Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

in some material more facile and

less dear than marble. Hence it was that he began to make his

models in clay, and to endeavour by experiment so to coat and bake

the clay as to render those models durable. After many trials he

at length discovered a method of covering the clay with a material,

which, when exposed to the intense heat of a furnace, became

converted into an almost imperishable enamel. He afterwards made

the further discovery of a method of imparting colour to the

enamel, thus greatly adding to its beauty.

 

The fame of Luca’s work extended throughout Europe, and specimens

of his art became widely diffused. Many of them were sent into

France and Spain, where they were greatly prized. At that time

coarse brown jars and pipkins were almost the only articles of

earthenware produced in France; and this continued to be the case,

with comparatively small improvement, until the time of Palissy—a

man who toiled and fought against stupendous difficulties with a

heroism that sheds a glow almost of romance over the events of his

chequered life.

 

Bernard Palissy is supposed to have been born in the south of

France, in the diocese of Agen, about the year 1510. His father

was probably a worker in glass, to which trade Bernard was brought

up. His parents were poor people—too poor to give him the benefit

of any school education. “I had no other books,” said he

afterwards, “than heaven and earth, which are open to all.” He

learnt, however, the art of glass-painting, to which he added that

of drawing, and afterwards reading and writing.

 

When about eighteen years old, the glass trade becoming decayed,

Palissy left his father’s house, with his wallet on his back, and

went out into the world to search whether there was any place in it

for him. He first travelled towards Gascony, working at his trade

where he could find employment, and occasionally occupying part of

his time in land-measuring. Then he travelled northwards,

sojourning for various periods at different places in France,

Flanders, and Lower Germany.

 

Thus Palissy occupied about ten more years of his life, after which

he married, and ceased from his wanderings, settling down to

practise glass-painting and land-measuring at the small town of

Saintes, in the Lower Charente. There children were born to him;

and not only his responsibilities but his expenses increased,

while, do what he could, his earnings remained too small for his

needs. It was therefore necessary for him to bestir himself.

Probably he felt capable of better things than drudging in an

employment so precarious as glass-painting; and hence he was

induced to turn his attention to the kindred art of painting and

enamelling earthenware. Yet on this subject he was wholly

ignorant; for he had never seen earth baked before he began his

operations. He had therefore everything to learn by himself,

without any helper. But he was full of hope, eager to learn, of

unbounded perseverance and inexhaustible patience.

 

It was the sight of an elegant cup of Italian manufacture—most

probably one of Luca della Robbia’s make—which first set Palissy

a-thinking about the new art. A circumstance so apparently

insignificant would have produced no effect upon an ordinary mind,

or even upon Palissy himself at an ordinary time; but occurring as

it did when he was meditating a change of calling, he at once

became inflamed with the desire of imitating it. The sight of this

cup disturbed his whole existence; and the determination to

discover the enamel with which it was glazed thenceforward

possessed him like a passion. Had he been a single man he might

have travelled into Italy in search of the secret; but he was bound

to his wife and his children, and could not leave them; so he

remained by their side groping in the dark in the hope of finding

out the process of making and enamelling earthenware.

 

At first he could merely guess the materials of which the enamel

was composed; and he proceeded to try all manner of experiments to

ascertain what they really were. He pounded all the substances

which he supposed were likely to produce it. Then he bought common

earthen pots, broke them into pieces, and, spreading his compounds

over them, subjected them to the heat of a furnace which he erected

for the purpose of baking them. His experiments failed; and the

results were broken pots and a waste of fuel, drugs, time, and

labour. Women do not readily sympathise with experiments whose

only tangible effect is to dissipate the means of buying clothes

and food for their children; and Palissy’s wife, however dutiful in

other respects, could not be reconciled to the purchase of more

earthen pots, which seemed to her to be bought only to be broken.

Yet she must needs submit; for Palissy had become thoroughly

possessed by the determination to master the secret of the enamel,

and would not leave it alone.

 

For many successive months and years Palissy pursued his

experiments. The first furnace having proved a failure, he

proceeded to erect another out of doors. There he burnt more wood,

spoiled more drugs and pots, and lost more time, until poverty

stared him and his family in the face. “Thus,” said he, “I fooled

away several years, with sorrow and sighs, because I could not at

all arrive at my intention.” In the intervals of his experiments

he occasionally worked at his former callings, painting on glass,

drawing portraits, and measuring land; but his earnings from these

sources were very small. At length he was no longer able to carry

on his experiments in his own furnace because of the heavy cost of

fuel; but he bought more potsherds, broke them up as before into

three or four hundred pieces, and, covering them with chemicals,

carried them to a tile-work a league and a half distant from

Saintes, there to be baked in an ordinary furnace. After the

operation he went to see the pieces taken out; and, to his dismay,

the whole of the experiments were failures. But though

disappointed, he was not yet defeated; for he determined on the

very spot to “begin afresh.”

