled the carriage through

the drowsy town, across the Pilgrim Brook, and so, by the pretty suburb

of "T'other Side," (which no child of the Mayflower shall ever consent

to call Wellingsley,) to the open road skirting the blue waters of the

bay.

"Ah, this is fine!" cried Miselle, snatching from seaward deep breaths

of the east wind laden with the wild life of ocean and the freedom of

boundless space.

"Here we have it!" remarked Monsieur, somewhat irrelevantly, as he

hastily unbuckled the apron and spread it over his own lap and

Miselle's, just in time to catch a heavy dash of rain.

"I am afraid it is going to be stormy, after all," piteously murmured

Miselle.

"I told you we should have fog-showers, you know," suggested Monsieur,

with a quiet smile.

"But what must we do?--go home?"

"No, indeed!--we will go to Sandwich, let it rain twice, four times as

hard as this,--unless, indeed, Madame gives orders to the contrary. What

say you, Madame?"

"I say, let us go on for the present. We can turn round at any time, if

it becomes necessary"; and Madame smiled benevolently at Miselle, down

whose face the rain-drops streamed, but who stoutly asserted,--

"Oh, this is nothing. Only a fog-shower, you know. We shall have it fine

directly."

"Not till we are out of Eel River. This valley gathers all the clouds,

and they often get rain here when the sun is shining everywhere else."

"A regular vale of tears! Happy the remnant of the world that dwelleth

not in Eel River!" murmured Miselle, surreptitiously pulling her

water-proof cloak about her shoulders.

"Let me help you. Really, though, you are getting very wet, dear,"

remonstrated Optima.

"Not in the least. I enjoy it excessively. Besides, the shower is just

over.--What church is that, Monsieur, with the very disproportionate

steeple?" inquired Miselle, pointing to a square gray box, surmounted by

a ludicrously short and obtuse spire, expressive of a certain dogged

obstinacy of purpose.

"The church is an Orthodox meetinghouse, and the steeple is Orthodox

too,--for the Cape. Anything else would blow down in the spring gales.

Park-Street steeple, for instance, would stand a very poor chance here."

"Yes," said Miselle, vaguely, and she felt in her heart how this great

ocean that dwarfs or prostrates the works of man replaces them by a

temple builded in his own soul of proportions so lofty that God Himself

may dwell visibly therein.

And now, having traversed the tearful valley, the road wound up the

Delectable Mountains beyond, and so into the pine forest, through whose

clashing needles glints of sunshine began to creep, while overhead the

gray shaded softly into pearl and dazzling white and palest blue.

"There are deer in these Sandwich woods. See if we cannot find a pair of

great brown eyes peering out at us from some of the thickets," suggested

Madame.

"Charming! If only we might see one! How young this nation is, after

all, when aboriginal deer roam the woods within fifty miles of Boston!"

"But without game-laws they will soon be exterminated. A great many are

shot every winter, and the farmers complain bitterly of those that

remain. Some of their crops are quite ruined by the deer, they say,"

remarked Monsieur.

"Never mind. There are plenty of crops, and but very few deer. I

pronounce for the game-laws," recklessly declared Miselle.

But the impending battle of political economy was averted by Madame's

exclamation of,--

"See, here is Sacrifice Rock. Let us stop and look at it a moment."

Gypsy and Fanny, wild with the sparkling upland air, were with

difficulty persuaded to halt opposite a great flat granite boulder,

sloping from the skirt of the forest toward the road, and nearly covered

with pebbles and bits of decayed wood.

"It is Sacrifice Rock," explained Monsieur. "From the days of the

Pilgrims to our own, no Indian passes this way without laying some

offering upon it. It would have been buried long ago, but that the

spring and autumn winds sweep away all the lighter deposits. You would

find the hollow at its back half filled with them. Once there may have

been human sacrifices,--tradition says so, at least; but now there is

seldom anything more precious than what you see."

"But to what deity were the offerings made?"

"Some savage Manitou, no doubt, but no one can say with certainty

anything about it. The degenerate half-breeds who live in this vicinity

only keep up the custom from tradition. They are called Christians now,

you know, and are quite above such idolatrous practices."

"At any rate, I will add my contribution to this altar of an unknown

God. Besides, there are some blackberries that I must have," exclaimed

Optima, releasing her active limbs from the carriage in a very summary

fashion.

Tossing a little stick upon the rock, she hastened to gather the

abundant fruit, a little for herself, a good deal for Madame and

Miselle, until Gypsy and Fanny stamped and neighed with impatience, and

Monsieur cried cheerily,--

"Come, young woman, come! We are not half-way to Sandwich, and the

horses will be devoured by these flies as surely as Bishop Hatto was by

mice."

And so on through miles of merry woodland, by fields and orchards, whose

every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her

most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a

sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And

while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new

delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a

stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's

love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by

a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so

piteously that the listener could not choose but go.

And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the

midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin

curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent

lights played over a world of weltering black waters,--as he told how,

after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and

tenderly cared for it,--as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew

that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the

mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and

then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath

their smiling surface.

Presently the sea was again shut off by woodland, and the scattered

houses closed into a village, nay, a town, the town of Sandwich; and

swinging through it at an easy rate, the carriage halted before an

odd-looking building, consisting of a quaint old inn, porched and

gambrel-roofed, joined in most unholy union to a big, square, staring

box, of true Yankee architecture.

Descending with reluctance, even after three hours of immobility, from

her breezy seat, Miselle followed Madame into the quiet house, whose

landlord, like many another man, makes moan for "the good old times"

when summer tourists and commercial travellers filled his rooms and the

long dining-table, now unoccupied, save by our travellers and two young

men connected with the glass-manufactories.

