CHAPTER XXX IN WHICH I FORSWEAR MYSELF AND AM ACCUSED OF POSSESSING THE "EVIL EYE"
Smithing is a sturdy, albeit a very black art; yet its black is a good, honest black, very easily washed off, which is more than can be said for many other trades, arts, and professions.
Yes, a fine, free, manly art is smithing, and those who labor at the forge would seem, necessarily, to reflect these virtues.
Since old Tubal Cain first taught man how to work in brass and iron, who ever heard of a sneaking, mean-spirited, cowardly blacksmith? To find such an one were as hard a matter as to discover the Fourth Dimension, methinks, or the carcass of a dead donkey.
Your true blacksmith is usually a strong man, something bowed of shoulder, perhaps; a man slow of speech, bold of eye, kindly of thought, an
