Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/382

346 regret, his son, whom he had trained, was going to give up the carving business. "Partly because there is no great demand for it here, but chiefly because he really doesn't care for it; he is a good hand with the tools, as I am, but it's all mechanical with him, he's no imagination." I couldn't help thinking that, in the great building ages, when the Mother Country was covered with such splendid architecture, the craftsman wrought not as a mere mechanic, but for the love of his work. Some seem to think that now-a-days that spirit has died out, and that really competent craftsmen have an eye only for pay. I doubt that. The question of pay, I take it, was always in view, but to-day it has been forced into undue prominence by political agitators. Rightly, every craftsman looks for the best which his skill can command, but I feel sure that he is as proud of his handiwork as his predecessors were in old days, and that he loves it, as all true artists do.

The tower is about one hundred feet in height, but looks much higher, owing to its position on an eminence which rises considerably above the adjoining streets. It is a conspicuous landmark to vessels making for the entrance of the harbour. From the top a magnificent view is obtained of the Southern Alps, fully one hundred and twenty miles of snowy peaks, which bound the Province of Canterbury westwards. It fell to my lot to place the last capstone on one of the pinnacles at its north-east corner. A special function was arranged for the occasion. The Vestry and others mustered on the top floor of the tower, where the parapets rise to a height of eight feet in pierced stonework, and the four corner pinnacles twenty-four feet. On the top of the pinnacle, where its point was ready