768 WILLIS, NATHANIEL P. 



WINE-HOUSE, A. 



weary of his task, never at a loss for sugges- 

 tive themes, never wanting in skill of adapta- 

 tion, in curious surprises of expression, or in 

 flowing wealth of original illustration. His 

 devotion to his editorial duties was like that, 

 of a fond mother to her pet child. The languor 

 of disease seemed to produce no effect on the 

 fertility of his pen. His mental energy tri- 

 umphed over the weakness of his bodily frame, 

 and the dashes of quaint humor and the utter- 

 ance of dainty conceits which constantly enliv- 

 ened the columns of his journal were often 

 produced in the intervals of pain, or dictated 

 amidst the pangs of lingering illness. Even 

 until within a few days of his death, he would 

 not consent to relinquish his grasp of the pen, 

 maintaining the same persistent energy which 

 had kept him firm at his post through so many 

 years of hopeless irfvalidism. 



Mr. Willis's works are comprised in about 

 thirty volumes, and many of them are too famil- 

 iar to most of our readers to require a repeti- 

 tion of their titles in this place. As a fluent 

 and graceful discourser on the lighter topics of 

 social interest, he is admitted to have had few 

 rivals. If they are to be found at all, we must 

 not seek them in the stately reserve and polished 

 dignity of English literature, but among writers 

 who drew their inspiration from the gay persi- 

 flage and graceful irony of Parisian life. No 

 man caught with a quicker eye the fleeting as- 

 pects of social comedy, or reproduced their 

 rainbow colors with a more dexterous touch. 

 His poetry shows that he was not destitute of 

 the deeper sentiment for the exercise of which 

 he had little use in the airy sketches which 

 charm alike by the frivolity of their tone and 

 the piquancy of their diction. It suited his 

 purpose to have the impression go abroad that 

 these light and sparkling essays were thrown 

 off without effort, that they were the mere by- 

 play of idle hours. Yet nothing could be further 

 from the truth than such an impression. He pos- 

 sessed in a higher degree than almost any other 

 American writer the power of distinguishing 

 the nice shades of meaning of the words of our 

 complex English tongue, and his sentences, even 

 when apparently most careless, were the result 

 of a careful, almost painful elaboration in which 

 every word is fitly chosen to express its precise 

 shade of thought. His powers of analysis, his 

 delicacy of discrimination, his acute perceptions 

 of the slightest differences and similarities of 

 the relations of objects, were such as would, if 

 applied to graver and higher topics, have given 

 him a high reputation among the great ontolo- 

 gists and philosophers of our times. Endowed 

 with such high gifts, it seems pitiful that he 

 should have frittered them away and left be- 

 hind him only the reputation of a light and 

 polished versifier, a brilliant essayist on topics 

 of no permanent interest or value to man, and 

 a journalist to whom the petty details of dress, 

 fashion, and frivolity, were favorite themes. 

 It was as if a giant should make a business 

 of breaking butterflies upon a wheel. We 



must not, however, take leave of Mr. Willis 

 without acknowledging his good deeds to the 

 cause of American literature. He was a man 

 of great kindness of heart, and no meritorious 

 young author ever applied to him for. aid and 

 encouragement in vain. Very many of those 

 who now stand foremost in the younger class 

 of poets, essayists, and novelists, owe their first 

 favorable introduction to the public to his good 

 offices, and these were never bestowed from 

 mercenary motives. Some of his poems will 

 live ; his essays and sketches are. many of them, 

 already dead; but the recollections of bis deeds 

 of kindness will be retained in the hearts of the 

 present generation of authors. 



WINE-HOUSE, A. The most extensive in 

 this country is that of the late Nicholas Long- 

 worth, of Cincinnati, now owned and managed 

 by Major William P. Anderson. 



For the manufacture of wine, a crop of well- 

 ripened grapes is selected and purchased in the 

 vineyard late in October or early in November, 

 and a man sent to superintend the gathering. 

 All decayed or imperfect berries are first re- 

 moved from the clusters, which are then cut 

 from the stalk, and taken in covered baskets to 

 the wine-house. A lid, or rather a false head, 

 having innumerable holes, is fitted into the 

 mouth of a capacious cask : the clusters are 

 placed upon it, and the grapes worked through 

 into the cask, leaving the stems on the head. 

 Stemming and mashing completed, the must may 

 be allowed to stand for some time on the skins 

 of the grapes before pressing, provided a col- 

 ored wine is desired ; otherwise it is immedi- 

 ately pressed out, and run into large fermenting 

 casks situated in the upper or warmer cellars. 

 One of these casks has a capacity of over four 

 thousand five hundred gallons. The fermenta- 

 tion thus begun lasts- from ten to thirty 

 days, varied by the heat of the weather ; the 

 gas evolved being allowed to escape through 

 water by means of a siphon, thus prevent- 

 ing the access of air. The effervescence 

 having ceased, and a sediment been deposited, 

 the pure wine is racked off in the following 

 March, and conducted down into numerous 

 casks provided for the storage of still wines in 

 the deep cellars, whose temperature ranges 

 from 40 to 50 Fahrenheit the year round. 

 These casks have generally a capacity of three 

 hundred to five hundred gallons ; but a number 

 hold fifteen hundred to two thousand gallons 

 each. 



To produce sparkling wines, the still or dry 

 wine thus kept in store is forced up again about 

 the month of June, and run into fresh casks ; 

 and to each of these casks there is now added 

 a measure of wine having pure rock-candy in 

 solution sufficient to induce a second fermenta- 

 tion. It is now drawn out into bottles; and 

 these are securely corked, and are stacked in 

 the upper cellars till about the month of Septem- 

 ber, or until the fermentation begins to burst 

 them. The bottles require great strength, 

 and are imported from Folenbray, a town of 



