142 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



It is an artistic bell. Round the rim runs a 

 rhyme in the monkish tongue, which has a 

 chime in the words, recording the donor, and 

 breathing a prayer for his soul. In the days 

 when this bell was made men put their souls 

 into their works; their one great object was 

 not to turn out a hundred thousand all alike : 

 it was rarely they made two alike. Their one 

 great object was to construct a work which 

 should carry their very spirit in it, which 

 should excel all similar works, and cause men 

 in after-times to inquire with wonder for the 

 maker's name, whether it was such a common 

 thing as a knife- handle, or a bell, or a ship. 

 Longfellow has caught the spirit well in the 

 Saga of the ' Long Serpent/ where the builder 

 of the vessel listens to axe and hammer 



" ' All this tumult heard the master, 



It was music to his ear ; 

 Fancy whispered all the faster, 

 " Men shall hear of Thorberg Skaf ting 



For a hundred year !" ' 



Would that there were more of this spirit in 

 the workshops of our day! They did not, 

 when such a work was finished, hasten to 



