82 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

beauty in all respects nearly equal, and, in some, immeasurably superior, to that of the most elaborate sculpture of its stones: and that all our interest in the carved work, our sense of its richness, though it is tenfold less rich than the knots of grass beside it; of its delicacy, though it is a thousandfold less delicate; of its admirableness, though a millionfold less admirable; results from our consciousness of its being the work of poor, clumsy, toilsome man. Its true delightfulness depends on our discovering in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart-breakings-of recoveries and joyfulnesses of success: all this can be traced by a practised eye; but, granting it even obscure, it is presumed or understood; and in that is the worth* of the thing, just as much as the worth of any thing else we call precious. The worth of a diamond is simply the understanding of the time it must take to look for it before it is found; and the worth of an ornament is the time it must take before it can be cut. It has an intrinsic value besides, which the diamond has not; (for a diamond has no more real beauty than a piece of glass;) but I do not speak of that at present; I place the two on the same ground; and I suppose that hand-wrought ornament can no more be generally known from machine work, than a diamond can be known from paste; nay, that the latter

and it was meant to show the greater beauty of the natural weeds than of the carved crockets, and the tender harmony of both. Some farther notice is taken of this plate in the eighteenth paragraph of Chap. V. [1880.]

* Worth is, of course, used here in the vulgar economists’ sense, “cost of production,” intrinsic value being distinguished from it in the next sentence. [1880.]

Professor Norton in America, 1879. Ruskin made the drawing in 1848. He writes to his father from St. Lô (Saturday, Sept. 16):-

“I have got a very beautiful subject here, but these architectural pieces take an awful time. I must stay Monday to finish it.”

And again on Sept. 21:-

“All yesterday was taken up in finishing sketch and writing notes; the sketch has come out successfully even to its last scratch, and I think you will like it. I never saw more graceful fragments than there are about this cathedral, and yet the top is so ugly that I believe had I came in by daylight, instead of night, I should have taken place in the Bayeux diligence without going to look at it.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]