Rest, plenty of cool water, and dinner having restored the energies of

the travellers, it was proposed that they should proceed at once to the

Glass Works. And now, indeed, did Fortune smile upon this band of

adventurous spirits; for when the question of a guide arose, mine host

of the inn announced himself not only willing to act in that capacity,

but eminently qualified therefor by long experience as an operative in

various departments of the works.

"How fortunate that the stage-coaches and peddlers no longer frequent

Sandwich! If our friend had them to attend to, he could not devote

himself to us in this charming manner," suggested Optima, as she and

Miselle gayly followed Monsieur, Madame, and Cicerone down the long

sunny street, whose loungers turned a glance of lazy wonder upon the

strangers.

Passing presently a monotonous row of lodging-houses for the workmen,

and a public square with a fountain, which, as Optima suggested, might

be made very pretty with the addition of some water, the travellers

approached a large brick building, many-windowed, many-chimneyed, and

offering ingress through a low-browed arch of so gloomy an aspect that

one looked at its key-stone half expecting to read there the well-known

Dantean legend,--

"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi chi'ntrate!"

Nor was the illusion quite destroyed by handling, for through the arch

and a short passage one entered a large, domed apartment, brick-floored

and dimly lighted, whose atmosphere was the breath of a dozen flashing

furnaces, whose occupants were grimy gnomes wildly sporting with strange

shapes of molten metal.

"This is the glass-room, and in these furnaces the glass is melted; but

perhaps you will go first and see how it is mixed, and how the pots are

made to boil it in."

"Yes, let us begin at the beginning," said all, and were led from the

Inferno across a cool, green yard, into a building specially devoted to

the pots. In a great bin lay masses of soft brown clay in its crude

condition, and upon the floor were heaped fragments of broken pots,

calcined by use in the furnaces, and now waiting to be ground up into a

fine powder between the wheels of a powerful mill working steadily in

one corner of the building. In another, a row of boxes or pens were

partially filled with a powdered mixture of the raw and burnt clay, and

this, being moistened with water, was worked to a proper consistency

beneath the bare feet of several stout men.

"This work, like the treading of the wine-press, can be properly

performed only by human feet," remarked Monsieur.

"So when next we sip nectar from one of your straw-stemmed glasses, we

will remember these gentlemen and their brothers of the wine-countries,

and gratefully acknowledge that without their exertions we could have

had neither wine nor goblet," said Miselle, maliciously.

"No," suggested Optima, "we will enjoy the result and forget the

process. But what is that man about?"

"Making sausages out of cheese, I should say," replied Monsieur; and the

comparison was almost unavoidable; for upon a coarse table lay masses of

moulded clay, in form and size exactly like cheeses, from which the

workman separated with a wooden knife a small portion to be rolled

beneath his hand into cylindrical shapes some four inches in length by

two in diameter.

These a lad carefully placed upon a long and narrow board to carry up to

the pot-room, whither he was followed by the whole party.

Miselle's first impression, upon entering this great chamber, was, that

she was following a drove of elephants; but as she skirted the regular

ranks of the great dun monsters and came to the front, she concluded

that she had stumbled upon the factory of Ali Baba's oil-jars. At any

rate, the old picture in the "Arabian Nights" represented Morgiana in

the act of pouring the boiling oil into vessels marvellously like these,

and in each of these was room for at least four robbers of true

melodramatic stature.

Among these jars, with the noiseless solicitude of a mother in her

sleeping nursery, wandered their author and guardian, a pale, keen man,

and so rare an enthusiast in his art that one listening to him could

hardly fail to believe that the highest degree of thought, skill, and

experience might worthily be expended upon the construction of these

seething-pots for molten glass.

"Will you look at this one? It is my last," said he, tenderly removing a

damp cloth from the surface of something like the half of a hogshead

made in clay.

"I have not begun to dome it in yet; it must dry another day first,"

said the artist, passing his hand lovingly along the smooth surface of

his work.

"Then you cannot go on with them at once?" asked Madame.

"Oh, no, Ma'am! They must dry and harden between the spells of work

upon them, or they never would stand their own weight. This one, you

see, is twelve inches thick in the bottom, and the sides are five inches

thick at the base, and graduated to four where the curve begins. Now if

I was to go right ahead, and put the roof on this mass of wet clay, I

shouldn't get it done before the whole would crush in together. I have

had them do so, Ma'am, when I was younger, but I know better now. I

sha'n't have that to suffer again."

"And what are you at work upon while this dries?"

"Here. This one is just begun. Shall I show you how I do it? John, where

are those rolls? Yes, I see. Now, Ma'am, this is the way."

Taking one of the rolls in his left hand, and manipulating it with his

right, our artist laid it upon the top of the unfinished wall, and with

his supple fingers began to dovetail and compact it into the mass,

pressing and smoothing the whole carefully as he went on.

"You see I must be very careful not to leave any air-bubbles in my work;

if I do, there will be a crack."

"When the pot dries?" asked Madame.

"No, Ma'am, when it is heated. I suppose the air expands and forces its

way out," said the man, shyly, as if he were more in the habit of

thinking philosophy than of talking it. "But see how smooth and fine

this clay is," added he, enthusiastically, passing his finger through

one of the rolls. "It is as close-grained and delicate as--as a lady's

cheek."

"But, really, how could one describe the shape of these creatures?"

asked Optima aside of Miselle, as she stood contemplating a completed

monster.

"By comparing them to an Esquimaux lodge, with one little arched window

just at the spring of the dome. Doesn't that give it?"

"Perhaps. I never saw an Esquimaux lodge; did you, my dear?"

