230 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



a quality of freshness impossible to acquire 

 in the city. 



To the blacksmith and the carpenter, and 

 all craftsmen accustomed to hard, physical 

 labour, there should be nothing foreign in 

 spade labour, though it was a carpenter who 

 admitted to me that digging brought into play 

 muscles very little used at the bench, causing 

 a stiffness in his limbs when he returned to 

 the workshop from the land. As far as the 

 blacksmiths are concerned, it is quite the 

 common custom of the village blacksmith all 

 over the country to rent a field or two at the 

 back of his smithy. 



I am writing now of some of the most 

 skilled enamellers, silversmiths, carvers in 

 wood and stone that we have in England. 

 Their work, indeed, is known all over the 

 world, and when an American college desires 

 corbels carved on its walls, it has to send to 

 Alec Miller of Campden both to design and 

 execute these. The increased virility of their 

 work is surely accounted for by the fact that 

 the artists live so much in the open air. 



Though work with the spade may cause 

 the hand to shake when using the brush or 

 the graver's tool, there is, as a rule, no 



