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Updated: June 12, 2025
I think they couldn't. I remember the best explanation I got was from an old Scotch line repairer employed by the Montreal Telegraph Company, which operated the railroad wires. He said that if you had a dog like a dachshund, long enough to reach from Edinburgh to London, if you pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in London.
The faculties, skill and experience directed on the restoration of a violin "on the sick list," differs from those exercised by the first constructor whose mechanical dexterity is an aid or secondary to other qualifications: whereas it is paramount in importance in the constitution of a first class repairer.
There is often too great a tendency shown in repairing, especially in preparation for the market, as, for instance, when an old master has been unearthed in some farmhouse or out of the way place on the Continent, to make a clean sweep of a somewhat riddled part, the repairer trusting too much to his imitative powers on new wood with new varnish, and we may say with new ideas on old facts; it is seldom that the result is far from hideous.
Under present circumstances, more care than usual with modern violins has to be exercised, as the repairer knows that it was customary with the old Italian makers to secure the neck to the upper block by one, two, or at times even three nails. They were driven in from the interior before the final closing up or fixing of the upper table.
Some remarks might be made by some admirers of high finish in its simple sense, about the bold unfinished gouging of some of the old Italian makers, and queries whether the irregularities should be studiously followed up by the repairer, as it should unquestionably be with work of high refinement and minute finish.
Some paper placed between the wedge and the border will help in preserving the latter from injury or marks. The above suggestions are only intended to be applicable when the violinist may be out of reach of any professional or competent repairer.
My aunt, the Abbess of Maubuisson, told me that she saw at the Queen's a man who was called "the repairer of the Queen's face;" that Princess, as well as all the ladies of the Court, wore great quantities of paint.
"'I saw thy look and my daughter's yesterday, he said. 'It is weak of me to deny her a man like thee, thou sailor's friend. My ship is old. These coasts are dangerous. Nights and days come when we get no sight of lights ashore or in heaven. If thy chronometer fail, fail not thou, but be to her repairer and possessor!
"Very likely, but tell me something first about these persons," urged Knapp. "Who is Edward Hope?" "A watch repairer; a man of estimable character." "And Sylvester Chubb?" "A farmer who, to support his mother, wife, and seven children, works from morning till sundown on his farm, and from sundown till 11 o'clock at night on little fancy articles he cuts out from wood and sells in Boston."
Her children had been called from her, till now she had but one, and he, being a cripple, could do little more than supply his own absolute wants by his work as a repairer of watches. The pastor was charmed with her patient endurance of what others would call the hard discipline of life, and when he left her he felt that he had been a learner instead of a teacher in that poor room.
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