Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-04-07
THE MIRROR.
For AGES 1T HAS INFLUENCED
THE HUMAN RACE.
The Two Mirrors in the Vice-Presi-
dents Room I'm the White House
Metal and Other Mirrors
of the Ancients.
Q N the vice.President's room in the


fashioned, gilt-framed glass, about two
feet by fourteen inches, bought in Van
Buren's time. This mirror cost the sum
of $25, and storm of protest against
such extravaganza was raised when the
purchase was made. One Congressman
even went so far as to declare on the
hoor of the House that he had combed
his hair for fifty years before a 5xS-inch
glass, aud had lived to have a voice in
the ruling of Nations, aud that neither
he nor his constituents would submit to
be taxed to support S25 worth of vanity
in Vice-President.
The philosophic mirror hangs op-
posite. 1t was bought recently and cost
twenty times as much as the first one
and not protest was made when the
bill was paid. This is what makes the
mirror philosophic. 1t reflects the higher
estimate put on personal vanity as men
and women grow wiser. The philosophy
can also be extended to cover some con-
sideration of the part that mirrors have
played in the history Of the human race.
Those people who lived before the days
of amalgam- backed glasses must have
had considerable intellectual exercise
thinking out substitutes. No doubt
this was what Pharaoh's daughter was
about when she went down to the Nile
aud picked up floating Moses. Ifpoor
Narcissus had lived in those days a ten
cent mirror would have taken the place
of the pool into which he fell and sad
calamity would have been averted.
1t was probably because Of such incon-
venient occurrences as these that people
began to employ metallic surfaces instead
Of CLASSY pools of water tor purposes Of
reflection. At any rate, they sooa got
to using shields and other highly
FURNISHED surfaces, and one Of the
principal toilet articles among Egyptians
came to be mirrors of mixed metal,
chiefly copper, and attached to richly
ornamented handles representing beauh-
full or grotesque figures.
A historian has it that as early as four
centuries before Christ these metal mir
rors were in such common use among the
Romans thatany maid servant could have
as many as she could hang at her girdle,
which probably accounts for the fact
that they gradually fell into desuetude
among ladies of the higher classes and
led to the introduction OF substitutes.
1t is hardly to be supposed, however,
that it was this fact which induced some
ingenious person so to cut and burnish
the inside Of drinking cups as to reflect
the face Of the drinker many tunes in a
highly warning manner.
In addition to the small hand mirrors
which it used to be the particular duty
OF some unfortunate young slave to hold
before her mistress, there were panels of
stone set in the walls and so highly pol
ished as to serve as mirrors. 1t was this
use of dark stone that first suggested
tbs use of glass for rejecting purposes,
which, according to PIiuy, was first
manufactured at the glass works OF a
gentleman named Sidon. Black glass
was first used, afterwards clear glass
with black foil on the back replaced it.
Pliny tells us all about this, and from
this time no mention is made of glass
mirrors until the Thirteenth Century,
when a Franciscan monk, Johannes
Peckhsm, speaks Of mirrors, not only OF
polished marble aud steel, but also of
glass covered with lead on the back.
By this time the amalgam used in
making glass mirrors was much like that
of to-day, the difference being in the
method of the application. The process
was to spread tintoil on plain surface,
to pour mercury over that aud rub the
two together with the hand or with a
hare's foot. The amalgam thus formed
was then covered with paper, over which
glass was laid. The paper was then
withdrawn and weights pressed on the
glass, pressing out the excess of mer-
curry.
The Venetian mirrors Of the Sixteenth
Century are the most celebrated ones.
These were of the finest glass, with set
tings Of silver aud gold richly chased and
set with jewels.
1t would be interesting to consider
some of the effects upon the world at
large il mirrors had never been invented.
It is certain that the mortality by drown
ING would have been increased, such is
the vanity Of the human breast. There
is no doubt that the present fastidious.
ness in matters of dress is largely the
result of the faithful reflection Of the
looking-glass. How could a woman
bother herself about the set Of her gown
10 the back II she had no looking-glass
to tell her she had a back-a thing
which, being herself in front, as the
little girl in Punch used to say, she
would not otherwise suspect.