Worcester daily spy., 1861-12-17
1Qgortester 9ailp Spn.

BY THEODORE WINTHROP.


had been, tor the last two nights, sliding at
full speed up and down the North River
We have heard Of Midas, whose touch
made gold, and Of the virgin under whose feet
spraug roses but Zero's heels and toes were
armed with more precious influences. Thty
left diamond way, where they slid,-a hun
dred and fifty miles Of diamond, half mile
,"ide and six inches thick.
Diamond can only reflect sunlight; ice can
contain it. Zero's product, finer even than
diamond, was ied,-at the rate of million
to the square toot,-with bubbles imn, asura-
bly, little, and yet every one big enough to
comprise the entire sun in small, but without
alteration or abridgment When the sun rose,
each of these wonderful cells was ready to
catch the tip of a sunbeam and house it in
shining abode.
Besides this, Zero had inlaid his work, all
along shore, with exquisite maIquetry OF
leaves, brown and evergreen, of sprays and
twigs, reeds end grasses. No parquet in any
palace from Fonanebleau to st. Petersburg
could show such delicate patterns, or could
CLEAN SO brightly, though polished with all the
wax in chrstendom.
On this fue pavement, all the way from
Cohoes to Spuyten Duyvil, Jubilee was slid
ing without friction, the Christmas morning Of
these adventures.
Navigation was closed Navigators had
leisure. The sloops and schooners were frozen
IN along shore, the tugs and barges were laid
up in basins, the floating palaces were down
at New York, deodOrlzing their har-roOms, re
gliding their bridal chambers, aud emlarging
their spittoon accommodations allow and aoft,
for next summer. All the population was out
on the ice, skating, sliding, shedding, slip
ping, tumbling, to its hearts content
One person out of every Dunderbunk fami-
ly was OF course at home, roasting Christmas
turkey. The rest were already at high jinks
on Zeros Christmas present, when Wade and
the men came down from the meeting.
Wade buckled on his new skates in iify.
He stamped to settle himself, and then flung
of halt dozen circles on the right leg, halt
a dozen with the left, and the same with eth-
er leg backwards
The ice, traced with these white peripher-
les, showed like a blackboard where school
has been chalking diagrams of Euclid, TO point
at with the 'slow unyielding finger" of de-
mOnstratOn
''Hurrah!" cries Wade, hating in front of
the men, who, some on the Foundry wharf,
some on the deck OF our first acquaintance at
Dunderbunk, the tug 81. Ambusler," were
putting on their skates or watching him
"Hurrah the skates are perfection Are
you ready, BillP'
eyes" says Tarbox, whizzing of rings, as
exact as GiUttoa autogtaph
"Now, then" Wade said "wel give Dun
derbunk laugh, as we praciised last night"
They got under full headway, Wade back
wards, Bill forwards, holding hands. When
they were near enough To- me merry thrOnQ
out in the stream, both dropped into sitting
posture, with the lett knee bent, and each with
his right leg stretched out parallel to the ice
and fitting cOmpactly by the other mans ley.
In this queer figure they rushed through the
laughing crowd.
Then all Dunderbunk formed a ring, agog
for grand show O
SKATING AS A FINE ART.
The world loves to see great artists, and
expects them to do their du,y.
1t is hard to treat OF this tue art by the art
OF fine writing. Its eloquent motions must be
seen.
To skate fine art, you must have a body
and a soul each OF the first urder otherwise
yOuwill never get out Of cosrSe art and skating
in one syllable So much tor Yourself The
motive power. And your machinery y cur
smoutt-bOttomed rockers, the same shape stem
aud stern,-this must be us perfect as ihe man
il moves, and who moves it,
Now suppose you wish to skate so that the
critics Will say, "See this athlete does his
work as Church paints, lis Darey draws as
Palmer ehisels as Whittier strikes the Tyre,
and L0ngeliOw the dulcimer; he is as telse as
Emerson, as clever as Holmes as graceful as
Curtis he is as calm as Seward, as keen as
lillltS, dS skdt"dIl us btecHef lie Is Odri
baldi, he is Kit Carson he is BIondn; he is Us
complete as the steamboat Metropolis, as Steers
yacht, as Singers sewing machine, as Colts
revolver, as the steam-plough, as civilization"
You wish to be 50 ranked among the people
and things that lead the age !; consider the
qualities you must have, and while you con
slider, keep your eye on Richard Wade, ior he
has them all in perfection.
First,-of your phy sical qualities. You must
atl
assortment OF sluggish auricIes and ventrices.
You must have legs, not shanks. Their shape
is unimportant, except that they must not in-
tertrre at the knee. You must have muscles,
not habbiness sinews like wire; nerves like
sunbeams and a thin layer OF flesh to cushion
the gable ends, where you will strike, ii you
tumble, which, once for all be it said you
must never do. You must be all momentum,
and no inertia. You must be one part grace,
one force one agility, and the rest caoutchouc,
Manila hemp, and watchSpring. Your ma
chine, your body, must be thoroughly obedi-
ent 1t must go just SO far and no farther.
You have got to be as unerring a planet
holding its own, emphatically, between forces
centripetal and centrifugal. 1ourdptomb must
be as absolute as the pounce Of a FALCON.
So much for few OF the physical qualities
necessary to be a great artist in skating See
Wade, how he shows them!
Now for the moral and intellectual. Pluck
Is the first lit always is the first quality.
Then enthusiasm. Then patience. Then
pertinacty. Then fine aesthetic faculty,
in short, good taste Then an orderly and
submissive mind, that can consent TO act in
accordance with the laws of art. Crcum-
stances, too, must have been reasonably favor
able. That well-known skeptic the king of
tropical Bantam, could not skate, because he
had never seen ice, and doIbted even the ex-
istence of solid water. Wildrington, after the
battle Of Chevy Chace, could not have skated,
because he had no legs,-poor fellow
But granted the ice and the legs, then if you
begin in the elastic days of youth, when cold
does not sting, tumbles do not bruise, and
dnckings do not wet; il you have pluck and
ardor enough to try everything; it you work
slowly ahead and stick to it; il you have good
taste and lively invention; if you are man,
and not lubber then, in fine, you may be-
come a great skater, just as with equal power
an equal pains you may put your gIip on any
kind OF greatness.
The technology of skating is imperfect.
Few of the great feats, the big things, have
admitted names. Ii l attempted to catalogue
Wade's achievements, this chapter might be.
come an unntelligible rhapsody. a sheet of
paper and pen point cannot supply the place
OF ice and skate edge. Geometry must have
its diagrams, anatomy its corpus to carve.
Skating also refuses to be spirituaized into
science; il remains an art, and cannot be ex.
pressed in II formula.
Skating has its little go, its or at 90, its hac.
calaureatp, its NJ A, its +. S. d, doctor of
Frantic Skipping,) its A. G d., doctor of All