Laudator Temporis Acti

Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), Great Trade Route (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1937), pp. 222-223:

There have always been craftsmen and the craftsmen have always been the best men of their time, because a handicraft goes at a pace commensurate with the thoughts in a man's head. The craftsman is a connoisseur; he looks along the wood that he has planed; the table-top he has made and polished; the shoe sole he has just stitched; the back of the book he has just bound. Until it is just so and a little more, he is not content. His device is "make a good job of it," and scrawled with his broad-leaded pencil on the whitewash of his workshop wall are the words: "By hammer and hand all Art doth stand." So, if he turns his attention to other things, it is ten to one he will exact good jobs from others. He will have good food cooked to a turn; good, sound wine in a good-looking glass; well-woven cloth for his back; good feathers in a well-stuffed bed ... or maybe horse-hair. He will have good stout books that his mind can chew on; he will see that his cathedral climbs beautifully to heaven; that it gives him pleasure with its frescoes, good emotion with its music, and good comfort with its doctrine. He will have done his travelling as a journeyman and have seen that the world is good; now he will sit by the fire to hear what wonders there are still doing in foreign climes, and he will tell such a travelling fellow to bring him at his next coming such a tool from Toledo, such woollens from Bradford, or such and such sweetmeats from Montélimar for his children. And, above all, he will have good government and peace.