The Miller in Eighteenth-Century Virginia

The Miller in Eighteenth-Century Virginia - An Account of Mills & the Craft of Milling, as Well as a Description of the Windmill near the Palace in Williamsburg

The reader of this account, being of open mind and charitable disposition, as good men and women have ever been, will readily recognize that whatever may appear in these pages to the discredit of millers in times past cannot be taken to reflect in any fashion upon the present master of Mr. Robertsons windmill. Indeed, the age-old repute of the calling is as distasteful to him and his colleagues of today as it would be inappropriate if applied to them. Unhappily, it cannot be denied that millers of an earlier daythose of Chaucers generation, for exampleleft something to be desired in the way of scruple. That gifted storyteller and honest reporter of the age in which he lived gave prominent place in his Canterbury Tales to two millers. One of these was the villain and ultimate victim in the Reeves Tale: A thief he was, forsooth, of corn and meal; And sly at that, accustomed well to steal. The other miller of the Canterbury Tales was himself one of the pilgrims, as merry and uncouth a rogue as one could find in any band of cathedral-bound penitents: He could steal corn and full thrice charge his tolls; and yet he had a thumb of gold, begad. That last remark, an allusion to the proverb that every honest miller has a thumb of gold, cut a broad swath indeed. Only Chaucers own regard for truth could have moved him thus to dignify the popular 2 belief that among millers integrity was as rare as twenty-four-carat thumbs. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 58036
Author: Ford, Thomas K.
Release Date: Oct 5, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English