Fa. A description is intended to give you a lively picture of an object, as if you saw it; it ought to be very full. A definition gives no picture to those who have not seen it: it rather tells you what its subject is not, than what it is, by giving you such clear specific marks, that it shall not be possible to confound it with anything else; and hence it is of the greatest use in throwing things into classes. We have a great many beautiful descriptions from ancient authors so loosely worded that we cannot certainly tell what animals are meant by them: whereas, if they had given us definitions, three lines would have ascertained their meaning.
Ch. I like a description best, papa.
Fa. Perhaps so; I believe I should have done the same at your age. Remember, however, that nothing is more useful than to learn to form ideas with precision, and to express them with accuracy; I have not given you a definition to teach you what a horse is, but to teach you to think.
THE PHENIX AND DOVE.
A Phenix, who had long inhabited the solitary deserts of Arabia, once flew so near the habitations of men as to meet with a tame dove, who was sitting on her nest, with wings expanded, and fondly brooding over her young ones, while she expected her mate, who was foraging abroad to procure them food. The phenix, with a kind of insulting compassion, said to her, “Poor bird, how much I pity thee! confined to a single spot, and sunk in domestic cares, thou art continually employed either in laying eggs or providing for thy brood; and thou exhausteth thy life and strength in perpetuating a feeble and defenceless race. As to myself, I live exempt from toil, care, and misfortune. I feed upon nothing less precious than rich gums and spices. I fly through the trackless regions of the air, and when I am seen by men, am gazed at with curiosity and astonishment! I have no one to control my range, no one to provide for; and when I have fulfilled my five centuries of life, and seen the revolution of ages, I rather vanish than die, and a successor, without my care, springs up from my ashes. I am an image of the great sun whom I adore; and glory in being like him, single and alone, and having no likeness.”
The dove replied, “O, phenix, I pity thee much more than thou affectest to pity me! What pleasure canst thou enjoy, who livest forlorn and solitary in a trackless and unpeopled desert? who hast no mate to caress thee, no young ones to excite thy tenderness and reward thy cares, no kindred, no society among thy fellows? Not long life only, but immortality itself would be a curse, if it were to be bestowed on such uncomfortable terms. For my part, I know that my life will be short, and therefore I employ it in raising a numerous posterity, and in opening my heart to all the sweets of domestic happiness. I am beloved by my partner; I am dear to man; and shall leave marks behind me that I have lived. As to the sun, to whom thou hast presumed to compare thyself, that glorious being is so totally different from, and so infinitely superior to, all the creatures upon earth, that it does not become us to liken ourselves to him, or to determine upon the manner of his existence. One obvious difference, however, thou mayest remark; that the sun, though alone, by his prolific heat produces all things, and though he shines so high above our heads, gives us reason every moment to bless his beams; whereas thou, swelling with imaginary greatness, dreamest away a long period of existence, equally void of comfort and of usefulness.”
THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER.
Father. I will now, as I promised, give you an account of the elegant and useful manufacture of paper, the basis of which is itself a manufacture. This delicate and beautiful substance is made from the meanest and most disgusting materials, from old rags, which have passed from one poor person to another, and have perhaps at length dropped in tatters from the child of the beggar. These are carefully picked up from dunghills, or bought from servants by Jews, who make it their business to go about and collect them. They sell them to the rag-merchant, who gives them from two pence to four pence a pound, according to their quality; and he, when he has got a sufficient quantity, disposes of them to the owner of the papermill. He gives them first to women to sort and pick, agreeably to their different degrees of fineness; they also with a knife cut out carefully all the seams, which they throw into a basket for other purposes; they then put them into the dusting-engine, a large circular wire sieve, where they receive some degree of cleansing. The rags are then conveyed to the mill. Here they were formerly beat to pieces with vast hammers, which rose and fell continually with a most tremendous noise, that was heard at a great distance. But now they put the rags into a large trough or cistern, into which a pipe of clear spring water is constantly flowing. In this cistern is placed a cylinder, about two feet long, set thick round with rows of iron spikes, standing as near as they can to one another without touching. At the bottom of the trough there are corresponding rows of spikes. The cylinder is made to whirl round with inconceivable rapidity, and with these iron teeth rends and tears the cloth in every possible direction; till, by the assistance of the water, which continually flows through the cistern, it is thoroughly masticated, and reduced to a fine pulp; and by the same process all its impurities are cleansed away, and it is restored to its original whiteness. This process takes about six hours. To improve the colour they then put in a little smalt, which gives it a bluish cast, which all paper has more or less: the French paper has less of it than ours. This fine pulp is next put into a copper of warm water. It is the substance of paper, but the form must now be given it: for this purpose they use a mould. It is made of wire, strong one way, and crossed with finer. This mould they just dip horizontally into the copper and take it out again. It has a little wooden frame on the edge, by means of which it retains as much of the pulp as is wanted for the thickness of the sheet, and the water runs off through the interstices of the wires. Another man instantly receives it, opens the frame, and turns out the thin sheet, which has now shape, but not consistence, upon soft felt, which is placed on the ground to receive it. On that is placed another piece of felt, and then another sheet of paper, and so on, till they have made a pile of forty or fifty. They are then pressed with a large screw-press, moved by a long lever, which forcibly squeezes the water out of them, and gives them immediate consistence. There is still, however, a great deal to be done. The felts are taken off, and thrown on one side, and the paper on the other, whence it is dexterously taken up with an instrument in the form of a T, three sheets at a time, and hung on lines to dry. There it hangs for a week or ten days, which likewise further whitens it; and any knots and roughness it may have are picked off carefully by the women. It is then sized. Size is a kind of glue; and without this preparation the paper would not bear ink; it would run and blot as you see it does on gray paper. The sheets are just dipped into the size and taken out again. The exact degree of sizing is a matter of nicety, which can only be known by experience. They are then hung up again to dry, and when dry, taken to the finishing-room, where they are examined anew, pressed in the dry-presses, which give them their last gloss and smoothness; counted up into quires, made up into reams, and sent to the stationer’s, from whom we have it, after he has folded it again and cut the edges; some too he makes to shine like satin, by hot-pressing it, or glossing it with hot plates. The whole process of papermaking takes about three weeks.
Har. It is a very curious process indeed. I shall almost scruple for the future to blacken a sheet of paper with a careless scrawl, now I know how much pains it costs to make it so white and beautiful.
Fa. It is true that there is hardly anything we use with so much waste and profusion as this manufacture: we should think ourselves confined in the use of it, if we might not tear, disperse, and destroy it in a thousand ways; so that it is really astonishing whence linen enough can be procured to answer so vast a demand. As to the coarse brown papers, of which an astonishing quantity is used by every shopkeeper in packages, &c., these are made chiefly of oakum, that is, old hempen ropes. A fine paper is made in China of silk.