PHANTOM FLOWERS. 89 



a limit to their consumption, yet the consumption is 

 nevertheless large enough to give to the article a 

 great commercial value. 



But machinery cannot be applied to the production 

 of these delicate tissues. Their preparation is essen- 

 tially an art, not a manufacture. Like the chiselling 

 of a statue, which must be done by the slow labor 

 of the artist himself, so can their beauties be un- 

 veiled only by the most skilful hands. The statuary 

 may employ an ordinary workman to hew away the 

 superfluous mass beneath which lies concealed the 

 graceful creation of his genius, but it is doubtful if 

 a journeyman skeletonizer could be trusted with a 

 single department of the process. The artist must 

 depend more entirely on herself than even the stat- 

 uary. Hence, a manufacture which will not admit of 

 the aid of machinery, and which is so peculiarly 

 delicate as to exclude that of even human assistance, 

 can have no commercial value. Extensive production 

 is impossible. The world may be readily supplied 

 with grain fans, but a corresponding abundance of 

 skeleton flowers, were there a proportionate demand 

 for them, is beyond the reach of even American 

 ingenuity. Could they have been as rapidly dupli- 

 cated as apple-parers or nut crackers, they would have 

 long since ceased to be a novelty. 



