ON WORKMANSHIP 
 
 BY H. WILSON 
 
 1/6 
 
 NET
 
 x- 
 
 ON WORKMANSHIP
 
 ON WORKMANSHIP 
 
 A LECTURE BY H. WILSON 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN HOGG, 13 PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1912
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD 
 
 AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS 
 
 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN 
 
 LONDON
 
 1 
 
 are certain words to which The basis 
 collective thought, spread O ver ofeduca - 
 long periods, has given transcen- 1 
 
 dent value. 
 
 Love, Beauty, Dawn, Life, Peace, are 
 words no longer, but the very stuff of 
 poetry. They are living things, quick with 
 the dreams and longings of a myriad lives, 
 and they speak with intensity of meaning to 
 each of us. They are not words, but codes, 
 not sounds merely, but symphonies. Besides 
 these, which are universal symbols, we have 
 each of us our own key-words. Words 
 which seem to resume and express the 
 essence of what we think and feel. 
 
 To most of us, the word workmanship is 
 such a key-word. Almost all that we could 
 desire for ourselves, our nation and the 
 world, has its root or origin in workmanship. 
 
 All education should be based on it. 
 Every ideal directed to it ; all life lived for 
 it. And why ? Because it means the state 
 or condition or art of shaping. Because it 
 means creation. Because creation, in the 
 world of thought and action, is the continu- 
 ance of that impulse which shapes the stars 
 and sways the suns. 
 
 The word art itself being derived from 
 " arein " to fit together means workman- 
 
 5
 
 Our ship. It is with this power of shaping that 
 
 fathers' j intend most particularly to concern myself, 
 for we are only truly alive in so far as we do 
 or make things beautifully. 
 
 This applies not only to the individual, 
 but to society and the state. 
 
 The forces which draw men together are 
 manifold, but among the strongest is the co- 
 operative instinct, the desire to make things 
 together. We see its germ manifest in the 
 plays of children, and its fruit in the com- 
 panies of artificers who reared our cathedrals. 
 And since we are on the verge of new 
 developments of society, in which of neces- 
 sity new needs will arise, it is impossible to 
 overstate the importance of a right concep- 
 tion of workmanship, what it means, what 
 it is, and what it might be. 
 
 If we seek what our fathers thought of 
 workmanship, we shall find that the ideals 
 of workmen and the very language of the 
 trades underlie all literature, all poetry, all 
 religion. Nor is this difficult to under- 
 stand. 
 
 The first workers were the first thinkers, 
 and because poet and worker, singer and 
 shaper, seer and workman were often one and 
 the same, their poetry was like etherealised 
 sculpture or gem-work, their painting and 
 sculpture like poetry materialised. 
 
 The love of beauty among the early races 
 was not a narrow cult, nor was it the 
 6
 
 exclusive possession of a privileged few. It Beauty in 
 was and still is the native gift of every human 
 being. Of recent years that gift has been 
 overlaid by a mistaken system of training ; 
 the instinct to work beautifully has been 
 isolated from the mental content, given an 
 esoteric meaning, an artificial value, and 
 called high art. A few examples, chosen 
 almost at random from early literature, will 
 illustrate this point better than anything 
 else. 
 
 " It is recorded in the history of Midhir 
 and Etain that when a certain King Eochaid 
 was going one day over the fair green of Bri 
 Leith he saw, at the side of a well, a woman 
 with a bright comb of silver and gold, and 
 who was washing in a silver basin having four 
 golden birds on it and little bright purple 
 stones set in the rim of the basin ; a beautiful 
 purple cloak she had and silver fringes to it, 
 and a gold brooch : and she had on her a dress 
 of green silk with a long hood embroidered in 
 red gold, and wonderful clasps of gold and 
 silver on her breasts and on her shoulders. 
 The sunlight was shining on her so that the 
 gold and the green silk were shining out. 
 Two plaits of hair she had, four locks in 
 each plait and a gold bead at the point of 
 every lock, and the colour of her hair was 
 like the yellow flags in summer or red gold 
 after it is burnished." 
 
 Take again the description of the men 
 
 7
 
 The sent to Cormac, the son of King Cona- 
 
 visitors to choor. 
 
 " This is the appearance that was on the 
 first troop. Black heads of hair they had 
 and" green cloaks about them held with silver 
 brooches, and on their bodies shirts of gold 
 thread embroidered with red gold, and they 
 had swords with white sheaths and hilts of 
 silver. 
 
 " As to the second troop. They had short- 
 cut hair and grey cloaks about them and on 
 their bodies pure white shirts, and they had 
 swords with knotted hilts of gold and sheaths 
 of silver. 
 
 " As to the last troop. They had gold- 
 yellow hair falling loose like manes and 
 crimson cloaks well ornamented about them, 
 and gold brooches with jewels at their breasts 
 and long silk skirts coming down to their 
 ankles." 
 
 Akin to these descriptions, which must 
 thrill the painter sleeping in every one of 
 us, is the account of Lugh of the Long 
 Hand. 
 
 " He is very tall and handsome and shin- 
 ing, and he has a green cloak about him 
 fastened with a silver brooch : a shirt of 
 silk that is embroidered with red gold falling 
 to his knees ; a black shield in his hand with 
 a border of white bronze, and a spear with 
 five prongs." 
 
 The Irish legends are full of this fair 
 8
 
 imagery ; and not imagery alone is there. The story 
 Belief in workmanship as the fount of ofth f 
 wisdom and statecraft is shown in the story L!^ nS 
 of the Coming of Lugh of the Long Hand : 
 " Now as to Nuada of the Silver Hand, 
 he was holding a great feast at Teamhair 
 one time, after he was back in the kingship. 
 And there were two door-keepers at Team- 
 hair, Carnal, son of Figal, and Camel, son of 
 Riagall. And a young man came to the 
 door where one of them was, and bade him 
 bring him to the king. ' Who are you 
 yourself ? ' said the door-keeper. ' I am 
 Lugh, son of Cian of the Tuatha de Danaan, 
 and of Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, King of 
 the Fomor,' he said ; ' and I am foster-son 
 of Taillte, daughter of the King of the Great 
 Plain, and of Echaid the Rough, son of 
 Duach.' ' What are you skilled in ? ' said 
 the door-keeper ; ' for no one without an 
 art comes into Teamhair.' ' Question me,' 
 said Lugh ; ' I am a carpenter.' ' We do 
 not want you ; we have a carpenter our- 
 selves, Luchtar, son of Lauchaid.' ' Then 
 I am a smith.' ' We have a smith ourselves, 
 Colum Cuaillemech of the Three New 
 Ways.' 'Then 1 am champion.' 'That is 
 no use to us ; we have a champion before, 
 Ogma, brother to the king.' ' Question me 
 again,' he said; ' I am a harper.' 'That is 
 no use to us; we have a harper ourselves, 
 Abhean, son of Bicelmos, that the Men of 
 
