390
��Inventors as Alartyrs to Science.
��to cousole me, I was the object of mockery, — even those from whom solace was due, crying through the town that I was burning my floors." With bowed head he now slipped through the streets like a man put to shame. No one gave him consolation in this extremity ; all jested and jeered, saying it was right and just that he who had left off following his trade should die of hunger.
At the last extremity he found a steady friend and ally, who gave him money and food ; and the lady at whose chateau he had seen the mar- vellous cup which had acted as a tal- isman to elicit his genius became his generous patron, and thus he started afresh with new liope. Some idea of the difficulties he encountered may be obtained from the fact that after hav- ing wearied himself several days in pounding and coloring his drugs, he had to grind them in a hand mill, which it usually required two strong- men to turn, and all tliis while his hand was bruised and cut in many places with the labor of the fur- nace.
And the dignity and importance attendins his final success fail to take away the ridiculous aspect of his new troubles. He had mixed the mortar for his furnace with coarse, unsifted sand, and pebbles will not stand fire. He appreciated the ridiculousness of the scene himself, when in after life he described it. But there was no fun in it then. The pebbles split and exploded, and from within the fur- nace came noises of every kind, fiom the smallest crack to the roar of thun- der. Outside the poor would be pot- ter listened in horror to the mysteri- ous sounds, and behind him friends
��and family, hearing the confusion among the vases, doubtless more than ever believed the man mad.
For sixteen years he blundered on in |)overty and neglect. He says, — "■ When I had learned to guard against one danger, there came another on which I had not reckoned. When at length I had discovered how to make my rustic pieces, I was in great- er trouble and vexation than before, for, having made a certain number of them and put them to l)ake, my enam- els turned out, some beautiful and well melted, and others quite the re- verse, because they were composed of different materials and were fusible in different degrees. Thus the green of the braids was burned longj before the color of the serpents was melted, and the color of the serpents, lob- sters, tortoises, and crabs was melted before the white had attained any beauty. All these defects caused me such labors and heaviness of spirit, that before I could render n)y enam- els fusible at the same degrees of heat, I verily thought I should be at the door of my sepulchre.
From incessant labor and anxiety in the space of more than twenty years, I had so fallen away in ray person that there was no longer any form in my legs or roundness in my ai'ms, insomuch that mv limbs were all one thickness ; and as soon I be- gan to walk the strings with which I fastened the bottom of my hose dropped about my heels together with my stockings."
His master-pieces now adorn the private collections of the wealthiest amateurs of the continent, and he won the fame which he so earnestly desired.
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