"No, nor anything else in the least degree resembling these, unless it

was the picture of the oil-jars. Choose, my Optima, between the two."

"Hark! we are losing something worth hearing."

So the young women opened their ears, and heard the pallid enthusiast

tell how, after days and weeks of labor, and months of seasoning, the

pots were laboriously carried to a kiln, where they were slowly brought

to a red heat, and then suffered to cool as slowly. How the pot was then

taken to one of the furnaces of the Inferno, and a portion of its side

removed to receive it; how it was then built in, and reheated before the

glass-material was thrown in; and how, after all this care and toil, it

was perhaps not a week before it cracked or gave way at some point, and

must be taken away to make room for another. But this was unusually

"hard luck," and the pots sometimes held good as long as three months.

"And what becomes of the old ones?" asked Optima, sympathetically.

"Oh, they are all used over again, Miss. There must be a proportion of

burnt clay mixed with the raw, or it would be too rich to harden."

"And what is the proportion?"

"About one-third of the cooked clay, and two-thirds of the raw."

"And where does the clay come from?"

"Nearly all from Sturbridge, in England. Some has been brought from Gay

Head, on Martha's Vineyard; but it doesn't answer like the imported."

Leaving the courteous artist in glass-pots to his labors, the party,

crossing again the breezy yard, entered a dismal brick-paved

basement-room, where grim bakers were attending upon a number of huge

ovens. One of these was just being filled; but instead of white and

brown loaves, golden cake, or flaky pies, the two attendants were piling

in short, thick bars of lead, and, hurry as they might, before they

could put in the last of the appointed number, little shining streams of

molten metal began to ooze from beneath the first, and trickle languidly

toward the mouth of the oven.

But our bakers were ready for them. With hasty movement they threw in a

quantity of moistened clay, shaping and compacting it with their shovels

as they went on, until in a very few moments they had completed a neat

little semi-circular dike just within the door, as effectual a barrier

to the glowing pool behind it, wherein the softened bars were rapidly

disappearing, as was ever the Dutchman's dike to the ocean, with whom he

disputes the sovereignty of Holland.

A wooden door was now put up, and the baking was left to itself for

about twenty-four hours, at the end of which time the lead would have

become transformed into a yellowish powder, known as massicot.

"You will see it here. They are just beginning to clear this oven," said

Cicerone, pointing to a row of large iron vessels which the workmen were

filling with the contents of the just opened kiln.

"And what next? What is it to the glass?" asked Miselle, unblushing at

her ignorance.

"Next, it is put into these other kilns, and kept in motion with the

long rakes that you see here, and at the end of forty-eight hours it

will have absorbed sufficient oxygen from the atmosphere to turn it from

massicot to minium, or red-lead. Look at this, if you please."

Cicerone here pointed to other iron vessels, in shape like the bowl out

of which the giant Blunderbore ate his bread and milk, while trembling

little Jack peeped at him from the oven; but these bowls were filled

with a beautiful scarlet powder of fine consistency.

"That is red-lead, one of the most important ingredients in fine

flint-glass, as it gives it brilliancy and ductility. But it is not used

in the coarser glasses. And here is the sand-room."

So saying, Cicerone led the way to a light and cheerful room of

delicious temperature, even on that summer's day, where, upon a low,

broad, iron table, heated from beneath by steam-pipes, lay a mass of

what might indeed be sand, and yet differed as much from ordinary sand

as a just washed pet-lamb differs from an old weather-beaten sheep.

Like the lamb, the sand had been washed with care and much water, and

now lay reposing after its bath at lazy length, enjoying its _kief_,

like a sworn Mussulman. This sand is principally brought from the banks

of Hudson River and the coast of New Jersey; but a finer article of

quartz sand is found in Lanesboro', Massachusetts.

In the centre of the room stood a great sifting-machine, worked by

steam; and the sand, after being thoroughly dried, was passed through

this, coming out a fine, glittering mass, very much resembling

granulated sugar, so far as looks are concerned.

"Now it is ready to be sent up to the mixing-room; but if you will step

on this drop, we will go up before it," said the civil workman here in

charge.

So some of the party stepped upon a solid platform about six feet

square, lying under a trap in the floor overhead, and were slowly wound

up to the mixing-room, feeling quite sure, when they stepped upon the

solid floor once more, that they had done a very heroic thing, and were

not hereafter to be dismayed by travellers' tales of descents into

coal-mines, or swinging to the tops of dizzy spires in creaking baskets.

Here, in the mixing-room, stood great boxes, filled with sand, with

red-lead, or with sparkling soda and potash; and beside a trough stood,

shovel in hand, a good-natured-looking man, who was busily mixing

portions of these three ingredients into one mass.

Him Miselle assailed with questions, and learned that the trough

contained

1400 pounds sand,

350 " ash,

100 " soda,

800 " red-lead,

and about 100 " cullet.[25]

This was to be a fine quality of flint-glass, and to it might be added

coloring-matter of any desired tint; but in the choice and proportion of

this lay one of the principal secrets of the art.

All this information did the civil compounder vouchsafe to Miselle, with

the indulgent air of one who humors a child by answering his questions,

although quite sure that the subject is far above his comprehension; and

he smiled in much amusement at seeing his answers jotted down upon her

tablets. So Miselle thanked him, smiling a little in her turn, and they

parted in mutual satisfaction.

"These trucks you see are ready-loaded with the frit, or glass-material,

and are to be wheeled down to the furnaces presently," said Cicerone.

"But, before following them, we had better go down and see the fires."

Descending a short flight of stone steps, the party now entered a long,

dark passage, through which a torrent of wind swept, driving before it

the ashes and glowing cinders that dropped continually from a circular

grating overhead. The ground beneath was strewn with fire, and the whole

arrangement offered a rare opportunity to any misanthrope whose

preferences might point to death in the shape of a fiery shower-bath.