 B 9
 
 The story the Three Gods brought from the hills.' 
 of the ' j am a poet,' he said then, 'and a teller of 
 ta ^ es -' ' That is no use to us ; we have a 
 teller of tales ourselves, Ere, son of Ethaman.' 
 ' And I am a magician.' ' That is no use to 
 us ; we have plenty of magicians and people 
 of power.' ' I am a physician,' he said. 
 ' That is no use ; we have Diancecht for 
 our physician.' ' Let me be a cup-bearer,' 
 he said. ' We do not want you ; we have 
 nine cup-bearers ourselves.' ' I am a good 
 worker in brass.' ' We have a worker in 
 brass ourselves, that is Credne Cerd.' 
 
 " Then Lugh said : ' Go and ask the king 
 if he has any one man that can do all these 
 things, and if he has, I will not ask to come 
 into Teamhair.' The door-keeper went into 
 the king's house then and told him all that. 
 ' There is a young man at the door,' he said, 
 ' and his name should be the Ildanach, the 
 Master of all Arts, for all the things the 
 people of your house can do, he himself is 
 able to do every one of them.' ' Try him 
 with the chess-boards,' said Nuada. So the 
 chess-boards were brought out, and every 
 game that was played, Lugh won it. And 
 when Nuada was told that, he said : ' Let 
 him in, for the like of him never came into 
 Teamhair before.' 
 
 " Then the door-keeper let him pass, and 
 he came into the king's house and sat down 
 in the seat of knowledge. He played the 
 10
 
 harp for them then, and he had them laugh- The Green 
 ing and crying, till he put them asleep at the Knight 
 end with a sleepy tune. And when Nuada 
 saw all the things Lugh could do, he 
 began to think that by his help the 
 country might get free of the taxes and 
 the tyranny put on it by the Fomor. And 
 it is what he did ; he came down from his 
 throne, and he put Lugh on it in his place, 
 for the length of thirteen days, the way 
 they might all listen to the advice he would 
 give." 
 
 Turn now for a moment to an early 
 English romancer, to the description of 
 the Green Knight given in the history 
 of Gawaine and the Green Knight. 
 
 " He was clad all in green with a straight 
 coat and a mantle above ; all decked and 
 lined with fur was the cloth and the hood 
 that was thrown back from his locks and lay 
 on his shoulders. 
 
 " Hose had he of the same green and 
 spurs of bright gold with silken fastenings 
 richly worked, and his vesture was verily 
 green, as green as green enamel shining on 
 bright gold. 
 
 " Around his waist and saddle were bands 
 with fair stones set upon silken work, 
 broidered with birds and insects in green 
 and gold. All trappings of his steed were 
 of like enamel; even the stirrups he stood 
 in were stained of the same, and stirrups and 
 
 II
 
 The City saddle-bow alike gleamed and shone with 
 of Brass green stones. 
 
 " His horse's mane was crisped and plaited 
 with many a knot folded in with gold thread 
 about the fair green here a twist of hair, 
 there another of gold. 
 
 " The tail was trimmed in like manner, 
 and both were bound about with a band of 
 bright grey, set with many a precious stone; 
 then they were tied aloft with a cunning 
 knot whereon rang many bells of burnished 
 gold." 
 
 Eastern literature is no less rich in the 
 evidences of delight in and understanding 
 of workmanship. In that wonderful tale, 
 the story of the City of Brass, it is related 
 that, after many wonderful adventures, " the 
 Sheikh Abd El Samad came with his retinue 
 to the City of Brass, with its walls of shining 
 black marble and turrets of Spanish bronze. 
 Having entered, they saw in a certain 
 pavilion a door of teak-wood inlaid with 
 ivory and ebony adorned with plates of 
 burnished gold. Over it was hung a curtain 
 of silk worked with various kinds of em- 
 broidery, and on the door were locks of white 
 silver to be opened by artifice without a key. 
 
 " Another door led to a passage paved 
 with marble. Upon the sides of the passage 
 were hangings whereon were figured various 
 wild beasts and birds, worked with red gold 
 and white silver, and the eyes of them pearls 
 12
 
 and jacinths, so that whosoever beheld them The Court 
 was confounded. And the Sheikh and the of Cathay 
 Emir passed on, and found a saloon con- 
 structed of marble adorned with jewels. 
 And the floor was black marble polished like 
 water, and the dome of it was built of stones 
 adorned with gold, and in the midst of the 
 saloon was a dome-crowned building of 
 alabaster around which were little lattice 
 windows adorned with oblong emeralds, 
 such as not even kings could procure. In 
 it was a pavilion of brocade raised on 
 columns of red gold, and within this were 
 birds the feet of which were emeralds. 
 Beneath each bird was a network of bril- 
 liant pearls spread over a fountain, and by 
 the brink of the fountain was placed a 
 couch adorned with pearls and jewels and 
 jacinths, whereon lay a damsel, lovely as the 
 rising sun." 
 
 These visions of splendid handicraft came 
 naturally to the Oriental mind. The poets 
 who wrote them were but describing in pale 
 language the actual achievements of the 
 craftsmen working around them. 
 
 Even the wonderful descriptions of the 
 Court of the Khan of Cathay seem hardly 
 overdrawn when we study the remains of 
 Eastern skill. As Mandeville says : " Ori- 
 entals ben the moste sotyle men in alle 
 sciences and in alle craftes that ben in the 
 worlde. In sotyltee and forecasting they 
 
 '3
 
 The Court passen alle men under hevene." In proof 
 of Cathay o f t hi s he describes the furniture of the 
 Great Cham's Court. 
 
 " And the Emperour hath his table allone 
 be himselfe : that is of gold and of precious 
 stones, or of crystalle bordered with gold 
 and full of precious stones, Amatystes or of 
 Lignum aloes that cometh out of Paradys or of 
 Ivory bounden and bordered with golde. At 
 great solempne festes before the Emperour's 
 table men bryngen grete tables of Golde 
 and thereon ben pecokes of golde and many 
 other manner of dyvers foules alle of Golde 
 richly wrought and enamelled, and men 
 maken them dancen and syngen, clapynge 
 their wynges to gydere and maken grete 
 noyse and where it be by crafte or nigro 
 mancie I wot nere. 
 
