character, in so many partial ways, that
the impression left on the reader's mind--if, indeed, it was ever
impressed at all--has been confused and uncertain. In beginning the
series of my corrected works, I wish this principle (in my own mind the
foundation of every other) to be made plain, if nothing else is; and will
try, therefore, to make it so, as far as, by any effort, I can put it
into unmistakable words. And, at first, here is a very simple statement
of it, given lately in a lecture on the Architecture of the Valley of the
Somme, which will be better read in this place than in its incidental
connection with my account of the porches of Abbeville.

102. I had used, in a preceding part of the lecture, the expression, "by
what faults" this Gothic architecture fell. We continually speak thus of
works of art. We talk of their faults and merits, as of virtues and
vices. What do we mean by talking of the faults of a picture, or the
merits of a piece of stone?

The faults of a work of art are the faults of its workman, and its
virtues his virtues.

Great art is the expression of the mind of a great man, and mean art,
that of the want of mind of a weak man. A foolish person builds
foolishly, and a wise one, sensibly; a virtuous one, beautifully; and a
vicious one, basely. If stone work is well put together, it means that a
thoughtful man planned it, and a careful man cut it, and an honest man
cemented it. If it has too much ornament, it means that its carver was
too greedy of pleasure; if too little, that he was rude, or insensitive,
or stupid, and the like. So that when once you have learned how to spell
these most precious of all legends,--pictures and buildings,--you may
read the characters of men, and of nations, in their art, as in a mirror;
nay, as in a microscope, and magnified a hundredfold; for the character
becomes passionate in the art, and intensifies itself in all its noblest
or meanest delights. Nay, not only as in a microscope, but as under a
scalpel, and in dissection; for a man may hide himself from you, or
misrepresent himself to you every other way; but he cannot in his work:
there, be sure, you have him to the inmost. All that he likes, all that
he sees,--all that he can do,--his imagination, his affections, his
perseverance, his impatience, his clumsiness, cleverness, everything is
there. If the work is a cobweb, you know it was made by a spider; if a
honey-comb, by a bee; a wormcast