onds in tone to D, and you will still remember that the back
was C.

But other thicknesses than these, both of back and belly, are
employed; such as thinner in back and thicker in belly; and as used
by Joseph Guarnerius del Jesu--the back about such as we have used
in this instrument, but the belly a trifle THINNER in the centre
than at the edges--they being about one-eighth of an inch. And we
have it on record that many of the violins of Stradivari were
originally _one thickness_ all over the upper table, barely
one-eighth, and about as I use for the lower; would that we could
speak with authority on this as on many another point! But many
instruments have had wood taken from them by vampires and faddists,
and we can _not_ speak with authority as to the vital points of
scores of these noble efforts of art, therefore better not lay down
laws or adduce supposed facts regarding them, but do our utmost to
build up something as noble, and each one of us leave art no worse
than he found it, casting reproach and scorn on the utterly
indifferent, or the detestable pander or the vampire.

As I have not to recur to the thicknesses again, it may here be a
convenient place in which to say a few words on the nodal points in
relation thereto.

Many of you may not know what a "node" in music means exactly--some
of you may know nothing whatever about it. Simply, it is the fixed
point of a sonorous chord, at which it divides itself, when it
vibrates by aliquot parts, and produces the harmonic sounds. And do
you not see how this struck chord can serve and does serve to
illustrate my exposition of the back and belly--more particularly
the latter--in their vibrations and their concentration at upper,
middle, and lower nodes? To these places they fly, they cling,
singly, thin, and of no character; and from these places they again
fly, but united in a strong, sonorous _tone_. How then, think you,
will fare those worked out cheeks or attenuated edges, (some of
which latter I have seen no thicker than a worn shilling), when
worked hard and in a hot room? Gentlemen, they will sound like
something between a musette and a Jew's harp, when you are near to
the player; they will not be heard _at all_ some yards away! Yet it
is such a tone (!) which many hundreds of old violins possess, and
after which so many million people run. Please note this is entirely
without prejudice. Every person has a perfect right to use his own
judgment; and tastes