 " And above the Emperour's table and the 
 other tables and aboven a gret partie in the 
 Halle is a Vyne made of fyn Golde, and it 
 spredethe alle about the Halle, and it hath 
 many Clustres of Grapes, some white, some 
 grene, some Zaloue and some Rede and some 
 blake, alle of precious stones of Crystalle and 
 topaze, emerald and jacynth and sapphires. 
 And they ben alle so propurlye made that it 
 seemeth a veray vine berynge kindlie grapes." 
 If we turn to the literature of Greece, we 
 shall find from Homer downwards that it 
 abounds in descriptions of the skilled work- 
 manship of Hellas. 
 
 14
 
 In the famous shield of Achilles, described The work- 
 in the " Iliad," we have not merely an inspired m anship of 
 description of the metal-worker's craft ; we 
 have besides a pictured cosmogony and a 
 conspectus of early Grecian life, set out for 
 us in words and phrases that even in trans- 
 lation give the sheen of metal and the 
 sumptuous simplicity of Greek design. 
 
 " On it Hephsstus formed earth, sky and 
 sea, the unwearied sun, full moon and all the 
 signs with which the sky is crowned. On 
 it he made two fair Cities inhabited ; in the 
 one were marriages and feasts ; in the other 
 armies glittering in arms. On it he placed 
 a fertile field and many ploughmen driving 
 across and turning their yokes, and the 
 ground looked as if ploughed, though really 
 it was of gold. The workmanship was a 
 wonder. On it he placed a large cornfield 
 with reapers and binders, and boys collecting 
 grain. Among them a king, in silence 
 holding his sceptre, stood at the furrow, 
 glad at heart. On it he placed a vineyard 
 laden with fruit lovely and golden, but the 
 grapes were black. Everywhere the vines 
 were supported on silver poles ; on each 
 side he made an azure trench and a fence of 
 tin. Maidens and youths making merry 
 were carrying the sweet fruit in baskets 
 among them, a boy with a clear-toned lyre 
 played sweetly and sang with skill a lovely 
 song." 
 
 15
 
 The 
 " Dream 
 of Maxen 
 
 Wledig." 
 
 In all that concerns workmanship the poet 
 forgets nothing. He notes even the "needle 
 painted chin-strap on the helmet of Paris," 
 and " the oak new felled by the artsmen on 
 the hills." For him every workman was an 
 artist and every artist but a workman. 
 
 Not only the singers, historians who are 
 poets also showed their delight in workman- 
 ship. 
 
 Think of the wonderful chest of Kypselos 
 with its groups of figures in ivory and gold, 
 its bands of battling warriors, the rows of 
 chariots and horsemen, the processions of 
 gods and heroes, the scenes from the mys- 
 teries and the " Odyssey," all bound together 
 with long lines of lovely lettering. All these 
 things the noble idea, the gleaming ivory, 
 the gold and the ruddy cedar Pausanias 
 makes us see with his eyes, and we long to 
 handle them as he did. 
 
 Again, in the " Dream of Maxen Wledig," 
 from the " Mabinogion," the hero " beheld a 
 castle the fairest that man ever saw." In 
 the castle was a fair hall, the roof of which 
 seemed to be all gold ; the walls of the hall 
 seemed to be of glittering precious gems, and 
 the doors of gold. Golden seats he saw in 
 the hall, and silver tables ; and on a seat 
 opposite to him he beheld two auburn-haired 
 youths playing at chess. He saw a silver 
 board for the chess, and golden pieces there- 
 on. The garments of the youths were of 
 16
 
 jet-black satin, and chaplets of ruddy gold The 
 bound their hair, whereon were sparkling " Dr 
 jewels of great price, rubies and gems alter- w on 
 nately with imperial stones ; buskins of new 
 Cordovan leather on their feet, fastened with 
 slides of red gold. 
 
 And beside a pillar in the hall he saw a 
 hoary-headed man in a chair of ivory, with 
 the figures of two eagles of ruddy gold 
 thereon. Bracelets of gold were upon his 
 arms, and many rings were on his hands, 
 and a golden torque about his neck, and 
 his hair was bound with a golden diadem. 
 He was of powerful aspect. A chess-board 
 of gold was before him, and a steel file in 
 his hand, and he was filing out chessmen. 
 
 In the " Dream of Rhonabwy " we have 
 a succession of brilliant pictures, like panels 
 in some rich scheme of decoration : 
 
 " And the red youth brought the chess 
 for Arthur and Owain ; golden pieces and a 
 board of silver. And they began to play. 
 
 " And while they were thus, and when 
 they were best amused with their game, 
 behold they saw a white tent with a red 
 canopy, and the figure of a jet-black serpent 
 on the top of the tent, and red glaring 
 venomous eyes in the head of the serpent, 
 and a red flaming tongue. And there came 
 a young page with yellow curling hair and 
 blue eyes, and a newly-springing beard, 
 wearing a coat and a surcoat of yellow satin, 
 
 c 17
 
 The and hose of thin greenish-yellow cloth upon 
 
 "Dream fa s f eet? anc j over fa s hose shoes of parti- 
 
 n coloured leather, fastened at the insteps with 
 golden clasps. And he bore a heavy three- 
 edged sword with a golden hilt, in a scabbard 
 of black leather tipped with fine gold. And 
 he came to the place where the Emperor 
 and Owain were playing at chess." 
 
 A little further on we read : 
 
 "And during the tumult they saw a 
 knight coming towards them on a light 
 grey horse^and the left foreleg of the horse 
 was jet-black to the centre of his hoof. And 
 the knight and the horse were fully accoutred 
 with huge heavy blue armour. And a robe 
 of honour of yellow diapered satin was upon 
 the knight, and the borders of the robe were 
 blue. And the housings of the horse were 
 jet-black, with borders of bright yellow. 
 And on the thigh of the youth was a sword, 
 long, and three-edged, and heavy. And the 
 scabbard was of red cut leather, and the belt 
 of new red deer-skin, having upon it many 
 golden slides and a buckle of the bone of the 
 sea-horse, the tongue of which was jet-black. 
 A golden helmet was upon the head of the 
 knight, wherein were set sapphire stones of 
 great virtue. And at the top of the helmet 
 was the figure of a flame-coloured lion, with 
 a fiery-red tongue, issuing above a foot from 
 his mouth, and with venomous eyes, crimson- 
 red, in his head. And the knight came, 
 18
 
 bearing in his hand a thick ashen lance, the The story 
 head whereof, which had been newly steeped f Cupid 
 in blood, was overlaid with silver." 
 
