Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-07-03
CURIOSITIEs IN GLASS.
''ade OF Threads Spun ms Delicate nnd
Air! as the Finest Gau.e.

ms IheSt G1uTe.
From Harper's Bazaar
"nen The story Of Cinderella was first
translated into our language and me slim
peers vi war; or fur became slippers of
Nerre' or glass. the translator would have
peeh amazed to know that slippers of glass
were not fairy impossibIlity. But it Is
MOI great while since in this country a
patent was taken out upon glass SINNERS
mat is really not extraordinary. since in
fact, the uses to which glass is now nut
are almost innumerable. There was e,
hibited, some years ago. a bonnet made of
glass. with all its trimmings and furbelows.
the flowers as natural as life the ,lbhous
with the luster of satin: and since then an
actress added to Ter wardrobe the spieudors
OF dress woven all of spun glass. The
glass thread Is drawn out to a anen.ss that
makes II perfectly pliable anI elastic n
has no liability OF breaking and il can be
almost as delicate and as airy as the finest
gauze, and can be given any color How
inaSnlncent might not a dress be, woven of
lrldescent glass, the .wearer fairly wraathe,
and garmented in cloud of luminous rain
BOWS! 1t is not likely. however that this
fabulously splendid material will ever be
SO cheap that such dresses would be COM
mon enough to go out of fashion But the
imagination fails in the end4avor to con-
1ure before II anything moro resplendent.
no empress nor oriental beauty IN history
or romance, no goddesses visiting ma, kind
not Juno in her immeInorial toilet was
ever clad in anything so shining ard so
gorgeous as that dress of spun glass might
DE, with all its play of light and color.
1t Is In curious contrast to this that an
other object has been made Of glass-a
coffin, whose inventor claims Tor it indie
structibility. Of course, IT Is compa ra lively
indestructible, but when we see the glass
tear bottles in any collection of antiaties
where decay has disintegratad the once
pure white transparent glass and rendered
II mass Of splendid color, one can imagine
the incongruous appearance of that article
after some dozen centuries, holding It's
dead wrapped now in a sheet of flame and
now as If in the sapphire Of the heart CT
the sky. 1t is not likely :hat glass collins
will ever be largely in demand: but IL the
satin-smooth and shining ribbons should
ever be easily had, and The lustrous flowers
and the spun-glass web, how eagerly the
young and gay would make them their
own! To be sure, they might be REGARDED
as rather dazzling, and they might be used
only for occasions OF Extraordinary splen-
dor: but it might he comfort TO those who
look for magniticence and shall have ex-
hausted the beauties of silk and satin
samite and cloth of gold to know that they
nave always so slightly a material TO fall
back upon for scenic effects
Meanwhile the more modest of us NAV
content ourselves with the limitations of
gems, wonderful and not to be detected
that are now made of glass and with
strings of the lovely Venetian beads whore
glass DuDDle coated within by solution
OF certain fish-scales has the many-tinted
softness of the pearl, and all of its beauty
except the romance and poetry and pathos
of the sea which clings to the real thing
The poet, talking about the fairy tales OF
science. may well have had some of these
simple wonders in his fancy. for while a
bit OF quartz is a simple and primitive sub
stance. II is as great wonder as some
more important things that such fiinty
STUFF can be transformed into something
as light as the haze that floats in the air