Rachel Harrison

It's not easy to produce a good sermon; but neither is it easy to make a good boot. Skill, much skill, is necessary to do either, and bunglers and botchers had better keep their hands off if they have any regard for their fellow man's welfare. I, for my part, have an uncommon partiality for shoemakers—in their totality, when they march in holiday parades, as well as for the individuals. As the people say, they are a "ruminating tribe," and no other trade pro- duces such excellent and odd peculiarities in the members of its guild. The low work table, the low stool, the glass globe filled with water that catches the light of the little oil lamp and reflects it with greater brilliance, the pungent odor of leather and pitch, must naturally exert a lasting effect on human nature, and that is just what they do, and powerfully too. What curious originals this admirable trade has produced! A whole library could be written about "remarkable shoemakers" without the materials being in the least exhausted!