f industry and attention.

That the thing itself is a prize--a thing which everybody cannot have.
That it proves, by the _look_ of it, the _ability_ of its _maker_; that
it proves, by the _rarity_ of it, the _dignity_ of its _wearer_--either
that she has been so industrious as to save money, which can buy, say,
a piece of jewellery, of gold tissue, or of fine lace--or else, that she
is a noble person, to whom her neighbours concede, as an honour, the
privilege of wearing finer dresses than they.

If they all choose to have lace too--if it ceases to be a prize--it
becomes, does it not, only a cobweb?

The real good of a piece of lace, then, you will find, is that it should
show, first, that the designer of it had a pretty fancy; next, that the
maker of it had fine fingers; lastly, that the wearer of it has
worthiness or dignity enough to obtain what is difficult to obtain, and
common sense enough not to wear it on all occasions. I limit myself, in
what farther I have to say, to the question of the manufacture--nay, of
one requisite in the manufacture: that which I have just called a pretty
fancy.

172. What do you suppose I mean by a pretty fancy? Do you think that, by
learning to draw, and looking at flowers, you will ever get the ability
to design a piece of lace beautifully? By no means. If that were so,
everybody would soon learn to draw--everybody would design lace
prettily--and then,--nobody would be paid for designing it. To some
extent, that will indeed be the result of modern endeavour to teach
design. But against all such endeavours, mother-wit, in the end, will
hold her own.

But anybody who _has_ this mother-wit, may make the exercise of it more
pleasant to themselves, and more useful to other people, by learning to
draw.

An Indian worker in gold, or a Scandinavian worker in iron, or an old
French worker in thread, could produce indeed beautiful design out of
nothing but groups of knots and spirals: but you, when you are rightly
educated, may render your knots and spirals infinitely more interesting
by making them suggestive of natural forms, and rich in elements of true
knowledge.

173. You know, for instance, the pattern which for centuries has been
the basis of ornament in Indian shawls--the bulging leaf ending in a
spiral. The Indian produces beautiful designs with nothing but that
spiral. You cannot better his powers of design, but you may make them
more civil and useful by adding knowledge