Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1862-02-07
SKATING AS AIFINE ART.
BY THEODORE WINTHROP.

BY THEODORE WINTHROP.
OF all the plays that are played by this
playful world on its plAy@days. there is no
play like ~kating.
To prepare q board for this gam Of games,
a panel for the drawings of this fine art. a
stage for enfreohdts and pirouetteS of the
graceful adopts, Zero, magical artiheer,
had been for 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 sprang roses; but Zsro's heels and toes
were armed with NOR, precious influences.
They left diamond way, where they slid.
a hundred and fifty miles OF diamond, half
| a mile wide and six inches thick.
Diamond can only reflect sunlight; ice
can contain it. Zero's product, finer even
than diamond, was filed, at the rate of \
million to the square foot, with bubbles
immeasurably little, and yet every one big
enough to comprise the entire sun in small
hut without alteration or abridgment.
| When the sun rose, each Of these wonderful
| cells was ready to catch the tip Of sun
| beam and house 1t in a shining abode.
Besides this, Zero had Inlaid his work. all
along tho shore, with exquisite marquetry Of
leaves, brown and evergreen. OF sprays and
twigs, reeds and grasses. No parquet IN
any palace from FOntainebleau TO 81. Peters
burg could show such delicate patterns. r
could CLEAN SO brightly, though polished
with all the wax in Chi tendon.
On the pavement all the way from COhOes
to Spuyten Duyvil, Jubilee was sliding
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, deodOrizing their
bar rooms, regilding their bridal chambers,
and enlarging their spittoon Accommodations
allow and alOlt, for next summer. All the
population was out on the ice, skating,
sliding, sledding, slipping, tumbling, to
Its hearts content.
One person out Of every Dunderbunk fam
ly was Of course at home, roasting Christ
mas turkey. The rest are already at high
links on Zero's Christmas present, when
Wade and the men came down from the
meeting.
Wade buckled on his new skates in
jify. lie stamped to settle himself, and
then fung of half dozen circles on the right
leg, half dozen with the left, and the
same with either leg backwards.
The Ice, traced with these white perlpher-
les, showed like a blackboard where the
school has been chalking diagrams Of Euclid,
to point at with the "slOw, unyielding hng-
err of demonstration.
"Hurrahl' cries Wade. halting in fro.it
of the men, WHO, some on the FOusdrY
wharf, some on the deck OF our first afua!nt-
ance at Dunderbunk, the tug II. Ambus-
ter" were putting on their skates or watch
ing him. ''Hurrahl the skates are perfect
ion, Are you ready, BilP,'
"Yes,'' says TarbOx, vnizzlng oil rngs,
as exact as Giotto's artograph.
Now. then" W1de said, "we'll give
Dunderbunk a laugh, as We practised last
night
Tbey got under full headway. Wade back
wards 'BlIl forwards, Z holding hands. When
thew were rear enough to tho merry throng
out in lhe stream, both dropped into q
sitting posture, with the left knee bent,
and Zach, with his right leg stretched out
naralleI 10 the ice and fitting cOmpactly by
The other mans leg. In this queer figure
they rushed through the laughing crowed.
Then all Duuderbunk formed a ring, agOg
for grand show Of
SKATING As FINE ART
The world loves to see great artists, and
expects them to do their duty.
Ii is hard to treat of this fine art by the
art of fine writing. Its eloquent motions
must be seen.
To skate fine art, you must have body
and soul. each OF :he first order; otherwise
YOU will never get out of coarse art and skat-
ing 10 one syllable. So much for yourself,
the motive power. And your machinery
smooth-bottomed rockers, the same shape
stem and stern-this must be as perfect as
the man it moves, and who moves it.
Now suppose you wish to skate so that
the critics will say, "Seei this athlete does
hh work as Church paints, as barley draws,
as Palmer chisels, as Whittier strikes the
lyre, and Longiellow the dulcimer; he is as
terse as Emerson; as clever an Holmes, as
graceful as Curtis; as calm as Seward; as
cen as Phillips, as stalwart as Beecher; he
is GaribaldI, he Ia Kit Carson, he is Blon
din: he is as complete as the steamboat
Metropolis, ;" as Steers yacht, as Singers
sewing machine, as Colts revOlyers, as the
steam plough, as civilization" You wish
to be SO ranked among the people and things
that lead the age, consider the qualities you
must have, and while you consider, keep
YOUR eve on Richard Wade, for he has them
all in perfection.
First,-of your physical qualities. You
must have lungs, not bellows; an active
heart not an assortment of sluggish auricles
and yentric es. You must have legs, not
shanks. Their shape is unimpOrtant, except
| that they must not interfere at the knee
| You must have muscles, not flabbiness sin
evs like wire nerves like sunbeams and
a thin LAYER Of flesh to cushion the gable
ends. where YOU will strike if you tumble,
which once for all be it said, you must never
do. You must be all momentum, and no m
ertia. You must be one part grace, one force,
one agility, and the rest caOutchOuc, Manil-
| la hemp, and watch spring. Your machine,
your body, must be thoroughly obedient.-
| Ii must 20 Just 50 far and no farther. You
| have got to be as unvesring as planet hold
ing its own, emphatIcally, between forces
centripetal and centrifugal. Your dPIoHb
must be as absolute as the pouncc Of fal-
con.
So much for few of the phyical 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; il always is the lst quality. Then
enthusiasm Then patience. Then perth
pacity. Then fine aesthetic faculty,-in
short, good taste. Then an orderly and sub
missiye mind, that cannot consent TO act not
in accordance with the laws of art. Circum-
stances too, must have been reasonably fav-
orable. That well known skeptic, the king
Of tropical Bantam, could not skate, because
he had never seen ice, and doubted even the
existence Of solid water. widdrington. after
the battle of Chevy Chace, could not have
skated, because he had no legs,-poOr iel-
low
But granted the ice and the legs, then II
YOU begin in the elastic days Of youth, when
cold does not sting. tumbles do not bruise,
and duckings do not vet if you have pluck
and ardor enough to try everything if you
have good taste and lively invention i