In a gloomy crypt, opening near the grating, stood a gnome whose duty it

was to feed the furnace overhead with soft coal, which must be thrown in

at a small door and then pushed up and forward until it lay upon the

grating where it was consumed. Around this central fire the glass-pots,

ten to each furnace, are arranged, their lower surfaces in actual

contact with it, while the domed roof reverberates the heat upon them

from above.

All around stood sturdy piers of brick and iron, and low-browed arches,

crushed, one could not but fancy, out of their original proportions by

the immense weight they were forced to uphold.

Returning to the Inferno, Cicerone led the way to a pot which was being

filled with frit from one of the little covered cars that he had pointed

out in the mixing-room. This process was to be effected gradually, as he

explained,--a certain portion being at first placed in the heated pot,

and suffered to melt, and then another, until the pot should be full,

when the door of it would be put up and closed with cement.

"And how long before the frit will be entirely melted?" asked Monsieur.

"From thirty-six to sixty hours. The time varies a good deal with the

seasons, and different sorts of glass take different times to melt. This

flint-glass melts the easiest, and common bottle-glass takes the

longest. Crown-glass, such as is used for window-panes, comes between

the two; but that is not made here."

"And when the glass is sufficiently boiled, what next?"

"You shall see, for here is a pot just opened, and this man with the

long iron rod, called a pontil, or punty, in his hand, is about to skim

it."

"What is there to skim off?"

"Oh, there will be impurities, of course, however carefully the

ingredients are prepared. Some of these sink to the bottom, and some

rise in scum, or, as it is called here, glass-gall, and sometimes

sandiver."

"Just like broth or society, isn't it, Optima?" suggested Miselle,

aside.

"Why don't you discover a social pontil, then?"

"Oh, I have no taste for reforming. What would there be to laugh at in

the world, if the human sandiver were removed?"

"It might be an improvement to have the gall removed, my dear," remarked

Optima, significantly; but Miselle was too busy in watching the skimming

to understand the gentle rebuke.

Thrusting the pontil far into the pot, the workman moved it gently from

side to side, turning it at the same time, until he suddenly withdrew

upon its point a large lump of glowing substance, which he shook off

upon a smooth iron table standing near, called a marver, (that is,

_marbre_,) in size and shape not unlike the largest of a nest of

teapoys. Here the lump of sandiver lay, while through its mass shot rays

of vivid prismatic color, glowing and dying along its surface so

vivaciously that one needs must fancy the salamander no fable, and that

this death of gorgeous agony was something more than the mere cooling of

an inert mass of matter.

"You see how bubbly and streaked that is now?" broke in the voice of

Cicerone upon Miselle's little dream. "But after standing awhile the air

will all escape from the pot, leaving the glass smoother, thicker, and

tougher than it is now. Don't you want to look in, before it cools off?"

With a mental protest against the fate of those luckless individuals who

threw Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego into the seven-times heated

furnace, Miselle stooped, and, looking in, uttered a cry of surprise and

delight.

It was the very soul of fire, the essence of light and heat. Above, rose

a glowing arch, quivering with an intensity of color, such as fascinates

the eye of the eagle to the noonday sun. Below, undulated in great oily

waves a sea of molten matter, throbbing in vivid curves against the

sides of its glowing basin. And arch and wall and heaving waves all

mingled in a pure harmony, an accord, of light too intense for color, or

rather a color so intense as to be nameless in this pale world.

Miselle knew now how the moth feels who plunges wildly into the flame

that lures him to his death, and yet fascinates him beyond the power of

resistance. The door was very small, or it might have been already too

late, when Optima touched the shoulder of this modern Parsee, and

suggested, calmly,--

"If you burn your eyes out here, my dear Miselle, you will be unable to

see anything else."

The thought was a kind and sensible one, as, coming from Optima, it

could not have failed of being; and Miselle stood upright, stared

forlornly about her, and found the world very pale and weak, very cold

and dark.

Was it to solace her sudden exile from fairy-land, or was it only as a

customary courtesy, that an old man, wasted and paled by years of

ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod,

called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot,

withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a

swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a

gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of

the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those

corpulent little Breezes whom the old masters are so fond of depicting

attendant upon the flight of their brothers the Winds?

Ah, my little dears, with your straws and soap-suds you will never blow

a bubble like that! As it slowly rounded to its perfect sphere, what

secrets of its birth within that glowing furnace, what mysteries of the

pure element whose creation it seemed, flashed in fiery hieroglyph

athwart its surface! A mocking globe, whereon were painted realms that

may none the less exist, because man's feeble vision has never seen

them, his fettered mind never imagined them. Who knows? It may have been

the surface of the sun that was for one instant drawn upon that ball of

liquid fire. Who is to limit the affinities, the subtle reproductions of

Nature's grand ideas?

But as the wonder culminated, as the glancing rays resolved themselves

into more positive lines, as the enigma seemed about to offer its own

solution, the bubble broke, flew into a myriad tiny shards, which, with

a tinkling laugh, fell to the grimy pavement, and lay there sparkling

malicious fun into Miselle's eyes.

Cicerone stooped and gathered some of the fragments. Surely, never was

substance so closely allied to shadow. The lightest touch, a breath

even, and they were gone,--and were they caught, it was like the capture

of one of the floating films of a summer morning, glancing brightly to

the eye, but impalpable to the touch.

When all had looked, the guide slowly closed his hand with a cruel

gripe, and, opening it, threw down a little shower of scintillating

dust, an airy fall of powdered diamonds, lost as they readied the earth,

and that was all.

