e had no friend
or helper to buoy him up under his many disappointments. Even his wife
reproached him for neglecting his regular work and reducing herself and
her children to poverty and want, while he wasted his time and strength
in chasing a dream. His neighbors jeered at him as a madman, one who
put his plain duty aside for the gratification of what seemed to their
dull minds merely a whim. His poor wife could hardly be blamed for
reproaching him. She could neither understand nor sympathize with his
hopes and fears, while she knew that if he followed his trade, he could
at least save his family from want. It was a trying time for both of
them. But who ever heard tell of an artist, inventor, discoverer, or
genius of any kind being deterred by poverty, abuse, ridicule, or
obstacles of any kind from the pursuit of an ideal!

After many painful efforts, the poor glass painter had succeeded in
producing a substance which he believed to be white enamel. He spread
it on a number of earthenware pots which he had made, and placed them
in his furnace. The extremities to which he was reduced to supply heat
to the furnace are set forth in his own words: "Having," he says,
"covered the new pieces with the said enamel, I put them into the
furnace, still keeping the fire at its height; but thereupon occurred
to me a new misfortune which caused great mortification, namely, that
the wood having failed me, I was forced to burn the palings which
maintained the boundaries of my garden; which being burnt also, I was
forced to burn the tables and the flooring of my house, to cause the
melting of the second composition. I suffered an anguish that I cannot
speak, for I was quite exhausted and dried up by the heat of the
furnace. Further, to console me, I was the object of mockery; and even
those from whom solace was due ran crying through the town that I was
burning my floors, and in this way my credit was taken from me, and I
was regarded as a madman.

"Others said that I was laboring to make false money, which was a
scandal under which I pined away, and slipped with bowed head through
the streets like a man put to shame. No one gave me consolation, but,
on the contrary, men jested at me, saying, 'It was right for him to die
of hunger, seeing that he had left off following his trade!' All these
things assailed my ears when I passed through the street; but for all
that, there still remained some hope which encouraged and sustained me,
ina