 Lastly let us turn for a moment to Apuleius, 
 to the story of Cupid and Psyche. 
 
 " Near the fall of the fountain was a kingly 
 palace raised not with human hands, but by 
 divine skill. You might know from the very 
 entrance of the palace that you were look- 
 ing upon the superb and splendid dwelling 
 of some god. The lofty ceilings curiously 
 arched with cedar and ivory rested on golden 
 columns. The walls were overlaid with 
 plates of silver beaten work, with wild 
 beasts and tame of all kinds presenting them- 
 selves to the view of those who entered the 
 palace. The very pavement itself was made 
 of precious stones, cut out and arranged to 
 form pictures of divers kinds. Everywhere 
 the walls were strengthened with bars of 
 gold." 
 
 All early literature is alike in this. Wher- 
 ever one may chance to dip into the bibles 
 of the world, into Homer, the "Nibelung- 
 enlied," the "High History of the Holy 
 Graal," the " Mabinogion," the " Morte 
 d'Arthur," into the writings of Chaucer and 
 Spenser, and a hundred others, there one is 
 sure of finding parallel passages to those I 
 have cited. Everywhere and always there is 
 the same love of workmanship, the same sense 
 of fine design. None of these enchanting
 
 The debt descriptions is the dream of a solitary poet, 
 we owe None is the work of any one man. Hardly 
 may any race claim them. One writer after 
 another took up the theme, shaped and 
 polished it, left his infinitesimal mark upon 
 the structure, and his successors did the like. 
 As far hack as tradition reaches we find, when 
 the workman himself was not the singer, by 
 his side the poet who was stirred to song by 
 the worker's skill. 
 
 These legends of many-sided craftsman- 
 ship, of gold and silver and armourer's work, 
 the stories of the masters in marble and stone, 
 the weavers and the dyers, the woodwrights, 
 the carvers and the painters, all bear witness 
 not so much to individual artistry as to suc- 
 cessive waves of creative energy flooding the 
 minds of men. 
 
 This brief conspectus of historic workman- 
 ship as reflected in the mirror of literature 
 may therefore suffice to give some faint idea 
 of the debt we owe to the workmen of the 
 world. 
 
 We begin to see that it is not the factory 
 which most counts for human betterment, 
 but the "hand"; not mechanism, but heart; 
 not work solely for the sake of gain, but work 
 as a means of mental growth, as a way to 
 spiritual freedom. 
 
 It is mainly if not wholly through his 
 workmanship and all that the word implies 
 that man reaches manhood, and on his way 
 20
 
 gets glimpses of an over-manhood yet to be Freedom 
 attained. for the 
 
 As Homer tells us, " Athene teaches all 
 the crafts," and throughout all legend and 
 tradition not heroes only, but the high gods 
 and the saviours themselves have been imaged 
 as workmen of skill. 
 
 It is not by mechanics nor commerce, but 
 chiefly by craftsmanship that a nation deve- 
 lops and is remembered. Yet this is not to 
 say that mechanism and commerce should 
 not exist. There is mechanism even in 
 thought and commerce between the very 
 cells of our body. Nutrition and assimi- 
 lation are to the individual what commerce 
 and industry are to the nation. They have 
 their uses as servants, and are only evil as 
 masters. In time, commerce and machinery, 
 instead of being permitted to ruin the lives 
 and cramp the souls of men, will be organ- 
 ised, the one for the supply of the common 
 needs, the other to do the more material 
 work of the community. Mankind will 
 be master, not slave, of the organisation it 
 has created. 
 
 The worker will then be free ; will have 
 time and opportunity of development ; he 
 will rise from slavery into fellowship, and 
 each state will become Utopia. 
 
 Yet that workmanship which is labour 
 transmuted into beauty is not produced by 
 devotion alone, nor even when devotion is 
 
 21
 
 Create or joined to a high degree of skill. Supreme 
 perish workmanship means supernal guidance. It 
 only happens when skill and devotion and 
 national need meet together ; when not the 
 man, but the spirit of the race guides the 
 tool. Beauty of expression or supreme 
 workmanship is part of the cosmic process, 
 bound by the same laws as those which 
 round the dewdrop, shape the crystal, and 
 order the concourse and building of the 
 clouds. 
 
 They are laws whose operations we cannot 
 escape. We must create or perish ; develop 
 or disintegrate ; shape or be shapen from. 
 Who lives labours, who labours not is dead, 
 is as true of the simple organism as of the 
 complex being. Indeed, it is perhaps not 
 too much to say that the same holds good 
 of what we sometimes call inanimate matter. 
 That this is forgotten is because the ordi- 
 nary idea of consciousness is incomplete. Yet 
 consciousness must not only be conceded to 
 every living thing we must realise that 
 nothing is without some form of it. 
 
 Attraction, cohesion, chemical affinity 
 what are they all but modes of conscious- 
 ness ? Once realise this, and the face of the 
 world is changed for us. Trees and wild 
 creatures become our blood-relations ; the 
 earth, sky, and starry host parts of our body. 
 We " see the universe in a grain of sand " 
 and live " eternities in an hour." The 
 
 22
 
 progress of the day ; the cycle of the seasons ; The 
 the congress of the stellar companies, each miracle of 
 threading its way through others ; the birth the rose 
 of new stars from the impacts of those 
 speeding from the unimaginable deeps of 
 space, all this complexity, vast as it is, we 
 feel as a breath that comes and goes, as a 
 pulse that keeps us and the world alive, as 
 the rhythmic interchange which seems the 
 very base of being. All life is but endless 
 becoming. 
 
 Rose and man and butterfly have each 
 the same material to work upon breathe 
 the same air and spring from the same earth. 
 The difference in the result of their labours 
 may arise either from the difference in the 
 fundamental consciousness of each individual, 
 or from a difference in the formative impulse 
 of which each is the expression. Who of 
 us can say ? Yet whatever the ultimate des- 
 tiny of that fragrant creature now expressing 
 itself as the rose, it is certain that it has 
 acquired very perfectly the power of shaping 
 itself. Beauty has become the habit of its 
 life, yet the chemical and mechanical difficul- 
 ties encountered in the passage from the seed 
 to the flower could not have been overcome 
 without will, memory, and intelligence, with- 
 out foresight and work. The will to live ; 
 the perfect memory of its former lives ; the 
 inherent knowledge of all the modes and 
 details of growth and coloration ; the perfect 
 
 23
 
 A con- intelligence with which the daily commis- 
 tinued sariat of sap and chlorophyll is organised so 
 personality ^^ ^^ p Ort i on Q f t fa pl antj Stem5 \ e ^ an( i 
 
 flower, is kept supplied with the building 
 material required, all these are so many 
 miracles which become more wonderful the 
 more they are reflected upon. 
 
