ming no apology necessary for
occupying your time in denouncing what, should you imitate, would be
bad in art.

It is not my intention to go over the various styles of
purfling--double, variegated, etc., etc.--but to show you how I
prepare and place that which is universal now, the single, composed,
as most people know, of two very thin strips of black wood on either
side of one white one. But to do this, I must mark, cut and remove
the groove in which it has to rest, which requires much explanation.

The outlined back, being quite ready for marking, I clamp down to
the bench with two of those marked 11, one at either end, leaving
one side of the outlet free. Then I take this specially-made
purfling tool, No. 13, with its tracers fixed for marking the two
parallel lines about five-thirty-seconds of an inch from the perfect
outline of the back, and I grasp the handle in both hands
perpendicularly, pressing the revolving wheel against the edge, of
course, and keeping the steel markers going carefully and with only
slight pressure all round the instrument, stopping without running
_off_ at the corners, however. There is, you see, about two inches
not marked where the button comes; this must be traced by placing a
piece of prepared hard wood, made to touch just the same curve as
where the lines would have come had there been no wood there for a
button. This must be very carefully placed and traced, as,
otherwise, all will not be in correct sweep.

Now, gentlemen, we enter on a difficult stage--nay, two; but then,
as I was once asked by a gentleman, "Which part of a violin is the
most difficult to make?" I replied, "Every part." But not quite
that; still, what I am now going to do is not by any means the
least. But you must not lose heart; he who never fights, never
conquers; the man who never blundered or made a mistake, never made
anything.

Fasten the plate again on the inner part, not the edge, of the
bench, so that you can lean over to do what you see I am about to
do, and remove cramps as occasion requires. This is a one and
one-eighth inch pointed gouge, 54, long ground and very sharp and
thin. I grasp it in my right hand, holding and guiding with the
left, and gently work to barely the depth of the purfling along one
of the two narrow lines, and then the other for a short distance,
until I get a somewhat more substantial double line all over the
body. But I must warn you respecting the very tender corners. When