tle of the book; in
the others the legend is used merely as a starting-point for the
expression of various pregnant ideas on social and historical
problems. The book as a whole abounds in flashes of inspiration
and insight, and is a favourite with many readers of Ruskin.
Carlyle, in a letter to Froude, wrote: "Passages of that last
book, _Queen of the Air_, went into my heart like arrows."

In different places of my writings, and through many years of
endeavour to define the laws of art, I have insisted on this Tightness
in work, and on its connection with virtue of 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, so far as, by
any effort, I can put it into unmistakable words. And, first, here is
a very simple statement of it, given lately in a lecture on the
Architecture of the Valley of the Somme,[199] which will be better read
in this place than in its incidental connection with my account of the
porches of Abbeville.

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 passion