artisan is to do as little work as possible.
He is absolutely without conscience in his work, and all that he does
is slovenly. He surveys a job, and meditates upon it for an hour--at
your expense; begins it, and goes away to fetch a tool that he has
forgotten--the time of his absence being duly charged against you;
procrastinates and dawdles; sits down to read the paper, if no one
watches him; and in one way and another takes quite twice as long over
a job as is needed, and then does it badly. When I first became a
householder in London I naturally sent to some neighbouring employer of
labour for any little jobs of carpentering and plumbing that needed to
be done. I soon had to relinquish the practice. If a new latch were
put upon a window, the screws were driven into the old holes, so that
in a week the latch was off again. If the plumber effected one repair
he invariably left some damage that made it necessary to recall him
before the month was out. There are houses in London which must be as
good as an annuity to local tradesmen; I believe the workmen are
instructed to do their work so badly that it is never really done. I
soon found it wise to learn how to do repairs for myself; and it was by
doing them myself that I discovered how I had been victimised by the
rapacity, dishonesty, and inefficiency of the British workman and his
master.

But in the country things are different. The village workman has
honest pride in his reputation, and in his work. Moreover, he can turn
his hand to anything, he does not grudge his time, and he is not
corrupted by the contiguity of the public-house. The man who did my
masonry work for me was a grey-haired, silent, pertinacious fellow, of
great practical intelligence and efficiency. He did not work rapidly,
but all that he did was thoroughly done. The carpenter was a man of
the same type. He took a genuine delight in fitting my oak to its new
uses, and had ideas of his own, which were often ingenious, and always
practical. He even had a true artistic sense; uncultivated for want of
education, but real. I understood the extraordinary skill of mediaeval
craftsmen through my association with this man. The pieces of
exquisite carved oak which find their way into museums to-day were
wrought by men such as he was; quiet, thoughtful men, residing in
villages, who developed their artistic sense in solitude. I am quite
sure that this man thought a great deal more of his wor