"We're casting some of those Fresnel lanterns to-day. Perhaps the ladies

would like to see them," suggested the pale little old man, and pointed

to a powerful machine with a long lever-handle at the top, which, being

thrown up, showed a heavy iron mould, heated quite hot, and just now

smoking furiously from a fresh application of kerosene-oil, with which

the mould is coated before each period of service, much as the housewife

butters her griddle before each plateful of buckwheat cakes.

As the smoke subsided, the old man, who proved a very intelligent as

well as civil person, thrust his pontil into the pot nearest the press,

and, withdrawing a sufficient quantity of the glass, dropped it squarely

into the open mould, whose operator, immediately seizing the long

handle, swung himself from it in a grotesque effort to increase the

natural gravity of his body, and succeeded in bringing it down with

great force. Then, leaning over the lever in a state of complacent

exhaustion, he glared for a moment at the spectators with the calm

superiority of one who, having climbed to the summit of knowledge, can

afford to pity the ignorant crowd groping below.

The mould being reopened presently displayed a large, heavy lantern,

whose curiously elaborate flutings and pencillings were, as the

intelligent artisan averred, arranged upon the principle of the famous

Fresnel light, whose introduction some years ago marked an epoch in the

history of light-houses.

"Why, Miss, these little up-and-down marks, that you'd take it were just

put in for fancy," said William Greaves, "have got a patent on 'em, and

no one else could put 'em into a lantern without being prosecuted."

"But why? What difference do they make?"

"Why, Miss, every one of them fingerings makes a lens; you see it's just

the same inside as out, and it sort of _spreads_ the light. That a'n't

the way to call it, but that's the idea; for the man that got it up was

down here, and I talked with him."

"And what are they for?"

"For ships' lanterns, Ma'am. They take this round lantern, when it's all

done here, and split it in two halves up and down, and then put one on

each side a vessel's bows just like the lamps on a doctor's gig, and the

bowsprit runs out between just like the horse does in the gig."

At this juncture a small boy rushed up, and, thrusting a stick into the

still red-hot lantern, dexterously tilted it up and carried it away to a

furnace of different construction from the first, into one of whose open

doors he thrust it, and then returned to wait for another.

This furnace, called a flashing-furnace, was round like the first, and

was fitted with eight or ten doors, from all of which the flames rushed

eagerly, and in a very startling fashion.

"This is fed constantly with coal-oil," expounded Cicerone. "It is

brought in pipes, as you see, and drips down inside. These doors are

called 'glory-holes'"----

"Aureoles, perhaps," suggested Optima, in a whisper.

"And the lanterns, or whatever is in hand, are brought here after

pressing, and put in to get well heated through again before they are

given to the finisher. Fire-polishing they call it. Here you see one

just ready to be taken out."

"He will drop it," cried Miselle, as another boy, wielding a pontil with

a lump of melted glass at the end, darted before her, and, pressing this

heated end against the bottom of the lantern, picked it up and carried

it away, over his shoulder, as if he were a stray member of some

torch-light procession.

"Not he! He's too well used to his trade," laughed Monsieur. "Now come

and see the finishing process."

Following the steps of the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the

pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated

upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while

an idle pontil lay across them. This the boy snatched up and departed,

while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up

and down the arms of his bench with his left hand, while with a pair of

compasses in his right he carefully gauged the diameter of the revolving

lantern, and then smoothed away its rough-cast edges by means of a

blackened bit of wood, somewhat of the shape, and bearing the name, of a

battledoor.

The finishing over, another stick was thrust inside the lantern, and it

was separated from the pontil by the application of a bit of cold iron.

It was then carried to the mouth of a long gallery-like oven, moderately

heated, and fitted with a movable floor, upon which the articles put in

at the hot end were slowly transported through a carefully graduated

atmosphere to the cool end at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, and

on their arrival were ready to be packed for transportation.

This process was called annealing, and the oven with a movable floor was

technically denominated a leer.

"Here they are pressing tumblers," continued the guide, pointing to a

press of smaller size and power, standing near another door of the same

furnace. "They have just had a large order from California, from a

single firm, for--how many tumblers did you tell me, Mr. Greaves?"

"Twenty-two thousand dozen, Sir; and we shall have to spring to get them

off at the time set."

"Nice tumblers they are, too,--just as good as cut, to my mind,"

continued Cicerone, poking with his stick at one of the batch that was

now being placed in the leer.

Very nice and clear they were, but not as good as cut to Miselle's mind,

and she remarked,--

"It is very easy to feel the difference, if not to see it, between cut

and pressed glass. The latter always has these blunted angles to the

facets, and has a certain vagueness and want of purpose about it; then

it is not so heavy or so sparkling; there is a certain exhilaration in

the gleam of cut glass that fits it for purposes to which the other

would be entirely unsuited. Fancy Champagne in a pressed goblet, or

tuberoses and japonicas in a pressed vase, or attar in a pressed

_flaçon_!"

"Fortunately," replied Monsieur, to whom this aside had been addressed,

"the persons who consider Champagne, japonicas, and attar of roses

necessaries of life are very well able to provide cut-glass receptacles

for them. But isn't it worth one's while to be proud of a country where

every artisan's wife has her tumblers, her goblets, her vases, of

pressed glass, certainly, but 'as good, to her mind, as cut,' to quote

our friend? and don't you think it better that twenty-two thousand dozen

pressed tumblers should be sold at ten cents apiece than one-third that

number of cut ones at thirty cents, leaving all those who cannot pay the

higher price to drink out of"----

"Clam-shells? Well, perhaps. Equality and the rights of man are very

nice, of course, but I"----

"Like cut glass better," retorted Monsieur, laughing, while Miselle

turned a little indignantly to the guide, who was saying,--

"The reason the edges have that blunted look is partly because they

can't be struck as sharp as they can be ground, and then being heated in

the glory-holes, and again in the leers softens them down a little. In

fact, the very idea of annealing is to make the outside particles of the

glass run together just a very little, so as to fill up the pores as it

were, and make a smoother surface. If this were not done, it would fly

all to pieces the first time it was put into hot water."