 What may be the seat of that mysterious 
 energy, what the organ of that certain but 
 uncommunicable knowledge by which the 
 salts of the earth are transmuted into living 
 protoplasm, one cannot imagine. But it is 
 still more impossible to imagine that such 
 miracles can be wrought by mechanism 
 alone. For when some apparently exter- 
 nal power clips suddenly the finest blooms, 
 new buds hasten forward to supply the loss 
 and provide for the rose's continuance, yet 
 without any perceptible derangement of the 
 organism. 
 
 The plant knows what to do at every 
 stage of its life, and, like a perfect workman, 
 absorbed and happy in his work, does it 
 without hesitation. 
 
 If we go a step further and consider the 
 stages of insect life, and remember that 
 under the velvety skin of the larva the pupa 
 is being built, to be revealed complete when 
 the skin is cast for the last time when we 
 remember also that within the pupa the tiny 
 workman, out of materials laid up during 
 the first stage of its life, is repeating without 
 
 24
 
 fault the manifold miracles of skill and Life's 
 memory, of colour and construction, learnt varying 
 in former lives while the world was young, 
 we cannot escape from the idea of a con- 
 tinued personality. Within the egg of the 
 bird like things happen. The young bird 
 repeats its lesson, building not only body and 
 limb, remembering not only every detail of 
 the wonderful eye, the shape and colour of 
 every feather, but the rules of life, the 
 plan of the future nest and the map of the 
 first migration. Not the old, but the young, 
 un travelled birds go first on these yearly 
 journeys the old ones follow after. The 
 young bird does not learn, nor is it taught, 
 the way it remembers. 
 
 If we now retrace our steps and glance 
 for a moment at one of the earliest forms of 
 life, we find that at a certain stage in cell 
 development the simple aggregation of cells 
 ceases, and the creature becomes a tiny 
 living vase, whose only organ is a mouth. 
 The being who thus shaped itself, and in 
 so doing enclosed within itself a portion 
 of the Archaean ocean, began a mode of 
 growth which still obtains. 
 
 After countless centuries we are still 
 marine creatures ; though, infinitely more 
 complex, we carry our seas within. Brain 
 and heart and organs float in a fluid as salt 
 as the wave from whence it came. 
 
 Each pulse of the heart is, as it were, an 
 D 25
 
 Mind- echo of the tides, a repercussion of the 
 
 building lapping waves of the early world. Even 
 
 the salt tears we kiss from the cheeks of 
 
 children have come through life's alembic 
 
 from the primal sea. 
 
 The teaching of the mystics that the 
 mind of man is a mirror of things above, 
 his body an epitome of the universe, finds an 
 echo in biology. 
 
 In the prenatal period the young idea, 
 anchored in an inner sea, swims into existence; 
 grows by translating impulse into movement, 
 thought into substance, memory into act. 
 
 Having done the same thing unnumbered 
 times before, the growing angel distils, with 
 faultless knowledge, the chemic elements 
 required for bone, nerve, and muscle from 
 the raw material momently supplied, and 
 repeats, without hesitation, the various stages 
 and processes of vital workmanship, which 
 he has learned by heart. 
 
 The child " climbs its own family tree " 
 into the world of perceptions, and, arrived 
 there, builds the thought-body we call the 
 mind by the similar stages and similar 
 methods. 
 
 In building muscle the child gains not only 
 motion, but emotion ; not only muscular, but 
 mental flexibility ; gains by the same process 
 physical strength and spiritual knowledge. 
 Every increase of muscle due to practice 
 means a gain in mental power. 
 26
 
 Thus of necessity a hand well skilled means Trades 
 a brain well filled. Filled, not cumbered the best 
 
 i i 
 
 with unsystematised items, but stored with S( 
 knowledge, become so organic, so instinctive, 
 that limbs and fingers think for themselves, 
 and obey the directing mind as an orchestra 
 obeys its conductor. If we seek for the ideal 
 system of training, nature shows us the way. 
 Let instruction, invention, and exercise go 
 hand in hand. Let us learn, as primitive 
 man learnt, with our tools in our hands, 
 practise until the hand becomes the perfect 
 tool. We need practice more than learning, 
 for we know more than we remember, and 
 our knowledge is the accretion of uncounted 
 lives, the product of manifold experience. In 
 the pursuit of workmanship one chamber of 
 knowledge after another is opened out before 
 the workman who holds the key. " To the 
 cunning workman," and to him only, says 
 Ruskin, quoting Pindar, " knowledge comes 
 undeceitful." . 
 
 Skill is only acquired in the workshop. 
 The only real instruction comes from the 
 man who, as creator, is always learning, 
 always experimenting, always stretching out 
 the tendrils of his mind into unexplored 
 places. The impulse thrilling him stirs all 
 around him, and they are carried with him 
 in his upward progress. No man can be 
 teacher only. The energies spent in teaching 
 must be replaced by new forces acquired in 
 
 27
 
 The dust creation. Teaching is expenditure, creation 
 of life i s income. The mere teacher is apt to wither 
 into the formalist. For this reason the trades 
 are the best schools. They exist to supply 
 the demands of the social organism. Their 
 driving power is vital need, and in work, as 
 in life, necessity is the finest teacher. Who 
 is slow to learn is left behind or crushed. 
 For there are no breaks in the life process, 
 no cessation of the work ; the task accom- 
 plished recurs unceasingly ; the shaping tide 
 flows always. The impulse which sets the 
 child to dabble in the mud is the same as 
 that which touched the sun to flame and fills 
 the universe with its vibrations. 
 
 Childish scrawl or Titian's " Love," fetish 
 symbol or the Fates of Pheidias, hermit's 
 cell or Chartres Cathedral, Astarte of Sidon 
 or Demeter of Cnidos, each bears witness 
 in its own way perfect to the same flood of 
 creation pulsing through the hearts of men. 
 Each tells the movings of that force which 
 is ultimately to lift us far above ourselves and 
 carry us to completion. 
 
 Animate life is a thronged concourse ot 
 beings climbing by the manifold degrees of 
 labour to the temple of love, which crowns 
 the hill of pain. 
 
 Let us, for a moment, in imagination, 
 survey the world, and see what workmanship 
 has been. 
 
