THE SOUTHDOWN SHEPHERD. 227 



long experience. It is made of many pieces, chiefly 

 wood, fitted and shaped and worked, as it were, 

 together, well seasoned first, built up, like a ship, by 

 cunning of hand. 



None of these were struck out a hundred a minute 

 by irresistible machinery ponderously impressing 

 its will on iron as a seal on wax a hundred a minute, 

 and all exactly alike. These separate pieces which 

 compose the plough were cut, chosen, and shaped in 

 the wheelwright's workshop, chosen by the eye, guided 

 in its turn by long knowledge of wood, and shaped by 

 the living though hardened hand of man. So compli- 

 cated a structure could no more have been struck out 

 on paper in a deliberate and single plan than those 

 separate pieces could have been produced by a single 

 blow. 



There are no machine lines no lines filed out in 

 iron or cut by the lathe to the draughtsman's design, 

 drawn with straight-edge and ruler on paper. The 

 thing has been put together bit by bit : how many 

 thousand, thousand clods must have been turned in 

 the furrows before the idea arose, and the curve to be 

 given to this or that part grew upon the mind as the 

 branch grows on the tree ! There is not a sharp edge 

 or sharp corner in it ; it is all bevelled and smoothed 

 and fluted as if it had been patiently carved with a 

 knife, so that, touch it where you will, it handles 

 pleasantly. 



In these curved lines and smoothness, in this per- 

 fect adaptability of means to end, there is the spirit of 

 art showing itself, not with colour or crayon, but 

 working in tangible material substance. The makers 



