Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/396

ÆT. 44] be within the compass of people, work-folk, who could not touch the figure-work. It would only be by doing these that you could cheapen the work at all.

"The qualifications for a person who would do successful figure-work would be these:

"1. General feeling for art, especially for its decorative side.

"2. He must be a good colourist.

"3. He must be able to draw well; i.e., he must be able to draw the human figure, especially hands and feet.

"4. Of course he must know how to use the stitch of the work.

"Unless a man has these qualities, the first two of which are rare to meet with and cannot be taught, he will turn out nothing but bungles, disgraceful to every one concerned in the matter: I have no idea where to lay my hands on such a man, and therefore I feel that whatever I do I must do chiefly with my own hands. It seems to me that tapestry cannot be made a matter of what people nowadays call manufacturing, and that even so far as it can be made so, the only possible manufacturer must be an artist for the higher kind of work: otherwise all he has to do is to find house room, provide the frame and warp, and coloured worsteds exactly as the workman bids him. In speaking thus I am speaking of the picture-work: a cleverish woman could do the greeneries no doubt. When I was talking to you at Leek I did not fully understand what an entirely individual matter it must be: it is just like wood-engraving: it is a difficult art, but there is nothing to teach that a man cannot learn in half a day, though it would take a man long practice to do it well. There are manufacturers of wood-engraving, e.g., the Dalziels, as big humbugs as any within the