 Below us lie the continents, seamed and 
 28
 
 laced with iron ways. Between the meshes Not soil, 
 of the net we see cathedrals, fortresses and but 
 factories, pyramids and palaces, and around 
 them dim powderings of countless little 
 homes. Even as we look the structure 
 changes ; old forms decay and new arise. 
 The dust of life that drifts about them seems 
 alone to be permanent. Cities, walls and 
 battlements, what are they but swiftly fading 
 thought-structures, the solidified dreams of 
 innumerable lives, the expression, by the 
 creatures of a moment, of the spirit of time ? 
 The temples and the towns, the hovels and 
 the palaces, are but the jetsam and the debris 
 left by confluent tides of men. 
 
 Dive beneath the surface, and underneath 
 we see layers on layers of still earlier relics of 
 still earlier tides. However deep we may go, 
 life has been there before us, and we feel, we 
 know, that the whole Earth is alive, from the 
 glowing heart of it to the outermost aura of 
 cloud. Even more, every grain of dust has 
 lived, is the fossil of some former life, and 
 because it is, shows that it still retains some 
 fragment of that vitality by which it was 
 secreted. The Earth we once felt to be so 
 solid has become a mere sponge of inter- 
 woven thought, a network of knotted lives, 
 an infinite tangle of existences. It is not 
 soil we tread, but soul ; not matter, but a 
 maze of memories. 
 
 We live prisoned in the labyrinth of 
 
 29
 
 Beauty's sensation, and walk by the dim light of dreams 
 appeal amid the ghosts of forgotten generations. 
 
 Life itself, when we try to analyse it, 
 escapes us, seems but an eddy in the ether, 
 fading, forming, reforming, and fading again. 
 The universe Itself melts away as we survey 
 it, and we feel that nothing abides but law, 
 yet that is relative ; nothing lasts but love, 
 yet that must change ; nothing satisfies but 
 workmanship, for it is a continuation of the 
 life-process through the channel of human- 
 kind. The molecular habits, the chemical 
 laws which rule the shape of the rose, the 
 colour and shape of the butterfly, the stature 
 and build of the man, ar re-echoed in the 
 world of thought. The laws of design and 
 workmanship are in truth exteriorised trans- 
 lations, renderings by the intellect of the 
 rhythmic laws which govern our bodily 
 structure and order the very fabric of the 
 universe. 
 
 In a word, the stereo-chemistry of life is 
 the root of all design. The workman in his 
 design and work rehearses the stages and the 
 process by which his own body was shapen 
 and is maintained. His work is an ergo- 
 graph of subconscious and superconscious 
 mental processes. Through his cranial or 
 secondary brain he repeats the reactions and 
 the habits, obeys the laws and experiences 
 stored up in the sympathetic nervous system 
 which is his primary brain. That is perhaps 
 
 3
 
 aim 
 
 one reason why artists at first repeat their own The 
 features in their ideal figures why a man's worker's 
 work is like himself why the human 
 figure is the ultimate canon of all artistic 
 proportion why the finest mouldings, 
 the noblest contours, the most appealing 
 'shapes and patterns, can all be referred to 
 some section or contour or suggestion given 
 by the human form why beauty, which is 
 perfect workmanship, has such appeal for us. 
 It is the mirror image of the ideal, and the 
 worker's subconsciousness is the mirror. On 
 that magic surface all past history, his own 
 and that of the world, is reflected. All that 
 the worker does is to re-echo harmonies 
 pre-existent, to reveal some stanza of a long- 
 forgotten song, to show the world for a 
 fleeting moment some pageant of its age- 
 hidden history. 
 
 All invention is memory, all discovery 
 recollection of things learnt during the 
 multiple stages of evolution, or the prophecy 
 of that which will be learnt in future stages. 
 Inspiration is being aware of the whisperings 
 of the divine life within each one of us. 
 From this, which the wise of all ages have 
 told us, it follows that first and last the 
 worker's aim must be the harmonising of 
 the twin intelligences of which his body 
 is the temporary seat ; so to live that his 
 conscious thought shall be in tune with the 
 vaster world of racial knowledge, in touch 
 
 3 1
 
 Concen- with the rich secular wisdom stored in his 
 tration primary brain or afloat in the ether around 
 him. He must become responsive to the 
 faintest thrillings of suggestion, be ever on 
 the watch for the new births with which 
 time is pregnant, and make himself a con- 
 scious link in the endless chain of causa- 
 tion and co-creator with the rulers of the 
 spheres. 
 
 This after all is only a roundabout way of 
 saying that the first duty of the workman is 
 the suppression of the conscious self. He 
 must seek, not individuality, but inspiration, 
 not originality, but fidelity, not " art," but 
 obedience to the " Self that is seated in the 
 heart of things." In other words, he can 
 only become a real workman when he is able 
 by the concentration of every effort, every 
 faculty, every thought, on the task in hand 
 to identify himself with that task, and to 
 lose himself in the stream of life that flows 
 from within. 
 
 The Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu tells us : 
 
 " There was a certain man who forged 
 swords for the Minister of War, and though 
 he was eighty years old, he never made 
 a mistake. The Minister of War said to 
 him : 
 
 " ' Is your infallibility due to your skill, 
 sir, or have you any method ? ' 
 
 " c It is concentration,' the armourer re- 
 plied. ' When twenty years old, I took 
 
 3 2
 
 to forging swords. If a thing was not a Personality 
 sword, I did not notice it. I used whatever to . be set 
 energy I did not need in other directions, as 
 in order to secure greater efficiency in my 
 art. Still more, I employed that which is 
 never without use Tao so that there was 
 nothing which did not lend its aid.' ' 
 
 Tao may in part be described as the mental, 
 physical, and spiritual discipline imparted by 
 the sages to their disciples, and its object is 
 so to discipline the body and mind that the 
 experience of the race enshrined within the 
 individual is available for individual use, so 
 that the student may, as it were, stand on his 
 own history and reach a step higher as a 
 result of his present experience. This dis- 
 cipline has its counterpart in India, and, as 
 one might expect in so old a civilisation, 
 there is a branch of Yoga consecrated to the 
 artist or sculptor. Of this method we have 
 the following account : 1 
 
 " The artist who desires to receive inspira- 
 tion for any new work must proceed to a 
 solitary place after bathing his body and 
 putting on new or newly washed garments. 
 Then he must perform the ' sevenfold 
 office,' beginning with the invocations of 
 the hosts of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the 
 open space before him. He must offer to 
 them real or imaginary flowers, and end with 
 a dedication of the secret he thus acquires, to 
 1 Dr. Coomaraswamy, Orpheus, June 1910. 
 
