23 JANUARY 1948, Page 17

The Happy Craftsman Most people, as Horace and doubtless others

have pointed out, desire to swap occupations with someone else. Now I was talking with It village blacksmith, who is a born artist, sprung of a long line of artists, and I said that of all choices I should like best to be a craftsman ; and he said to me: " I do wish I were a scholard." But he loves his craft ; and at the moment is engaged for months ahead in the making of iron gates, to the exclusion of most other work. They are things of real beauty, in design as well as workmanship. In his view the crime of crimes, the sin in the soul, is to use a file to redress the work of the hammer. What is a craftsman? Perhaps a man who achieves beauty by aiming at utility. Even my cross-cut saw is more beautiful after he has set iL As you look :long the line of points you see a perfectly symmetric avenue to be achieved only by an inherited delicacy of eye and touch.