Thin was the stuff,intimating the extreme fineness of the texture, yet so close woven that it could not suffer oil to pass through it. In like manner may we make use of the subtilty of the air, not only to scour the brass and fetch the rust out of it, but also to render the color more pleasing and more azure-like, by intermixing light and splendor amidst the blue. [p. 73]
Yet liquid oil ran o'er the tissued woof,
1
When we had made our acknowledgment that he had
spoken truth, and besought him to proceed, he told us
that the air of the city of Delphi is heavy, compacted,
thick, and forcible, by reason of the reflection and resistency of the adjacent mountains, and besides that, is sharp
and cutting (as appears by the eager stomachs and swift
digestion of the inhabitants); and that this air, entering
and penetrating the brass by its keenness, fetches forth
from the body of the brass much rust and earthy matter,
which afterwards it stops and coagulates by its own density,
ere it can get forth; by which means the rust abounding
in quantity gives that peculiar grain and lustre to the superficies. When we approved this argument, the stranger
declared his opinion, that it needed no more than one of
those suppositions to clear the doubt; for, said he, that
tenuity or subtilty seems to be in some measure contrary
to that thickness supposed to be in the air, and therefore
there is no reason to suppose it; for the brass, as it grows
old, of itself exhales and sends forth that rust, which afterwards, being stopped and fixed by the thickness of the air,
becomes apparent by reason of its quantity. Then Theo
replied: and what hinders but that the same thing may
be thick and thin both together, like the woofs of silk or
fine linen?—of which Homer says:
1 Odyss. VII. 107.
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