"The cut glass is not annealed, then?"

"Oh, yes, after it is blown it is; and although the grinding takes off

part of the surface, I suppose it fills up the pores at the same time."

"Cut glass is more apt to break in hot water than pressed or simply

blown glass," remarked Madame.

"And is all cut glass blown in the first place?" asked Optima.

"No, Miss, a good deal of it is pressed and then ground, either wholly

or in part; but this is not so clear or free from waves as the blown.

Out here is a man blowing _liqueur_-glasses. Perhaps you would like to

see that."

The idea of blowing a bubble of glass into so intricate a shape, and

timing the process so that the brittle material should harden only when

it had reached the desired form, struck Miselle's mind as very

incredible; and she followed Cicerone with much curiosity to another

furnace, where one man, blow-pipe in hand, was dipping up a small

quantity of the liquid glass, and, having blown into it just long enough

to make a stout little bubble, laid the pipe across the iron arms of a

bench, where sat another operator, who immediately began to roll the

pipe up and down the arms of his chair, while with a supple iron

instrument, shaped like sugar-tongs with flattened bowls, he laid hold

of the bubble, and, while elongating it into a tube, brought the lower

extremity first to a point and then to a stem. To the end of this the

assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a

little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of

the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors,

dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a

battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass. The heated pontil was now

applied exactly to the centre of this foot, the top of the glass divided

from the blow-pipe by the application of cold iron, and the whole thrust

for a few moments into the mouth of the furnace to soften, while the

first man laid another pipe with another bubble at the end before the

operator upon the bench, who recommenced the same process.

The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was

passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while

the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened

material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses,

coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top

with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then

cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished _liqueur_-glass

of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its

simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the

foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground,

smoothed, and then polished.

"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima.

"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and

heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies.

"What _are_ you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she,

enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting

for room to approach his work.

"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously.

"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least,

didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!"

The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an

adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and

then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a

few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then

dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as

Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he

withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat

as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the

shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another,

who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the

point diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the

end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by

means of plyers and battledoor.

"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the

white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at

this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close

at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass

Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be

supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of

affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated throng,

Miselle hastily communicated the idea to Optima, and proposed a sudden

retreat, but was smilingly bidden to first consider for a moment the

operations of four workmen close at hand, two of whom, kneeling upon the

ground, grasped the handles of two little presses, very like aggravated

bullet-moulds, while the other two, bringing little masses of glass upon

the ends of their blow-sticks and dropping them carefully into the necks

of the moulds, proceeded to blow through the pipe until the air forced

out a quantity of the glass in the form of a great bubble at the top of

the mould. The pressure from within increasing still more, this bubble

necessarily burst with a smart snap, and thus caused the explosive

sounds above referred to. The two casters then scraped away the _débris_

at the top with a bit of stick, and, opening their moulds, disclosed in

one a pretty little essence-bottle, which a sharp boy in waiting

immediately snapped up on the end of a long fork, where he had already

spitted about a dozen more, and carried them away to the leer.

"But what are _you_ casting?" asked Madame, puzzled, as the other

workman opened his mould and poked its contents out upon a bit of board

held ready by another sharp boy.

"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly

at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands

used in writing-desks.

More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be

casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass,

resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the

frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils,

and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon

the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a

newly discovered _Fontaine d'Or_ upon its back. She did not find it, but

espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of

whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years

old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps,

and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply

proved,--these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be

passed through the leer.

A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated

dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open

basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here

suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped

with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished.

This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships'

cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but

simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve

in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the

whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled

away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in

bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her.

These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an

excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a

glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and

battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip

at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who

struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then

presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and

the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped

it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by

means of the plyers.

These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic

goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were

greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with

alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes.

Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur

approached.

"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,--"no true patriot should

congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that!

Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to

clam-shells!"

"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in

the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed

through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather

hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated

behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever

article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding.

These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of

stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon

them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass

presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next

presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left

the appearance of fine ground glass.

The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel,

fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given

by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called

putty-powder.

The opacity was now entirely removed, and the facets cut upon the

wine-glass Miselle had principally watched in its progress shone with

the clear and polished brilliancy characteristic of the finest quality

of cut glass.

For very nice work, such as the polishing of chandelier-drops, and

articles of that sort, a leaden wheel, fed with fine rotten-stone and

water, is employed; but on the occasion referred to, no work of this

nature being in hand, these wheels were not used.

Other wheels, consisting of a simple disk of iron, not unlike a circular

saw without any teeth, were used for cutting those narrow vertical

lines, technically known as fingering, familiar to those so happy as to

have had careful grandmothers, and to have inherited their decanters and

wine-glasses. The revival of this style, like that of the rich old

pattern in plate known as the "Mayflower," is a compliment just now paid

by the present generation to the taste of the past, and Miselle was

shown some beautiful specimens of the "latest mode, Ma'am," that awoke

melancholy reminiscences of the shattered idols of her youth.

"Here are our friends, the ruby lampshades, again," remarked Optima.

