If they all choose to have lace too—if it ceases to be a prize—it becomes, does it not, only a cobweb?
The real good of a piece of lace, then, you will find, is that it should show, first, that the designer of it had a pretty fancy; next, that the maker of it had fine fingers; lastly, that the wearer of it has worthiness or dignity enough to obtain what is difficult to obtain, and common sense enough not to wear it on all occasions. I limit myself, in what farther I have to say, to the question of the manufacture—nay, of one requisite in the manufacture: that which I have just called a pretty fancy.
172. What do you suppose I mean by a pretty fancy? Do you think that, by learning to draw, and looking at flowers, you will ever get the ability to design a piece of lace beautifully? By no means. If that were so, everybody would soon learn to draw—everybody would design lace prettily—and then,—nobody would be paid for designing it. To some extent, that will indeed be the result of modern endeavour to teach design. But against all such endeavours, mother-wit, in the end, will hold her own.
But anybody who has this mother-wit, may make the exercise of it more pleasant to themselves, and more useful to other people, by learning to draw.
An Indian worker in gold, or a Scandinavian worker in iron, or an old French worker in thread, could produce indeed beautiful design out of nothing but groups of knots and spirals: but you, when you are rightly educated, may render your knots and spirals infinitely more interesting by making them suggestive of natural forms, and rich in elements of true knowledge.
173. You know, for instance, the pattern which for centuries has been the basis of ornament in Indian shawls—the bulging leaf ending in a spiral. The Indian produces beautiful designs with nothing but that spiral. You cannot better his powers of design, but you may make them more civil and useful by adding knowledge of nature to invention.
Suppose you learn to draw rightly, and, therefore, to know correctly the spirals of springing ferns—not that you may give ugly names to all the species of them—but that you may understand the grace and vitality of every hour of their existence. Suppose you have sense and cleverness enough to translate the essential character of this beauty into forms expressible by simple lines—therefore expressible by thread—you might then have a series of fern-patterns which would each contain points of distinctive interest and beauty, and of scientific truth, and yet be variable by fancy, with quite as much ease as the meaningless Indian one. Similarly, there is no form of leaf, of flower, or of insect, which might not become suggestive to you, and expressible in terms of manufacture, so as to be interesting, and useful to others.
174. Only don't think that this kind of study will ever "pay" in the vulgar sense.
It will make you wiser and happier. But do you suppose that it is the law of God, or nature, that people shall be paid in money for becoming wiser and happier? They are so, by that law, for honest work; and as all honest work makes people wiser and happier, they are indeed, in some sort, paid in money for becoming wise.
But if you seek wisdom only that you may get money, believe me, you are exactly on the foolishest of all fools' errands. "She is more precious than rubies"—but do you think that is only because she will help you to buy rubies?