beauty of antiquity.

And the name of the new center of art was chosen--it should be
"Etruria." It was a great dream; but then lovers are given to dreams: in
fact, they have almost a monopoly on the habit!

* * * * *

Great people have great friends. Wedgwood had a friend in Liverpool
named Bentley. Bentley was a big man--a gracious, kindly, generous,
receptive, broad, sympathetic man. Your friend is the lengthened shadow
of yourself.

Bentley was both an artist and a businessman. Bentley had no quibble or
quarrel with himself, and therefore was at peace with the world; he had
eliminated all grouch from his cosmos. Bentley began as Wedgwood's
agent, and finally became his partner, and had a deal to do with the
evolution of Etruria.

When Bentley opened a showroom in London and showed the exquisite,
classic creations of Flaxman and the other Wedgwood artists, carriages
blocked the streets, and cards of admission had to be issued to keep
back the crowds. Bentley dispatched a messenger to Wedgwood with the
order, "Turn every available man on vases--London is vase mad!"

A vase, by the way, is a piece of pottery that sells for from one to ten
shillings; if it sells for more than ten shillings, you should pronounce
it vawse.

On the ninth of January, Seventeen Hundred Sixty-four, Wedgwood wrote
Bentley this letter: "If you know my temper and sentiments on these
affairs, you will be sensible how I am mortified when I tell you I have
gone through a long series of bargain-making, of settlements,
reversions, provisions and so on. 'Gone through it,' did I say? Would to
Hymen that I had! No! I am still in the attorney's hands, from which I
hope it is no harm to pray, 'Good Lord, Deliver me!' Sarah and I are
perfectly agreed, and would settle the whole affair in three minutes;
but our dear papa, over-careful of his daughter's interest, would by
some demands which I can not comply with, go near to separate us if we
were not better determined.

"On Friday next, Squire Wedgwood and I are to meet in great form, with
each of us our attorney, which I hope will prove conclusive. You shall
then hear further from your obliged and very affectionate friend, Josiah
Wedgwood."

On January Twenty-ninth, Sarah and Josiah walked over to the little
village of Astbury, Cheshire, and were quietly married, the witnesses
being the rector's own family, and the mail-carrier. Just why the latter
individual was c