"And now you will see how the transparent figures are made upon them,"

suggested Cicerone, pointing to a workman, who, with a pile of the

ruby-coated globes beside him, was painting circles upon one of them

with some yellowish pigment. The globe then being held to one of the

rough wheels, the thin shell of red glass within these circles was

ground away, leaving it white, but opaque. The globe then passed through

the processes of smooth grinding and polishing, above described, until

the pattern was finally developed in clear transparent medallions.

A very beautiful article in colored glass was a Hock decanter of an

exquisite antique pattern in green glass, wreathed with a grape-vine,

whose leaves and stems were transparent, while the clusters of grapes

were left opaque by the omission of the polishing process.

At the end of the noisy cutting-room was a small chamber, hardly more

than a closet, called the engraving-room, and bearing the same relation

to the former as the crypt where the cellarer jealously stores his Tokay

for the palate of a Kaiser holds to the acres of arches where lies the

_vin ordinaire_.

Here, in the full light of ample windows, before a high bench, over

which revolved with incredible rapidity a half-dozen small copper disks

fed with fine emery and oil, stood as many earnest-looking men, not

artisans, but artists, each of whom, vaguely guided by a design lightly

sketched upon the article under his hands, was developing it with an

ease and skill really beautiful to contemplate. Intricate arabesques,

single flowers of perfect grace, or rare groups of bloom, piles of

fruit, or spirited animal-life, all grew between the whirring copper

wheel and the nice hand, whose slightest turn or pressure had a meaning

and a just result.

Miselle watched the engraving of an intricate cipher beneath the

fantastic crest of some wealthy epicurean, who had ordered a complete

dessert-service of such charming forms and graceful designs that envy of

his taste, if not of his possessions, became a positive duty.

"Is there any limit to the range of your subjects?" asked Miselle, as

the artist added the last graceful curve to the griffin's tail, and

contemplated his finished work with quiet complacency.

"There may be, but I never found it. Whatever a pencil can draw this

wheel can cut," said he, with such a smile as Gottschalk might assume in

answering the query as to whether the score could be written that he

could not render.

Having now witnessed all the processes of glass-manufacture to be seen

at this time and place,[26] the party were conducted to the show-room,

passing on the way through a room where a number of young women were

engaged in painting and gilding vases, spoon-holders, lamps, and various

other articles in plain and colored glass. The colors used showed, for

the most part, but a very faint resemblance to the tints they were

intended to produce, and the gold appeared like a dingy brown paint;

but, as was explained by Cicerone, these-colors were to be fixed by

burning, or rather melting them into the surface of the glass, and this

process would at the same time evolve their true colors and brilliancy,

both of paint and gilding.

In the next room to this, several workmen were busy in fitting the metal

trimmings to such articles as lamps, lanterns, castors,

molasses-pitchers, and the like.

One chirruping old man insisted upon mounting an immensely ugly blue and

yellow lamp upon a brass foot for the edification of his visitors, and

when this was over, exhibited some opaque white glass stands for other

lamps, which, as he fondly remarked, "would be took for marble

anyw'eres."

The show-room was a long, airy hall, with a row of tables on either

hand, covered with glass, whose icy glitter and lack of color gave a

deliciously cool aspect to the whole place. Glass in every graceful form

and design, some heavy and crystalline, enriched with ornate workmanship

by cutter and engraver, some delicate and fragile as a soap-bubble;

hock-glasses as green and lucent as sea-water, and with an edge not too

thick to part the lips of Titania; glasses of amber, that should turn

pale Johannisberger to the true _vino d'oro_; glasses of glowing ruby

tint, than which Bohemia sends us nothing finer; vases and goblets as

rare in form and wrought as skilfully as those two cups that Nero bought

for six thousand sestertii; medallions bearing in _intaglio_ portraits

of distinguished men as clearly and unmistakably cut as on coin or

cameo; whole services of glass, more beautiful and almost as valuable as

services of plate; plumes of spun glass as fine and sheeny as softest

silk; toys and scientific playthings; objects of wonder, admiration, and

curiosity: all these were to be seen crowded upon these long, white

tables in the cool hall, where the wind, sweeping gently through,

brought the smell of the rising tide, and the sound of its waves upon

the shore.

Here, too, was a man who knew the story, not only of the glass lying

beneath his hand to-day, but of all the glass the world has known, from

the colored beads inhumed with the Pharaonic princesses to the ruby

salver he so fondly fingered as he talked.

He spoke of the glazed windows of Pompeii; of the "excellent portrait"

of the Emperor Constantine VII. painted, A. D. 949, upon a

church-window. He recounted the ancient story of the Phoenicians, who,

landing at the mouth of the river, brought from their ships lumps of

soda, and, laying them upon the sand as a support for their dinner-pot,

found when they had done lumps of glass among the ashes, and so

rediscovered the lost art of glass-making; but to this he added, with a

dubious smile,--

"Fire must have been hotter in those days than now. We could never melt

sand in that fashion now."

Then coming to window-glass, he clearly described the process of its

manufacture, although confessing he had never been engaged in it, and

from this Miselle, with a word, launched him into the glowing sea of

mediæval painted windows, and the wellnigh forgotten glories of their

manufacture.

"There is hardly one of them left that I have not seen," said he,--"from

the old heathen temples of the East, that the Christians converted to

their own use, and, while they burned the idols, spared the windows,

which they had sense to remember they could never reproduce, to the

gloomy purple-shadowed things they put up so much in England and the

United States at the present day, forgetting, as it would seem, that the

first idea of a window is to let the light through.

"But one of the finest works of modern times was the great

tournament-window, first exhibited in London in 1820. I was a young

fellow then, hardly twenty indeed, and with very little money to spare

for sight-seeing. But from the day I first heard of it, until five years

afterward, when I saw it, I never wavered in my determination to go

abroad and look at that window, as well as all the others I had heard so

much of.