 

His business as a land-measurer called him away for a brief season

from the pursuit of his experiments. In conformity with an edict

of the State, it became necessary to survey the salt-marshes in the

neighbourhood of Saintes for the purpose of levying the land-tax.

Palissy was employed to make this survey, and prepare the requisite

map. The work occupied him some time, and he was doubtless well

paid for it; but no sooner was it completed than he proceeded, with

redoubled zeal, to follow up his old investigations “in the track

of the enamels.” He began by breaking three dozen new earthen

pots, the pieces of which he covered with different materials which

he had compounded, and then took them to a neighbouring glass-furnace to be baked. The results gave him a glimmer of hope. The

greater heat of the glass-furnace had melted some of the compounds;

but though Palissy searched diligently for the white enamel he

could find none.

 

For two more years he went on experimenting without any

satisfactory result, until the proceeds of his survey of the salt-marshes having become nearly spent, he was reduced to poverty

again. But he resolved to make a last great effort; and he began

by breaking more pots than ever. More than three hundred pieces of

pottery covered with his compounds were sent to the glass-furnace;

and thither he himself went to watch the results of the baking.

Four hours passed, during which he watched; and then the furnace

was opened. The material on ONE only of the three hundred pieces

of potsherd had melted, and it was taken out to cool. As it

hardened, it grew white-white and polished! The piece of potsherd

was covered with white enamel, described by Palissy as “singularly

beautiful!” And beautiful it must no doubt have been in his eyes

after all his weary waiting. He ran home with it to his wife,

feeling himself, as he expressed it, quite a new creature. But the

prize was not yet won—far from it. The partial success of this

intended last effort merely had the effect of luring him on to a

succession of further experiments and failures.

 

In order that he might complete the invention, which he now

believed to be at hand, he resolved to build for himself a glass-furnace near his dwelling, where he might carry on his operations

in secret. He proceeded to build the furnace with his own hands,

carrying the bricks from the brick-field upon his back. He was

bricklayer, labourer, and all. From seven to eight more months

passed. At last the furnace was built and ready for use. Palissy

had in the mean time fashioned a number of vessels of clay in

readiness for the laying on of the enamel. After being subjected

to a preliminary process of baking, they were covered with the

enamel compound, and again placed in the furnace for the grand

crucial experiment. Although his means were nearly exhausted,

Palissy had been for some time accumulating a great store of fuel

for the final effort; and he thought it was enough. At last the

fire was lit, and the operation proceeded. All day he sat by the

furnace, feeding it with fuel. He sat there watching and feeding

all through the long night. But the enamel did not melt. The sun

rose upon his labours. His wife brought him a portion of the

scanty morning meal,—for he would not stir from the furnace, into

which he continued from time to time to heave more fuel. The

second day passed, and still the enamel did not melt. The sun set,

and another night passed. The pale, haggard, unshorn, baffled yet

not beaten Palissy sat by his furnace eagerly looking for the

melting of the enamel. A third day and night passed—a fourth, a

fifth, and even a sixth,—yes, for six long days and nights did the

unconquerable Palissy watch and toil, fighting against hope; and

still the enamel would not melt.

 

It then occurred to him that there might be some defect in the

materials for the enamel—perhaps something wanting in the flux; so

he set to work to pound and compound fresh materials for a new

experiment. Thus two or three more weeks passed. But how to buy

more pots?—for those which he had made with his own hands for the

purposes of the first experiment were by long baking irretrievably

spoilt for the purposes of a second. His money was now all spent;

but he could borrow. His character was still good, though his wife

and the neighbours thought him foolishly wasting his means in

futile experiments. Nevertheless he succeeded. He borrowed

sufficient from a friend to enable him to buy more fuel and more

pots, and he was again ready for a further experiment. The pots

were covered with the new compound, placed in the furnace, and the

fire was again lit.

 

It was the last and most desperate experiment of the whole. The

fire blazed up; the heat became intense; but still the enamel did

not melt. The fuel began to run short! How to keep up the fire?

There were the garden palings: these would burn. They must be

sacrificed rather than that the great experiment should fail. The

garden palings were pulled up and cast into the furnace. They were

burnt in vain! The enamel had not yet melted. Ten minutes more

heat might do it. Fuel must be had at whatever cost. There

remained the household furniture and shelving. A crashing noise

was heard in the house; and amidst the screams of his wife and

children, who now feared Palissy’s reason was giving way, the

tables were seized, broken