The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

their figure sculpture to be executed by inferior workmen, but lowered the

method of its treatment to a standard which every workman could reach, and

then trained him by discipline so rigid that there was no chance of his falling

beneath the standard appointed. The Greek gave to the lower workman no

subject which he could not perfectly execute. The Assyrian gave him subjects

which he could only execute imperfectly, but fixed a legal standard for his

imperfection. The workman was, in both systems, a slave.

6. Imbued with as an animating force.

 .

THE STONES OF VENICE / 1327

But in the medieval, or especially Christian, system of ornament, this slavery

is done away with altogether; Christianity having recognized, in small things

as well as great, the individual value of every soul. But it not only recognizes

its value; it confesses its imperfection, in only bestowing dignity upon the

acknowledgment of unworthiness. That admission of lost power and fallen

nature, which the Greek or Ninevite felt to be intensely painful, and, as far as

might be, altogether refused, the Christian makes daily and hourly, contem

plating the fact of it without fear, as tending, in the end, to God's greater glory.

Therefore, to every spirit which Christianity summons to her service, her

exhortation is: Do what you can, and confess frankly what you are unable to

do; neither let your effort be shortened for fear of failure, nor your confession

silenced for fear of shame. And it is, perhaps, the principal admirableness of

the Gothic schools of architecture, that they thus receive the results of the

labor of inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfection, and betray

ing that imperfection in every touch, indulgently raise up a stately and unaccusable whole. But the modern English mind has this much in common with that of the Greek, that it intensely desires, in all things, the utmost completion or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a noble character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us to forget the relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer the perfectness of the lower nature to the imper

fection of the higher; not considering that as, judged by such a rule, all the

brute animals would be preferable to man, because more perfect in their func

tions and kind, and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of

man, those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to those

which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and shortcomings. For the

finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and

it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their

best form. The wild grass grows well and strongly, one year with another; but

the wheat is, according to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the

bitterer blight. And therefore, while in all things that we see, or do, we are to

desire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the meaner7

thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in its mighty

progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty; not to

prefer mean victory to honorable defeat; not to lower the level of our aim, that

we may the more surely enjoy the complacency of success. But above all, in

our dealings with the souls of other men, we are to take care how we check,

by severe requirement or narrow caution, efforts which might otherwise lead

to a noble issue; and, still more, how we withhold our admiration from great

excellencies, because they are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make

and nature of every man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual

labor, there are some powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid

capacity of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst;

and in most cases it is all our own fault that they are tardy or torpid. But they

cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take them in their feeble

ness, and unless we prize and honor them in their imperfection above the best

and most perfect manual skill. And this is what we have to do with all our

laborers; to look for the thoughtful part of them, and get that out of them,

whatever we lose for it, whatever faults and errors we are obliged to take with

it. For the best that is in them cannot manifest itself, but in company with

7. Lesser.

 .

132 8 / JOHN RUSKIN

much error. Understand this clearly: You can teach a man to draw a straight

line, and to cut one; to strike a curved line, and to carve it; and to copy and

carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect

precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him to think

about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own

head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one

he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to

his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He