"It was a beautiful thing really, Ma'am, measuring eighteen by

twenty-four feet, and made up of three hundred and fifty pieces of glass

set in metal astragals, so cleverly worked into the shadows that the

whole affair appeared like one piece. It represented the passage-of-arms

between Henry VIII., of England, and Francis I., of France, held at

Ardres, June 25, 1520, and of the hundred figures shown, over forty were

portraits. Among these were the two queens, Katharine of England, and

Claude of France, Anne Boleyn, and Cardinal Wolsey, with a great many

other distinguished persons."

"And this window, where is it now?" asked Optima.

"Destroyed by fire, June 30, 1832," he replied, with the mournful awe of

one giving the date of some terrible human disaster.

"How many glass-factories like this are there in the country?" asked

Monsieur, reverting to the practical view of the matter under

consideration.

"Flint-glass works, Sir? There are three in South Boston, two in East

Cambridge, and one here in Sandwich. That is for Massachusetts alone.

Then there are two in Brooklyn, New York, one in Jersey City, and two in

Philadelphia. These are all flint-glass, you understand; the principal

window-glass factories are in the southern part of New Jersey, and in

Pittsfield, Pennsylvania. Then there is a flourishing plate-glass

factory in Lenox, in this State, and another in New York. But the old

Bay State, Sir, has led the van in this enterprise ever since 1780, when

Robert Hewes, of Boston, opened the first glass-factory in the country

at Temple, New Hampshire. His workmen were all Hessians or Wallachians

who had deserted from the British army. They had learned the art in

their own country, and were the best men he could have found for his

purpose at that time; but they were a disorderly set, and, finally, one

of the furnace-men got drunk, and burnt down the works in the night.

Hewes presented a circular plate of glass, as a specimen of his

manufacture, to Harvard College, and I believe they have it now. It was

a very good article of glass, although a little greenish in color, and

not quite so clear as we get it now.

"After he was burnt out, one Lint set up some glass-works in Boston

about 1800. They were not successful for a while, but about 1802 or 1803

they got fairly started, and have kept ahead ever since."

"Four o'clock, my dear," remarked Madame, softly, to Monsieur, and

Cicerone, who had fidgeted awfully all through the little lecture,

brightened perceptibly, and rubbed his hands contentedly, as, with many

thanks to the courteous superintendent, and a last glance at the

glittering wonders of his charge, the party descended once more to the

green yard, and crossed it to the principal gate.

"One minute, Optima. Do come and look at the engine in here!" cried

Miselle, dragging her reluctant friend into a long, narrow den, almost

filled by a black monster with shining brass ornaments, who slid his

iron arms backward and forward, backward and forward, in a steady,

remorseless manner, highly suggestive of what he would do, had he fists

at the end of them, and all the world within reach of their swing. A

sickish smell of heated oil pervaded the apartment, although everything

was as clean and bright as hands could make it.

With the foolish daring characteristic of her sex, Miselle stole out a

finger to touch the remorseless arm as it shot outward, but Optima

detected and arrested the movement, with a grave "For shame!" and at the

same moment a man suddenly emerged from behind the body of the monster,

and, approaching the venturous intruder, bawled in her ear,--

"'Twould take off a man's head, Miss, as easy as a pipe-stem!"

Miselle nodded, without attempting a defence, and the man added

presently,--

"'Undred 'oss power, Miss. Drives all the works."

"Do come out, Miselle! I shall go crazy in another minute!" screamed

Optima; and the two young women hastened to overtake the rest of the

party, who were already in the street.

Gypsy and Fanny, who had better used their four hours of rest than in

exploring glass-works, stood ready-harnessed before the door of the

Central Hotel when the sight-seers returned thither, and in a few

moments the ladies were handed to their seats, Monsieur gathered up the

reins, and Tom having "given them their heads," the spirited little nags

tossed the precious gifts into the air, and took the road at a pace that

needed only moderating to make it the perfection of exhilarating motion.

Words are all very well in their way, but they fail wofully when a

person has really anything to say.

For instance, where are the phrases to describe that sunset sky, so

clear and blue overhead that one felt it was only the scant range of

human vision that hid the unveiled heavenly glories beyond the arch,--so

gorgeous at the horizon, where it met the opalescent sea,--so rosy in

the east, where, like a great golden shield, stood the moon gazing

across the world triumphantly at the sinking sun,--the dewy freshness

of the woods, where lingered the intoxicating perfumes distilled by the

blazing noontide from fir and spruce,--the jubilant chorus of birds,

dying strain by strain, until the melancholy whippoorwill grieved alone

in his woodland solitude?

On by the lonely farms and unlighted cabins, by the bare, bleak moors,

where the night-wind came rolling softly up to look at the

travellers,--on till the low, broad sea opened out the view, and came

sobbing up on the beach, wailing at its own cruel deeds,--on beneath the

cloudless night, upon whose front blazed Orion and the Pleiades,--on

until the scene had wrought its charm, and the frequent speech fell to

scattered words, to silent thought, to passionate feeling, where

swelling heart and dim eyes alone uttered the soul's response to earth's

perfect beauty, God's perfect goodness.

And so ever on, until the twinkling lights in the curve of the bay

showed where the weary Pilgrims had set foot on shore, in that black,

bitter December weather, and planted the seed that has borne blossoms

and fruits unnumbered, and shall yet bear more and more for centuries to

come.

And through the quiet suburb, and across the brook, and up the

village-street, to the happy and hospitable home, where brilliant lights

and a sparkling tea-service waited to welcome the weary, but

well-pleased _voyageurs_.