f childhood. But on a smaller scale, and in a
design which cannot be mathematically defined, one man's thoughts can
never be expressed by another: and the difference between the spirit of
touch of the man who is inventing, and of the man who is obeying
directions, is often all the difference between a great and a common
work of art. How wide the separation is between original and second-hand
execution, I shall endeavor to show elsewhere; it is not so much to our
purpose here as to mark the other and more fatal error of despising
manual labor when governed by intellect; for it is no less fatal an
error to despise it when thus regulated by intellect, than to value it
for its own sake. We are always in these days endeavoring to separate
the two; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always
working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative;
whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to
be working, and 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 labor that thought can be made
healthy, and only by thought that labor 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 dishonor of manual labor 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
colors; 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.

Sec. XXII. 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 ru