hirteen inches exactly, and the angle as above. So I have
to be _very_ careful that too much is not taken out of the slot I
have to finish, either in width or inner recess, as that, one or the
other, would necessitate lowering the neck end, which is not what I
want to do. First the knife, then the files (coarse ones), and,
little by little, I get nearer and nearer to a fit, when I try angle
and the straightness of the whole with the fiddle, using compasses
to measure from inner point of purfling, upper corner, to corner of
fingerboard on corresponding side, with their exact counterparts on
the other; and testing height of fingerboard from belly. This is
very weary work, and _must_ be quite correctly done, or--well you
will either hear of it again in words, or _see_ your failure in the
sweet smile which is more detestable than the severest frown.

But all is at length right; the neck is forced home, and I mark
round the button, on to the superfluous wood of neck, its curve, so
that I may not cut beyond when I thin the neck to its proper and
final shape and thickness.

Many of you will, doubtless, be players of the fiddle, and to such,
good, bad or indifferent, I need hardly say how much the disposition
and general character of the neck of your instrument influences your
performance on it. It is obviously quite impossible to lay down any
rule or law, as to depth, width, or the curve at the end terminating
at the button, for some will have this latter thin and abrupt,
others less so, whilst a few insist on its being thick.

If people only knew how much the strength of the neck has to do with
the tone of the instrument, they would leave to the maker or expert
to determine what was best for it, either in the original making of
the violin or in placing a new neck in an old one. But it is
_convenience_--what we like and what we _will have_; so, in
consequence, suffers the tone of the instrument.

You have a violin thick in wood: if I find on it a neck also heavy
in material, to a certainty I have to register thin, woody tone;
whereas, given a thinner neck there would be more vibration in it,
and an undoubted impetus would be given to the somewhat inert body
of the violin--its heavy timber being too much for the mass of air,
which acts its part in that it moves in response to compulsion, but
fails, in producing so feeble an agitation of the whole wood.

But, on the other hand, I find a thin neck attached to a thin body,
a