Such a choice will
last. You will not tire of it as you will of that which has but a
commonplace form or pattern.
I come now to a third point. That which has just been said applies
chiefly to things whose price is fixed by beauty. But handicraft gives
us many works not pleasing to the eye, yet of the highest skill--a
Jacquard loom, a Corliss engine, a Hoe printing press, a Winchester
rifle, an Edison dynamo, a Bell telephone. Ruskin may scout the work of
machinery, and up to a certain point may take us with him. Let us
allow that works of art marked by the artist's own touch--the gates of
Paradise by Ghiberti, a shield by Cellini, a statue by Michael Angelo,
are better than all reproductions and imitations, better than plaster
casts by Eichler, electrotypes by Barbedienne, or chromos by Prang. But
even Ruskin cannot suppress the fact that machinery brings to every
thrifty cottage in New England comforts and adornments which, in the
days of Queen Bess, were not known outside of the palace. Be mindful,
then, that handicraft makes machines which are wonders of productive
force--weaving tissues such as Penelope never saw, of woolen, cotton,
linen, and silk, to carpet our floors, cover our tables, cushion our
chairs, and clothe our bodies; machines of which Vulcan never dreamed,
to point a needle, bore a rifle, cut a watch wheel, or rule a series
of lines, measuring forty thousand to an inch, with sureness which the
unaided hand can never equal.
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