 E 33
 
 Personality the welfare of all beings. Then the artist 
 to be set mu st realise in thought the four infinite 
 qualities : c Love, Compassion, Sympathy, 
 Same-sightedness.' Then he must meditate 
 on the original purity of the first principles 
 of things and on their emptiness or absolute 
 non-existence. 
 
 " Only when the personality of the indi- 
 vidual is thus set aside is he able to invoke 
 the divinity to be represented and to attain 
 identity with this divinity. The divinity 
 appears ' like a reflection ' or ' as in a dream.' 
 Only when the mental image of the figure 
 descried is clearly seen does the artist begin 
 to model or to paint." 
 
 Having seen, the worker's task is simpli- 
 fied. It is only when we have not been 
 able to see that we compose. Only when 
 we lack inspiration that we seek to be 
 original. Only when we have isolated 
 ourselves that we insist upon individuality. 
 All great art is racial. The workman is 
 nothing but the means of expression, the 
 willing tool of an unknown power. 
 
 To this power each must dedicate him- 
 self, desiring no other reward than to be 
 employed. There is no room for self and 
 no true workmanship possible until that 
 has been utterly done away. Yet, after all, 
 in this abandonment of self there is no loss, 
 but a great gain. Who does not know 
 the exquisite happiness when, after a long 
 
 34
 
 wrestle with some problem, the difficulty The Greek 
 ceases, the right idea comes, and the work is s P int 
 done ? That one idea makes all worth while. 
 It was what you wanted ; it was given to 
 you ; yet you cannot claim it for your own. 
 Out of the back of the beyond it came to 
 you, because for a moment in desperate 
 difficulty you forgot your self. Just for an 
 instant you touched reality, and from the 
 contact a wave of creative force pulsed 
 through you and left order and harmony 
 where discord and disorder were before. 
 So it has been always. When the monu- 
 ments of the world were in building, when 
 the Parthenon and the temples of Hellas 
 were growing up in the heart of Greece, or 
 being made in the mountain quarries, the 
 workmen were shaping not mere temples 
 and statues, but embodiments of the national 
 ideal, the statutes of eternal beauty. It 
 was the Greek spirit they presented. They 
 were craftsmen with a living tradition. 
 They were thronged thought-centres in 
 the mind of Greece. Slaves they may have 
 been technically, yet not more slaves than 
 any one of us who are tied and bound by 
 ineluctable obligations, without compen- 
 sating freedom of expression. Moreover, in 
 so far as they were slaves, the Attic work- 
 men were free from care for the future, 
 free to devote the whole power of their 
 minds to their tasks, and by that absorption, 
 
 35
 
 The unconscious though it were, they have 
 
 worker's revealed to us that complex of joy and 
 superhuman beauty which was Greece. 
 
 Poor in the world's eyes, they were in- 
 calculably rich in all that makes life pre- 
 cious. It is not wealth which matters, nor 
 fame, not happiness even, but eurythmic 
 production. 
 
 Demeter and Pallas, Dionysus and Her- 
 mes, Aphrodite and Eros these gracious 
 dwellers in the eternal world of ideas came 
 down and dwelt with men. " This was the 
 time when with the rest of the happy band 
 they saw beauty shining in brightness." 
 The ideal is, as it were, a spiritual matrix 
 into which molten thought and anguished 
 life must be poured before its shape can be 
 revealed. 
 
 The loves of gods and human beings are 
 not fables, but spiritual facts. We may look 
 on the storied marbles in which they are 
 enshrined as symbolic renderings of super- 
 physical experiences ; as embodied extasies. 
 The unforgettable beauty born on the 
 knees of Attica as a result of these spiritual 
 communions made, not illustrated, Greek 
 theology, and shaped rather than expressed 
 the ideals of Grecian life. The story of 
 Pygmalion tells with divine tenderness how 
 the workman in love with his work is 
 rewarded by the descent of love into his 
 life. His labour, because it is the embodi- 
 
 36
 
 ment of love, touches every heart, becomes The story 
 the mirror of a people's mind. What is ofl>u 
 true of the one is true of the many, and 
 when the cathedrals and choirs of Gothic 
 Europe, with their pillared aisles, their 
 canopied saints and storied windows, crystal- 
 lised out of the seething turmoil of Prankish, 
 German, and Roman life, they expressed the 
 basic mind of each race ; they formulated 
 the ideals, created the laws, and finally trans- 
 formed nay, they made the theology and 
 ethics of their respective nations. 
 
 The indebtedness of theology to the con- 
 ceptions of art is far too little realised. Not 
 the schoolmen, but the sculptors, not the 
 saints, but the masons, not the priests, but 
 the painters, have done most to uplift 
 humanity. Power and creed and polity, all 
 have their roots in craft. Kings, states- 
 men, and ecclesiastics became the servants of 
 those they employed. The workman was the 
 teacher, the employer the pupil. The poor 
 rich have always been the dependents of the 
 rich poor. The workman, like Atlas of old, 
 carries the world upon his shoulders, and 
 though burdened thus, remakes it according 
 to the inspiration he receives. 
 
 There is a Chinese legend translated by 
 Lafcadio Hearn which expresses so perfectly 
 the ideal workman's ideal of workmanship 
 that it should be known to every one. 
 
 " There was a certain Chinese potter, Pu by 
 
 37
 
 The story name, who from a humble workman became, 
 of Pu by dint o f t i r eless study and ceaseless toil, a 
 great artist. So famous was he in all lands 
 that some folk called him a magician, others 
 an astrologer who had discovered the mystery 
 of those five Hing which influence all things, 
 even the currents in the stardrift and the suns 
 in the Milky Way. 
 
 " And it came to pass that one day Pu sent 
 a present, his latest masterpiece, to the Son 
 of Heaven ; and the Emperor wondered at 
 the beauty of the work, and questioned the 
 mandarins concerning him that made it. 
 
 " They told him he was a workman, one 
 Pu, c without equal among potters, knowing 
 the secrets of the gods.' 
 
 " Whereupon the Son of Heaven sent his 
 officers to Pu with a noble gift, and sum- 
 moned him to his presence. And the humble 
 artisan entered before the Emperor and made 
 the supreme obeisance, thrice kneeling and 
 thrice nine times touching the ground with 
 his forehead, and awaited the commands of 
 the August One. And the Emperor spoke 
 to him : ' Son, thy gracious gift has found 
 high favour in our sight, and for the charm 
 of that offering we have bestowed on thee a 
 reward of five thousand pieces of silver. 
 But thrice that reward shall be thine so soon 
 as thou shalt have fulfilled our behest. 
 
