The Wheelwright's Shop

"But no higher wage, no income, will buy for men that satisfaction which of old-until machinery made drudges of them-streamed into their muscles all day long from close contact with iron, timber, clay, wind and wave, horse strength. It tingled up in the niceties of touch, sight, scent. The very ears unawares received it, as when the plane went tapping in (under the mallet) to the hard ash with gentle sound. But these intimacies are over. Although they have so much more leisure men can now take little solace in life, of the sort the skilled handwork used to yield them."

The Wheelwright's shop, page 202, originally published 1930.

George Sturt