Fa. It pleased him, I suppose, or he would not have accepted of it; and you will allow, I imagine, that if titles are used, it does honour to those who bestow them, when they are given to such as have made themselves noticed for something useful. Arkwright used to say, that if he had time to perfect his inventions, he would put a fleece of wool into a box, and it should come out broadcloth.
Hen. What did he mean by that? Was there any fairy in the box to turn it into broadcloth with her wand?
Fa. He was assisted by the only fairies that ever had the power of transformation—art and industry: he meant that he would contrive so many machines, wheel within wheel, that the combing, carding, and various other operations, should be performed by mechanism, almost without the hand of man.
Hen. I think, if I had not been told, I should never have been able to guess that my coat came off the back of the sheep.
Fa. You hardly would; but there are manufactures in which the material is much more changed than in woollen cloth. What can be meaner in appearance than sand and ashes? Would you imagine anything beautiful could be made out of such a mixture? Yet the furnace transforms this into that transparent crystal we call glass, than which nothing is more sparkling, more brilliant, more full of lustre. It throws about the rays of light as if it had life and motion.
Hen. There is a glass shop in London which always puts me in mind of Aladdin’s palace.
Fa. It is certain that if a person, ignorant of the manufacture, were to see one of our capital shops, he would think all the treasures of Golconda were centred there, and that every drop of cut-glass was worth a prince’s ransom. Again, who would suppose, on seeing the green stalks of a plant, that it could be formed into a texture so smooth, so snowy-white, so firm, and yet so flexible as to wrap round the limbs, and adapt itself to every movement of the body? Who would guess this fibrous stalk could be made to float in such light undulating folds as in our lawns and cambrics; not less fine, we presume, than that transparent drapery which the Romans called ventus textilis, woven wind?
Hen. I wonder how anybody can spin such fine thread!
Fa. Their fingers must have the touch of a spider, that, as Pope says,
“Feels at each thread, and lives along the line;”