But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of other
men, we are to take care how we check, by severe requirement or narrow
caution, efforts which might otherwise lead to a noble issue; and,
still more, how we withhold our admiration from great excellencies,
because they are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature
of every man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual labour,
there are some powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid
capacity of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the
worst; and in most cases it is all our own fault that they are tardy or
torpid. But they cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take
them in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honour them in their
imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is
what we have to do with all our labourers; to look for the _thoughtful_
part of them, and get that out of them, whatever we lose for it,
whatever faults and errors we are obliged to take with it. For the best
that is in them cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error.
Understand this clearly; You can teach a man to draw a straight line,
and to cut one; to strike a curved line, and to carve it; and to copy
and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and
perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if
you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot
find any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes
hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he
makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking
being.
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