nd both should be
gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we make both ungentle, the one
envying, the other despising, his brother; and the mass of society is
made up of morbid thinkers, and miserable workers. Now it is only by
labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that
labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with
impunity. It would be well if all of us were good handicraftsmen in
some kind, and the dishonour of manual labour done away with
altogether; so that though there should still be a trenchant
distinction of race between nobles and commoners, there should not,
among the latter, be a trenchant distinction of employment, as between
idle and working men, or between men of liberal and illiberal
professions. All professions should be liberal, and there should be
less pride felt in peculiarity of employment, and more in excellence of
achievement. And yet more, in each several profession, no master should
be too proud to do its hardest work. The painter should grind his own
colours; the architect work in the mason's yard with his men; the
master-manufacturer be himself a more skilful operative than any man in
his mills; and the distinction between one man and another be only in
experience and skill, and the authority and wealth which these must
naturally and justly obtain.

I should be led far from the matter in hand, if I were to pursue this
interesting subject. Enough, I trust, has been said to show the reader
that the rudeness or imperfection which at first rendered the term
"Gothic" one of reproach is indeed, when rightly understood, one of the
most noble characters of Christian architecture, and not only a noble
but an _essential_ one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is
nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly
noble which is not imperfect. And this is easily demonstrable. For
since the architect, whom we will suppose capable of doing all in
perfection, cannot execute the whole with his own hands, he must either
make slaves of his workmen in the old Greek, and present English
fashion, and level his work to a slave's capacities, which is to
degrade it; or else he must take his workmen as he finds them, and let
them show their weaknesses together with their strength, which will
involve the Gothic imperfection, but render the whole work as noble as
the intellect of the age can make it.

But the principle may be stated more broadly still. I ha