登陆注册
5239300000082

第82章 COPELAND.(2)

In regard of the potter, popularly so called (says the plate), you don't mean to say you have forgotten that a workman called a Thrower is the man under whose hand this grey dough takes the shapes of the simpler household vessels as quickly as the eye can follow? You don't mean to say you cannot call him up before you, sitting, with his attendant woman, at his potter's wheel - a disc about the size of a dinner-plate, revolving on two drums slowly or quickly as he wills - who made you a complete breakfast-set for a bachelor, as a good-humoured little off-hand joke? You remember how he took up as much dough as he wanted, and, throwing it on his wheel, in a moment fashioned it into a teacup - caught up more clay and made a saucer - a larger dab and whirled it into a teapot - winked at a smaller dab and converted it into the lid of the teapot, accurately fitting by the measurement of his eye alone - coaxed a middle-sized dab for two seconds, broke it, turned it over at the rim, and made a milkpot - laughed, and turned out a slop-basin - coughed, and provided for the sugar? Neither, I think, are you oblivious of the newer mode of making various articles, but especially basins, according to which improvement a mould revolves instead of a disc? For you MUST remember (says the plate) how you saw the mould of a little basin spinning round and round, and how the workmen smoothed and pressed a handful of dough upon it, and how with an instrument called a profile (a piece of wood, representing the profile of a basin's foot) he cleverly scraped and carved the ring which makes the base of any such basin, and then took the basin off the lathe like a doughy skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards (in what is called a green state) to be put into a second lathe, there to be finished and burnished with a steel burnisher? And as to moulding in general (says the plate), it can't be necessary for me to remind you that all ornamental articles, and indeed all articles not quite circular, are made in moulds. For you must remember how you saw the vegetable dishes, for example, being made in moulds; and how the handles of teacups, and the spouts of teapots, and the feet of tureens, and so forth, are all made in little separate moulds, and are each stuck on to the body corporate, of which it is destined to form a part, with a stuff called 'slag,' as quickly as you can recollect it. Further, you learnt - you know you did - in the same visit, how the beautiful sculptures in the delicate new material called Parian, are all constructed in moulds; how, into that material, animal bones are ground up, because the phosphate of lime contained in bones makes it translucent; how everything is moulded, before going into the fire, one-fourth larger than it is intended to come out of the fire, because it shrinks in that proportion in the intense heat; how, when a figure shrinks unequally, it is spoiled - emerging from the furnace a misshapen birth; a big head and a little body, or a little head and a big body, or a Quasimodo with long arms and short legs, or a Miss Biffin with neither legs nor arms worth mentioning.

同类推荐
  • 正一法服天师教戒科经

    正一法服天师教戒科经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 道枢

    道枢

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 上清灵宝大法

    上清灵宝大法

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

    The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 十二门论疏

    十二门论疏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 智能是个阴谋

    智能是个阴谋

    就在人们不断的推出新科学,新技术的时候是否想到?人们不光是在拖动社会的发展,也是在创造者其他的物种。当一个新的智能生物被创造出来的时候,人类也将受到威胁。
  • 刺激巅峰

    刺激巅峰

    介绍:这只是是一个故事的开始,是一个美妙的故事的开始
  • 校园生死恋:爱情不稀奇

    校园生死恋:爱情不稀奇

    爱,是怎样?爱,是疼痛,爱是感觉有人把图钉重重的压进左心房,然后拔出来,再压进去。自己听着自己的心碎裂,却又无可奈何。她10岁便对他芳心暗许,而他,却无动于衷。身边却总是红妆缭绕、美女如云,甚至女友换了一任又一任。她不是没人追,只是她心里有了一个就再也容不下第二个。他当着女友和她的面说“我只当她是我妹妹。”他又当着对她死缠烂打的每一个男子都说“她是我的,不管你爱不爱她,都请你离开她……”欢迎加群:425753695【我的小助手24小时在线,有什么问题都可以咨询】
  • 末日之随身空间

    末日之随身空间

    突然有一天,死党秦菲菲告知,她是从末日重生归来,为了再次迎接末日,秦菲菲和云歆开始找金手指,买种子,准备食材和武器……只是坑爹的,末日降临,这个随身空间居然神秘消失……没法,只得拿钱菜刀当武器,平底锅当防具,开门冲出去和丧尸硬碰硬,阿门,保佑我不要成为炮灰!当末日来临,大小姐秦菲菲和宅女云歆开启了扮猪吃老虎的另类末日人生。(纯属书荒,又来开坑,写的不好,请多多包容!)
  • 隐秘的人类身世

    隐秘的人类身世

    地球是银河系上一个稚嫩的星球,它处在银河系的边缘,而银河系的中心早就已经出现了更高级的文明。地球的文明是外星人帮助建立的。然后,整个过程,却牵扯出很多很多难忘的故事。
  • 摩诃般若波罗蜜大明咒经

    摩诃般若波罗蜜大明咒经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 我是个笨女生(第1季): 天上掉下个坏男生

    我是个笨女生(第1季): 天上掉下个坏男生

    刚上初一的奇奇丢了爸爸却捡回一条流浪狗,从此开始了“险象环生”的单亲生涯:她用特别的方法对付脾气剧爆的老妈;她用真诚的心对待两个最好的朋友——棉花糖和蚕豆;她用独到的视角看待和评价她的老师;她不顾流言蜚语,勇敢地结交传说中的“流氓恶霸”——外号叫“土匪”的插班男生……。
  • 财富,就在我们身边

    财富,就在我们身边

    本书主要讲述了创业成功的奥秘、发财致富之道、经营销售的诀窍等知识。
  • 将家贤妻闲

    将家贤妻闲

    为妻者,贤也,贤惠也,知三从四德,守妇德,谨妇言,端妇容,善妇工,以相夫教子为贤也。可妻闲也,将门虎女,醉不醒人事,醒不问醉事,猖狂也?猖狂也。这天下非她年华的,可她年华却算天下于股掌,凭你为官几朝,也叫你虎落平阳!问她凭何?凭何?唯我年华天下不可欺也!
  • 妖中狐

    妖中狐

    前世情,今生还。一边是荣华富贵,一边是儿女情长,又该如何选择?到底该爱还是恨……是错付又或是不够爱……