I shall perhaps press this law farther elsewhere, but our immediate concern is chiefly with the second, namely, never to demand an exact finish, when it does not lead to a noble end.  For observe, I have only dwelt upon the rudeness of Gothic, or any other kind of imperfectness, as admirable, where it was impossible to get design or thought without it.  If you are to have the thought of a rough and untaught man, you must have it in a rough and untaught way; but from an educated man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an educated way, take the graceful expression, and be thankful.  Only get the thought, and do not silence the peasant because he cannot speak good grammar, or until you have taught him his grammar.  Grammar and refinement are good things, both, only be sure of the better thing first.  And thus in art, delicate finish is desirable from the greatest masters, and is always given by them.  In some places Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Phidias, Perugino, Turner, all finished with the most exquisite care; and the finish they give always leads to the fuller accomplishment of their noble purpose.  But lower men than these cannot finish, for it requires consummate knowledge to finish consummately, and then we must take their thoughts as they are able to give them.  So the rule is simple:  Always look for invention first, and after that, for such execution as will help the invention, and as the inventor is capable of without painful effort, and no more.  Above all, demand no refinement of execution where there is no thought, for that is slaves’ work, unredeemed.  Rather choose rough work than smooth work, so only that the practical purpose be answered, and never imagine there is reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by patience and sand-paper.

I shall only give one example, which however will show the reader what I mean, from the manufacture already alluded to, that of glass.  Our modern glass is exquisitely clear in its substance, true in its form, accurate in its cutting.  We are proud of this.  We ought to be ashamed of it.  The old Venice glass was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and clumsily cut, if at all.  And the old Venetian was justly proud of it.  For there is this difference between the English and Venetian workman, that the former thinks only of accurately matching his patterns, and getting his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp, and becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and sharpening edges; while the old Venetian cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not, but he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and never moulded a handle or a lip without a new fancy in it.  And therefore, though some Venetian glass is ugly and clumsy enough when made by clumsy and uninventive workmen, other Venetian glass is so lovely in its forms that no price is too great for it; and we never see the same form in it twice.  Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form too.  If the workman is thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking of his design; if of his design, he cannot think of his edges.  Choose whether you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at the same moment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone.