The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
I am not able to give all our conversation. I could only say to my
employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that
the sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin's carpet-store was
the very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the
27th of May, that summer. When he asked me what chemical preparation
could insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only
say, that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all
the windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced. He
stared at me. Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the
high stone-walls of the rival company. It had taken a large amount of
capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce
our neighbors to remove theirs. So we parted,--my employer evidently
thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit
on a discovery so interesting to him. He called me back to tell me,
that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be
induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival
establishment.
I was not left long in quiet. I received a summons to Boston. Mr.
Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense
price. He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to
dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit
in Boston.
I went to his house. I passed up through broad stairways, and over
carpets such as I had never trod nor woven. I should have liked to
linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with
paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving
figures. But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends
awaited me. Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet
across which I must tread. It was lying in an oval saloon, which had
been built, they told me, for the carpet itself. The light was admitted
only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight
could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the
meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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