 " ' Hearken, O matchless artificer : it is 
 now our will that thou shouldst make for us 
 
 38
 
 a vase bearing the tint and aspect of living The story 
 flesh. But mark well our desire. It must be of P U 
 flesh, quick and trembling with the thrill of 
 poetry, quivering with the joy of song. 
 Obey, and answer not. We have spoken.' 
 
 "Now Pu was more skilled than the most 
 skilled of the mixers of pastes and glazes, of 
 all the designers of ornaments, of all the 
 enamel painters, of all the gilders and 
 draughtsmen and retouchers ; more skilled 
 than the most experienced of all who watch 
 the fire. But he went away sorrowing from 
 the palace of the Son of Heaven, notwith- 
 standing the gift of five thousand silver 
 pieces. ' For,' he said to himself, 'surely the 
 mystery of the comeliness of flesh and the 
 mystery of that by which it is moved are the 
 secrets of the supreme Tao. How shall man 
 make clay to live ? Who save the Infinite 
 can give soul ? ' 
 
 " And he trembled at the task assigned to 
 him, saying as he returned to the familiar 
 toil of his studio : ' How shall any man 
 render in clay the quivering of flesh with 
 the joy of song ? ' 
 
 " Yet the command of the Celestial and 
 August might never be disobeyed, and Pu 
 strove with all his power to fulfil the Son of 
 Heaven's desire. But vainly for days, weeks, 
 months, for season after season, did he strive. 
 Vainly he prayed to the gods to help him ; 
 vainly he besought the Spirit of the Fire to 
 
 39
 
 The story aid him to breathe spirit and soul into the 
 of Pu lifeless clay. Nine-and-forty times did Pu 
 seek to fulfil the Emperor's command ; nine- 
 and-forty times did he strive and fail, and 
 spend strength and vigour and knowledge 
 and substance in vain. Evil visited his 
 home, poverty sat in his dwelling. Yet 
 after each failure he began again, and prayed 
 to the Spirit of the Furnace to aid him ; and 
 at last the Spirit of the Furnace answered 
 him out of the roaring of the fire and the 
 crackling of a thousand tongues of flame : 
 4 Canst thou divide a soul ? Nay, thy life 
 for the life of thy work, thy soul for the 
 soul of thy vase.' 
 
 " And hearing these words Pu arose with 
 a terrible resolve swelling at his heart, and 
 made ready for the last and fiftieth time to 
 fashion his work for the oven. 
 
 " One hundred times did he sift the clay 
 and the quartz, the kaolin and the tun ; one 
 hundred times did he purify them in the 
 clearest water ; one hundred times with tire- 
 less hands did he knead the creamy paste, 
 mingling it with colours known only to 
 himself. 
 
 " Then was the vase shapen and reshapen, 
 touched and retouched by the hands of Pu, 
 until its smooth, soft surface seemed to live, 
 until it appeared to palpitate from within 
 with a quiver of muscles moving beneath the 
 pearly skin. 
 40
 
 " Then over it all he laid the lucid, glossy The story 
 enamel, half diaphanous, even like the sub- f P U 
 stance it had to suggest the satiny sheen of 
 a woman's skin. 
 
 " Never before had such work been seen. 
 Then Pu bade those who aided him that 
 they should feed the furnace well with 
 wood, but the resolve of his heart he told 
 to none. 
 
 " Yet after the oven began to glow and he 
 saw the work of his hands blushing in the 
 heat he bowed himself before the Spirit of 
 Flame and murmured : ' Thou Spirit and 
 Master of Fire, I know the truth of thy 
 words, that a soul may never be divided, 
 therefore my life for the life of my work, 
 my soul for the soul of my vase,' and for 
 nine days and eight nights the furnaces 
 were fed unceasingly ; for nine days and 
 eight nights men watched the wondrous 
 vase crystallising into being, rose-lighted by 
 the breath of the flame. 
 
 " Now, upon the coming of the ninth 
 night, Pu bade all his weary comrades 
 return to rest, for that the work was well- 
 nigh done, and its success assured. ' If you 
 find me not here at sunrise,' he said, ' fear not 
 to take forth the vase, for I know that the 
 task will have been accomplished according 
 to the command of the August One.' 
 
 " So they departed. But in that same ninth 
 night Pu entered the flame, and yielded up 
 
 F 41
 
 Practical his spirit to the Spirit of the Furnace, giving 
 devotion h{$ Ufa f or tne Jif e o f ^^ wor k, his Soul for 
 
 the soul of his vase, and when the workmen 
 came upon the tenth morning to take forth 
 the vase, even the bones of Pu ceased to be, 
 but the vase lived, as they looked upon it, 
 seeming to be flesh, moved by some mighty 
 word, stirred by poetic thought. And 
 whenever tapped by the finger it uttered a 
 voice and a name, the voice of its maker, 
 the name of its creator. 
 
 " And the Emperor mourned for his faith- 
 ful servant, and ordained that fair statues of 
 him should be set up in all the cities of the 
 Chinese Empire." 
 
 Whether we look on workmanship as 
 the handmaid of beauty, as the seal of the 
 spirit, or the servant of life, we know that it 
 is a result which can only be bought by 
 living sacrifice. All that we do must be 
 done with eagerness and concentration. In 
 one word, workmanship is incomplete until 
 it becomes practical devotion. And as our 
 primary brain, unheeded by consciousness, 
 builds the body and orders all its functions ; 
 as out of the subconscious mind the con- 
 scious intelligence grows like a flower out 
 of the earth, drawing thence its sustenance 
 and energy ; so the network of collective 
 thought may ultimately prove to be the 
 inert matter of a higher world, and thus 
 the hopes and fears and strivings of the 
 42
 
 kingdoms and companies of men may after Man the 
 all be the material from which some ulti- mater i a l 
 mate divine Creature may be growing, to 
 whose life our love may minister, and whose 
 transcendent beauty may be roqted in the 
 workman's pain. 
 
 The extracts from " Gods and Fight- 
 ing Men " on pages 9, 10, and n are 
 reprinted by the kind permission of 
 Lady Gregory and Mr. John Murray, 
 the one from "Some Chinese Ghosts," by 
 Lafcadio Hearn, by the kind permission 
 of Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner 
 and Co., and the one from "The Story 
 of Gawaine and the Green Knight " by 
 kind permission of Mr. David Nutt.
 
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