is thrown up by a worm, and a nest
wreathed by a bird; and a house built by a man, worthily, if he is
worthy, and ignobly if he is ignoble.

And always, from the least to the greatest, as the made thing is good or
bad, so is the maker of it.

103. You will use this faculty of judgment more or less, whether you
theoretically admit the principle or not. Take that floral gable;* you
don't suppose the man who built Stonehenge could have built that, or that
the man who built that, would have built Stonehenge? Do you think an old
Roman would have liked such a piece of filigree work? or that Michael
Angelo would have spent his time in twisting these stems of roses in and
out? Or, of modern handicraftsmen, do you think a burglar, or a brute,
or a pickpocket could have carved it? Could Bill Sykes have done it? or
the Dodger, dexterous with finger and tool? You will find in the end,
that no man could have done it but exactly the man who did it; and by
looking close at it, you may, if you know your letters, read precisely
the manner of man he was.

* The elaborate pendiment above the central porch at the west end of
Rouen Cathedral, pierced into a transparent web of tracery, and enriched
with a border of "twisted eglantine."

104. Now I must insist on this matter, for a grave reason. Of all facts
concerning art, this is the one most necessary to be known, that, while
manufacture is the work of hands only, art is the work of the whole
spirit of man; and as that spirit is, so is the deed of it; and by
whatever power of vice or virtue any art is produced, the same vice or
virtue it reproduces and teaches. That which is born of evil begets
evil; and that which is born of valor and honor, teaches valor and honor.
All art is either infection or education. It must be one or other of
these.

105. This, I repeat, of all truths respecting art, is the one of which
understanding is the most precious, and denial the most deadly. And I
assert it the more, because it has of late been repeatedly, expressly,
and with contumely, denied, and that by high authority; and I hold it one
of the most sorrowful facts connected with the decline of the arts among
us, that English gentlemen, of high standing as scholars and artists,
should have been blinded into the acceptance, and betrayed into the
assertion of a fallacy which only authority such as theirs could have
rendered for an instant credible. For the contrary of it is written in