Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/114

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Furniture.

unfortunate man (frequently a good and sufficient craftsman) whose ill hap it was to be obliged to make them, and vexed the soul of the equally unfortunate purchaser.

The introduction of machinery for moulding, which left only the fitting and polishing to be done by the craftsman, and which enabled manufacturers to produce two or three cabinets in the time formerly occupied in the making of one, was all against the quality and stability of the work. No good work was ever done in a hurry: the craftsman may be rapid, but his rapidity is the result of very deliberate thought, and not of hurry. Good furniture, however, cannot be made rapidly. All wood, no matter how long it is kept, nor how dry it may be superficially, will always shrink again when cut into.

It follows that the longer the interval

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