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Hence, such bronze work as originated was very unsatisfactory; the lack of skill in casting, and the consequent elaboration of bronze-work with the file, lasting late into the Renaissance. But the men of the Middle Ages were marvellously skilful carvers of stone.
The fronts of many of the houses are handsomely carved and decorated, the columns and pillars and brackets which support the balconies, the railings, the door frames, the eaves and architraves, are often beautiful examples of the carvers' skill, and the exterior walls are usually painted in gay colors and fanciful designs. Within doors the houses look very bare to us, and contain few comforts.
The number of tools required by professional carvers for one piece of work varies in proportion to the elaborateness of the carving to be done. They may use from half a dozen on simple work up to twenty or thirty for the more intricate carvings, this number being a selection out of a larger stock reaching perhaps as many as a hundred or more.
Elaborate "arabesque" and other formal designs gave employment to the carvers, in making an infinite repetition of fiddles, festoons, and ribbons, in the execution of which they became so proficient, that their work is more often admired for its exquisite finish than for any intrinsic interest in the subject or design.
Desire Minter, who was also of the Carver household, has been the victim of much speculation. Mrs. Jane G. Austin, in her novel, "Standish of Standish," makes her the female scapegrace of the colony, jealous, discontented and quarrelsome. William Minter, the husband of Sarah, was associated with the Carvers and Chiltons in marriage betrothals.
During the entire journey our travellers had lived in a similar luxury, as their beasts of burden carried every imaginable convenience, from tents of water-proof materials inwrought with gold, down to silver foot- stools; and in the vehicles which composed their train were not only bakers, cooks, cup-bearers and carvers, but perfumers, hair-dressers and weavers of garlands.
Image carvers had now plenty to do in making, out of camphor or hinoki wood, effigies of such of the eight million or so of kamis as were given places in the new and enlarged pantheon. The multiplication was always on the side of Buddhism.
It may be only that a teacup or plate is sticky or rough to the touch, a fork or a knife needed, the steel or one of the carvers forgotten. But when the family is assembled at the board, these trifles cause awkward pauses and interruptions.
And now the slaves hurried hither and thither, bearing costly dishes with elaborately dressed viands: dormice strewed with honey and poppy seeds; beccaficoes surrounded by yolks of eggs, seasoned with pepper and made to resemble peafowls' eggs in a nest whereon the stuffed bird was sitting; fish floating in rich gravies that spouted from the mouths of four tritons at the corners of the dish; crammed fowls, hares fitted with wings to resemble Pegasus, thrushes in pastry stuffed with raisins and nuts, oysters, scallops, snails on silver gridirons, boar stuffed with fieldfares, with baskets of figs and dates hanging from his tusks, sweetmeats, cold tarts with Spanish honey these and a hundred other dishes, strange or costly, followed each other in quick succession, and, all the while, the carvers flourished their knives in time with music, now of instruments, again of choruses of boys and girls.
Few carvers, however, possess such a complete stock of tools as would be represented by one of each size and shape manufactured; such a thing is not required: an average number of, say seventy tools, will always give a sufficient variety of size and sweep for general purposes; few pieces of work will require the use of more than half of these in its execution.
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