ng it. At every marriage, and at every birth, get a new piece of
gold or silver if you will, but with noble workmanship on it, done for
all time, and put it among your treasures; that is one of the chief
things which gold was made for, and made incorruptible for. When we know
a little more of political economy, we shall find that none but
partially savage nations need, imperatively, gold for their currency;[8]
but gold has been given us, among other things, that we might put
beautiful work into its imperishable splendour, and that the artists who
have the most wilful fancies may have a material which will drag out,
and beat out, as their dreams require, and will hold itself together
with fantastic tenacity, whatever rare and delicate service they set it
upon.

[Note 7: Several reasons may account for the fact that goldsmith's
work is so wholesome for young artists: first, that it gives great
firmness of hand to deal for some time with a solid substance; again,
that it induces caution and steadiness--a boy trusted with chalk and
paper suffers an immediate temptation to scrawl upon it and play with
it, but he dares not scrawl on gold, and he cannot play with it; and,
lastly, that it gives great delicacy and precision of touch to work upon
minute forms, and to aim at producing richness and finish of design
correspondent to the preciousness of the material.]

[Note 8: See note in Addenda on the nature of property.]

47. So here is one branch of decorative art in which rich people may
indulge themselves unselfishly; if they ask for good art in it, they may
be sure in buying gold and silver plate that they are enforcing useful
education on young artists. But there is another branch of decorative
art in which I am sorry to say we cannot, at least under existing
circumstances, indulge ourselves, with the hope of doing good to
anybody: I mean the great and subtle art of dress.

48. And here I must interrupt the pursuit of our subject for a moment or
two, in order to state one of the principles of political economy,
which, though it is, I believe, now sufficiently understood and asserted
by the leading masters of the science, is not yet, I grieve to say,
acted upon by the plurality of those who have the management of riches.
Whenever we spend money, we of course set people to work: that is the
meaning of spending money; we may, indeed, lose it without employing
anybody; but, whenever we spend it, we set a number of people