Yet to my mind real art is cheap, even at the price that must be paid for it.  That price is, in short, the providing of a handicraftsman who shall put his own individual intelligence and enthusiasm into the goods he fashions.  So far from his labour being ‘divided,’ which is the technical phrase for his always doing one minute piece of work, and never being allowed to think of any other; so far from that, he must know all about the ware he is making and its relation to similar wares; he must have a natural aptitude for his work so strong, that no education can force him away from his special bent.  He must be allowed to think of what he is doing, and to vary his work as the circumstances of it vary, and his own moods.  He must be for ever striving to make the piece he is at work at better than the last.  He must refuse at anybody’s bidding to turn out, I won’t say a bad, but even an indifferent piece of work, whatever the public want, or think they want.  He must have a voice, and a voice worth listening to in the whole affair.

Such a man I should call, not an operative, but a workman.  You may call him an artist if you will, for I have been describing the qualities of artists as I know them; but a capitalist will be apt to call him a ‘troublesome fellow,’ a radical of radicals, and, in fact, he will be troublesome—­mere grit and friction in the wheels of the money-grinding machine.

Yes, such a man will stop the machine perhaps; but it is only through him that you can have art, i.e. civilisation unmaimed, if you really want it; so consider, if you do want it, and will pay the price and give the workman his due.

What is his due? that is, what can he take from you, and be the man that you want?  Money enough to keep him from fear of want or degradation for him and his; leisure enough from bread-earning work (even though it be pleasant to him) to give him time to read and think, and connect his own life with the life of the great world; work enough of the kind aforesaid, and praise of it, and encouragement enough to make him feel good friends with his fellows; and lastly (not least, for ’tis verily part of the bargain), his own due share of art, the chief part of which will be a dwelling that does not lack the beauty which Nature would freely allow it, if our own perversity did not turn Nature out of doors.

That is the bargain to be struck, such work and such wages; and I believe that if the world wants the work and is willing to pay the wages, the workmen will not long be wanting.

On the other hand, if it be certain that the world—­that is, modern civilised society—­will nevermore ask for such workmen, then I am as sure as that I stand here breathing, that art is dying:  that the spark still smouldering is not to be quickened into life, but damped into death.  And indeed, often, in my fear of that, I think, ’Would that I could see what is to take the place of art!’ For, whether modern civilised society can make that bargain aforesaid, who shall say?  I know well—­who could fail to know it?—­that the difficulties are great.