The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864

"Twenty-two thousand dozen, Sir; and we shall have to spring to get them off at the time set."

"Nice tumblers they are, too,—just as good as cut, to my mind," continued Cicerone, poking with his stick at one of the batch that was now being placed in the leer.

Very nice and clear they were, but not as good as cut to Miselle's mind, and she remarked,—

"It is very easy to feel the difference, if not to see it, between cut and pressed glass. The latter always has these blunted angles to the facets, and has a certain vagueness and want of purpose about it; then it is not so heavy or so sparkling; there is a certain exhilaration in the gleam of cut glass that fits it for purposes to which the other would be entirely unsuited. Fancy Champagne in a pressed goblet, or tuberoses and japonicas in a pressed vase, or attar in a pressed flaçon!"

"Fortunately," replied Monsieur, to whom this aside had been addressed, "the persons who consider Champagne, japonicas, and attar of roses necessaries of life are very well able to provide cut-glass receptacles for them. But isn't it worth one's while to be proud of a country where every artisan's wife has her tumblers, her goblets, her vases, of pressed glass, certainly, but 'as good, to her mind, as cut,' to quote our friend? and don't you think it better that twenty-two thousand dozen pressed tumblers should be sold at ten cents apiece than one-third that number of cut ones at thirty cents, leaving all those who cannot pay the higher price to drink out of"–

"Clam-shells? Well, perhaps. Equality and the rights of man are very nice, of course, but I"–

"Like cut glass better," retorted Monsieur, laughing, while Miselle turned a little indignantly to the guide, who was saying,—

"The reason the edges have that blunted look is partly because they can't be struck as sharp as they can be ground, and then being heated in the glory-holes, and again in the leers softens them down a little. In fact, the very idea of annealing is to make the outside particles of the glass run together just a very little, so as to fill up the pores as it were, and make a smoother surface. If this were not done, it would fly all to pieces the first time it was put into hot water."

"The cut glass is not annealed, then?"

"Oh, yes, after it is blown it is; and although the grinding takes off part of the surface, I suppose it fills up the pores at the same time."

"Cut glass is more apt to break in hot water than pressed or simply blown glass," remarked Madame.

"And is all cut glass blown in the first place?" asked Optima.

"No, Miss, a good deal of it is pressed and then ground, either wholly or in part; but this is not so clear or free from waves as the blown. Out here is a man blowing liqueur-glasses. Perhaps you would like to see that."

The idea of blowing a bubble of glass into so intricate a shape, and timing the process so that the brittle material should harden only when it had reached the desired form, struck Miselle's mind as very incredible; and she followed Cicerone with much curiosity to another furnace, where one man, blow-pipe in hand, was dipping up a small quantity of the liquid glass, and, having blown into it just long enough to make a stout little bubble, laid the pipe across the iron arms of a bench, where sat another operator, who immediately began to roll the pipe up and down the arms of his chair, while with a supple iron instrument, shaped like sugar-tongs with flattened bowls, he laid hold of the bubble, and, while elongating it into a tube, brought the lower extremity first to a point and then to a stem. To the end of this the assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors, dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass. The heated pontil was now applied exactly to the centre of this foot, the top of the glass divided from the blow-pipe by the application of cold iron, and the whole thrust for a few moments into the mouth of the furnace to soften, while the first man laid another pipe with another bubble at the end before the operator upon the bench, who recommenced the same process.

The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses, coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished liqueur-glass of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground, smoothed, and then polished.

"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima.

"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies.

"What are you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she, enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting for room to approach his work.

"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously.

"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least, didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!"

The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another, who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the point diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by means of plyers and battledoor.

"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated throng, Miselle hastily communicated the idea to Optima, and proposed a sudden retreat, but was smilingly bidden to first consider for a moment the operations of four workmen close at hand, two of whom, kneeling upon the ground, grasped the handles of two little presses, very like aggravated bullet-moulds, while the other two, bringing little masses of glass upon the ends of their blow-sticks and dropping them carefully into the necks of the moulds, proceeded to blow through the pipe until the air forced out a quantity of the glass in the form of a great bubble at the top of the mould. The pressure from within increasing still more, this bubble necessarily burst with a smart snap, and thus caused the explosive sounds above referred to. The two casters then scraped away the débris at the top with a bit of stick, and, opening their moulds, disclosed in one a pretty little essence-bottle, which a sharp boy in waiting immediately snapped up on the end of a long fork, where he had already spitted about a dozen more, and carried them away to the leer.

"But what are you casting?" asked Madame, puzzled, as the other workman opened his mould and poked its contents out upon a bit of board held ready by another sharp boy.

"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands used in writing-desks.

More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass, resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils, and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a newly discovered Fontaine d'Or upon its back. She did not find it, but espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps, and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply proved,—these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be passed through the leer.

A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished.

This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships' cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her. These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by means of the plyers.

These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes.

Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur approached.

"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,—"no true patriot should congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that! Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to clam-shells!"

"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding.

These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left the appearance of fine ground glass.

The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel, fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called putty-powder.

The opacity was now entirely removed, and the facets cut upon the wine-glass Miselle had principally watched in its progress shone with the clear and polished brilliancy characteristic of the finest quality of cut glass.

For very nice work, such as the polishing of chandelier-drops, and articles of that sort, a leaden wheel, fed with fine rotten-stone and water, is employed; but on the occasion referred to, no work of this nature being in hand, these wheels were not used.

Other wheels, consisting of a simple disk of iron, not unlike a circular saw without any teeth, were used for cutting those narrow vertical lines, technically known as fingering, familiar to those so happy as to have had careful grandmothers, and to have inherited their decanters and wine-glasses. The revival of this style, like that of the rich old pattern in plate known as the "Mayflower," is a compliment just now paid by the present generation to the taste of the past, and Miselle was shown some beautiful specimens of the "latest mode, Ma'am," that awoke melancholy reminiscences of the shattered idols of her youth.

"Here are our friends, the ruby lampshades, again," remarked Optima.

"And now you will see how the transparent figures are made upon them," suggested Cicerone, pointing to a workman, who, with a pile of the ruby-coated globes beside him, was painting circles upon one of them with some yellowish pigment. The globe then being held to one of the rough wheels, the thin shell of red glass within these circles was ground away, leaving it white, but opaque. The globe then passed through the processes of smooth grinding and polishing, above described, until the pattern was finally developed in clear transparent medallions.

A very beautiful article in colored glass was a Hock decanter of an exquisite antique pattern in green glass, wreathed with a grape-vine, whose leaves and stems were transparent, while the clusters of grapes were left opaque by the omission of the polishing process.

At the end of the noisy cutting-room was a small chamber, hardly more than a closet, called the engraving-room, and bearing the same relation to the former as the crypt where the cellarer jealously stores his Tokay for the palate of a Kaiser holds to the acres of arches where lies the vin ordinaire.

Here, in the full light of ample windows, before a high bench, over which revolved with incredible rapidity a half-dozen small copper disks fed with fine emery and oil, stood as many earnest-looking men, not artisans, but artists, each of whom, vaguely guided by a design lightly sketched upon the article under his hands, was developing it with an ease and skill really beautiful to contemplate. Intricate arabesques, single flowers of perfect grace, or rare groups of bloom, piles of fruit, or spirited animal-life, all grew between the whirring copper wheel and the nice hand, whose slightest turn or pressure had a meaning and a just result.

Miselle watched the engraving of an intricate cipher beneath the fantastic crest of some wealthy epicurean, who had ordered a complete dessert-service of such charming forms and graceful designs that envy of his taste, if not of his possessions, became a positive duty.

"Is there any limit to the range of your subjects?" asked Miselle, as the artist added the last graceful curve to the griffin's tail, and contemplated his finished work with quiet complacency.

"There may be, but I never found it. Whatever a pencil can draw this wheel can cut," said he, with such a smile as Gottschalk might assume in answering the query as to whether the score could be written that he could not render.

Having now witnessed all the processes of glass-manufacture to be seen at this time and place,[25 - It is proper to state that Miselle subsequently visited the New-England Glass Company's Works in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, finding the method of manufacture nearly identical with that at Sandwich, has, for convenience' sake, incorporated her observations there with this account of her visit to the latter place.] the party were conducted to the show-room, passing on the way through a room where a number of young women were engaged in painting and gilding vases, spoon-holders, lamps, and various other articles in plain and colored glass. The colors used showed, for the most part, but a very faint resemblance to the tints they were intended to produce, and the gold appeared like a dingy brown paint; but, as was explained by Cicerone, these-colors were to be fixed by burning, or rather melting them into the surface of the glass, and this process would at the same time evolve their true colors and brilliancy, both of paint and gilding.

In the next room to this, several workmen were busy in fitting the metal trimmings to such articles as lamps, lanterns, castors, molasses-pitchers, and the like.

One chirruping old man insisted upon mounting an immensely ugly blue and yellow lamp upon a brass foot for the edification of his visitors, and when this was over, exhibited some opaque white glass stands for other lamps, which, as he fondly remarked, "would be took for marble anyw'eres."

The show-room was a long, airy hall, with a row of tables on either hand, covered with glass, whose icy glitter and lack of color gave a deliciously cool aspect to the whole place. Glass in every graceful form and design, some heavy and crystalline, enriched with ornate workmanship by cutter and engraver, some delicate and fragile as a soap-bubble; hock-glasses as green and lucent as sea-water, and with an edge not too thick to part the lips of Titania; glasses of amber, that should turn pale Johannisberger to the true vino d'oro; glasses of glowing ruby tint, than which Bohemia sends us nothing finer; vases and goblets as rare in form and wrought as skilfully as those two cups that Nero bought for six thousand sestertii; medallions bearing in intaglio portraits of distinguished men as clearly and unmistakably cut as on coin or cameo; whole services of glass, more beautiful and almost as valuable as services of plate; plumes of spun glass as fine and sheeny as softest silk; toys and scientific playthings; objects of wonder, admiration, and curiosity: all these were to be seen crowded upon these long, white tables in the cool hall, where the wind, sweeping gently through, brought the smell of the rising tide, and the sound of its waves upon the shore.

Here, too, was a man who knew the story, not only of the glass lying beneath his hand to-day, but of all the glass the world has known, from the colored beads inhumed with the Pharaonic princesses to the ruby salver he so fondly fingered as he talked.

He spoke of the glazed windows of Pompeii; of the "excellent portrait" of the Emperor Constantine VII. painted, a. d. 949, upon a church-window. He recounted the ancient story of the Phœnicians, who, landing at the mouth of the river, brought from their ships lumps of soda, and, laying them upon the sand as a support for their dinner-pot, found when they had done lumps of glass among the ashes, and so rediscovered the lost art of glass-making; but to this he added, with a dubious smile,—