New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-19


n n as heavy and unwieldy as himself
and even then had dim realization that
the resemblance between them extended as
much TO the inner life as to the outer ap-
pearance. A series of vivid pictures
strengthened the abiding sense Of one life
lived in common by Man and the Material
upon which he worked.
The first came to me when ! saw the
Jacket, no longer inert, emerge from the
furnace. Slowly it swung out, suspended
bv the crab. which creaked and groaned
its recognition Of the weight it bore. Hot
though not glowing, it moved across from
furnace to pit, pulsating with the life that
even a temperate heat can lntuse. AS II
descended. encircling gradually the inner
tube around which it was to be built, ne
stood leaning over the edge with one hand
raised to guide the crane driver, and the
same vitality that heat had given to the
Jacket seemed to shoulder in him. win
q shout he warned the man that the mo
ment had come; the crab was loosened, and
swung rapidly aloft, creaking VIGOROUSLY
at the release Of its burden.
And, again, the underlying likeness was
strengthened in my mind when | saw him
at the dipping of the Howitzer packets
those stubborn iron pigs, who kicked and
erunted, jerking themselves on their Sides
lurching forward on to their noses, OF
backward on to their sterns, and all IN
vain attempt to avoid the inevitable end
In front of the furnace, shielding their
ewes as best they might, stood six men
With iron hooks they pushed and prodded,
until with last little rush of yielding they
drew the reluctant jackets completely out
of the throbbing glare in which they lay
Once out, and the furnace door shut, II was
an easy matter to run an iron bar through,
attach the loops from the crab, and SWING
each pig helpless through the air until II
descended in one last squirt of flame into
the oil pit. AS he watched and directed,
the answering stubborn glare IN his eyes
smoke the nature of the man and the ma
terial. It was only dimmed by the final
conquest of the oil bath, and ne came up
tc me at last, all stubbornness replaced by
the quiet triumph Of the conqueror.
TIE SEEMED the personifcation Of the
i L pit itself, that building oddly named
which towers even higher into the sky than
il sinks below the surface Of the ground
At first sight the impression was that OF
space, vast, Astounding space, and 1t was
only by degrees that there came to me the
recognition of a group oY furnaces in one
corner; a crane, with ladders and stages
ascending to the roof, in another; couple
of oil pits, and in the centre the great pit
itself, from which the whole is named.
It seemed mere outer show of that
which lay within his mind, with It's hud
died group of experiences: the weekend or
the Continent which had whetted his ap
netite for travel; the day in Oxford from
which he had returned satiated by beauty
his arms as full of flowers as they coulc
hold: and behind it all, like the grit on the
ground, and the oil on the stagings, the
rougher, cruder experiences OF boyhooC
and youth; hardship, suffering, struggle
wrongdoing, followed by the wider repent
ance that brings content with what ma
been, since thus, and only thus, could rea
knowledge come.
And the outstanding impression OF th
man was as that Of the shop-space. Hi
knowledge Of men and of guns had laugh
him that one is not as another, and tina
what is right for this man may be wron'
for that, just as the treatment meted GU
to one gun may differ in vital details from
that suited to another.
1t was no wonder that on the one ham
he held no bounden creed himself; no
that on the other, after one weeks tria
and two samples Of steel sent up, the,
should have wired to the Sheffield expert
Some back, and leave it to Him."
r HAVE gone up to the top with him, an
l. seen him hang suspended in mid-ai
on a slender iron rod, laughing up at m
like a boy who glories in his strength;
have gone down to the depths with hin