Very Well; If You
Tell A German To Send Your Trunk To You By "Slow Freight,"
He Takes You At
Your word; he sends it by "slow freight,"
and you cannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging
your
Admiration of the expressiveness of that phrase
in the German tongue, before you get that trunk.
The hair on my trunk was soft and thick and youthful,
when I got it ready for shipment in Hamburg; it was baldheaded
when it reached Heidelberg. However, it was still sound,
that was a comfort, it was not battered in the least;
the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiously careful,
in Germany, of the baggage entrusted to their hands.
There was nothing now in the way of our departure, therefore we
set about our preparations.
Naturally my chief solicitude was about my collection
of Ceramics. Of course I could not take it with me,
that would be inconvenient, and dangerous besides.
I took advice, but the best brick-a-brackers were divided
as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the
collection and warehouse it; others said try to get it
into the Grand Ducal Museum at Mannheim for safe keeping.
So I divided the collection, and followed the advice of
both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articles
which were the most frail and precious.
Among these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little
sketch of it here; [Figure 6] that thing creeping up
the side is not a bug, it is a hole. I bought this
tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for four hundred
and fifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the
Etruscans used to keep tears or something in these things,
and that it was very hard to get hold of a broken one, now.
I also set aside my Henri II. plate. See sketch
from my pencil; [Figure 7] it is in the main correct,
though I think I have foreshortened one end of it a little
too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape
is exceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful
decorations on it, but I am not able to reproduce them.
It cost more than the tear-jug, as the dealer said
there was not another plate just like it in the world.
He said there was much false Henri II ware around,
but that the genuineness of this piece was unquestionable.
He showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please;
it was a document which traced this plate's movements
all the way down from its birth - showed who bought it,
from whom, and what he paid for it - from the first buyer
down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up
from thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said
that the whole Ceramic world would be informed that it
was now in my possession and would make a note of it,
with the price paid.
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