“The tail should never be less than twelve, and should it even amount to twenty times the length of the kite, its appearance in the air will be more graceful; this, however, must be regulated by the weight of the string, and by the length and thickness of the pieces of paper of which the tail is composed. The length of each ought to be about three inches and a quarter, and an inch and a half in breadth, and it should be folded four times longitudinally; each of these bobs, as they are called, must be placed at regular intervals of three inches.”
“And with respect to the size of the wings?” asked the vicar.
“I should not recommend any wings; if the kite be well made, there cannot be any advantage from such appendages. Having now answered your several questions, let us proceed with our work.”
“But where is the paper?” asked Mrs. Seymour.
“Apropos,” answered her husband; “the box in which the London toys were packed contains a quantity that will answer our purpose.”
The box was accordingly placed on the table.
“Why, what a most extraordinary miscellany!” cried the vicar; “the army of Mithridates could not have consisted of a more incongruous mixture. I perceive,” added he, as his enquiring eyes glanced from sheet to sheet, “we have here a fragment of almost every description of literary and scientific work.”
“The market,” observed Mr. Seymour, “is supplied with waste paper from the catacombs of Paternoster Row, which may be truly said to ‘level all distinctions.’ Without intending any offence by a pun, my good vicar, what a tale will this box unfold! I never open a magazine of this waste paper, without feeling a deep sympathy for the melancholy fate of authors: to see the strange transmigrations, and vile purposes, to which their works are destined, is really heart-rending. That the lights of science should be consigned to the tallow-chandler! the works of the moralist, so well calculated to purify the world, to the soap-seller! that such a book as ‘Laennec on the Chest,’ with Dr. Forbes’s valuable Cases in the bargain, should be packed off to the trunk-maker! are events which cannot fail to furnish food for melancholy reflection. Nay, more, I have myself (can you believe it, Mr. Twaddleton?) actually received a quantity of ureic acid in a Review of Dr. Thomson’s Chemistry! and I only yesterday learned, with horror, that a piece of fat bacon was positively wrapped up in a page of ‘Paris on Diet;’ while a Cheshire cheese came encased in Kitchener’s ‘Chart of the Moon.’”
“Oh, shameful! shameful!!” exclaimed the vicar: “but I can assure you, that this unfeeling conduct of the publisher had not escaped my notice and indignation; for I lately received a work against the slave-trade, in the fragment of a tract on ‘the Progress of Cant;’ and a Copy of Irving’s Orations, in an act of ‘Much Ado about Nothing;’ and what was still worse,” continued the reverend divine, “a little work on the art of Prognosticating the Weather, was forwarded to me in a chapter of Daniel’s Prophecies.”
“But let us quit these melancholy reflections for the present, and proceed with our occupation.”