MDDM CH 72 Hellish Forge?

[Terrance]

 "'Alas,' beams the Revd, 'must we place our
  unqualified Faith in the Implement, as the Tale
  accompting for its Presence,-- these Family stories
  have been perfected in the hellish Forge of Domestick
  Recension, generation 'pon generation, till what
  survives is the pure truth, anneal'd to Mercilessness,
  about each Figure, no matter how stretch'd, nor how
  influenced over the years by all the Sentiments from
  unreflective love to inflexible Dislike.'
     "'Don't leave out Irresponsible Embellishment.'
     "'Rather, part of the common Duty of Remembering,--
  surely our Sentiments,-- how we dream'd of, and were
  mistaken in, each other,-- count for at least as much
  as our poor cold Chronologies.'" (M&D, Ch. 72, p. 696)


Why a Hellish Forge? Annealed? Stretched? Why does Wicks turn to the
Forge and metallurgy? 

Matter into Metaphor: Transformation in Asian and Western Metals
Dedicated to Dawn Nakanishi
by Celia Rabinovitch


http://www.snagmetalsmith.org/metalsmith/default.asp



Big Bang & Little Leptons

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1990/mar90/mar90reviews.html

http://my.execpc.com/~rhoadley/magfield.htm

Slaves and Mines and Iron

George Washington's slaves worked in mines, on iron plantations. 

http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/2upa/Aaas/Ante-BellumSouthernIndustries.htm

Lewis, Ronald L. Coal, Iron, and Slaves: Industrial Slavery in Maryland
and Virginia, 1715 - 1865. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979). 12-4-2
1450

But ye that holden this tale a folye,
  As of a fox, or of a cok and hen,
  Taketh the moralite, goode men.

		-Chaucer