The following is excerpted from “Honest Labour.” This column was first published in The Woodworker in 1949 – please excuse the gendered terms as a product of their time.
Woodworkers deal in the very kindest of materials, the friendly, living wood. I think there can hardly have been a time when men were not tree lovers, for even if we go right back to the time when cave men piled brushwood on their fires to scare away prowling beasts, the living trees had always something to offer man. It is almost as if some sense of kinship, some sense of “mystery in the trees,” comes to us when we view sturdy trunks bearing witness to lives which long outlast our brief span bearing on them the scars of their own struggle for existence and hidden in their innermost being the life rings which make up the tally of the years. Not without awe does one see them when a tree has been felled and its life secret is bared as we count the annual rings. Two hundred? Why this tree was a slim sapling when Dr. Johnson was rising to fame in the literary world of the eighteenth century, when the Stewart cause was going down in final defeat at Culloden Moor and North America was still only a little group of English Colonies contested with the French. And here in this wide ring was a good year in which the tree grew apace, and here was a wild, cold, hard year when life was a battle for survival and growth was slow, a year which toughened the limbs and sent roots digging down deeply into the soil to keep the tree in heart.
•••
No wonder trees are an ever-recurring theme in literature and art, especially in English literature and art, because here in this miniature land of ours they have a character and individuality which are one with the landscape and yet help to give it an infinite variety. So many trees, those which are native—the oak, the ash, the thorn, beloved of Kipling, the yew of churchyards that bred the mighty bow of Agincourt, the poplars and their “whispering, cool colonnade,” the beech for restful shade and the turned bowl; and those others, imported through the centuries till now they seem at home on our soil as on their own familiar ground—the plane trees which have become such a typical feature of London, the walnut, originally a native of the far Himalayas, the lovely, symmetrical horse chestnut which in the springtime gladdens the eyes of suburban dwellers with its flame-like blossom, the larches and the firs in dreaming blue copses—all have something to give. No wonder that our two great countrymen painters, John Constable and John Crome, responded with such wonderfully intimate studies of trees. No hazy splashes of colour for them, but careful, loving work showing the trees in their own individual character, growth and structure, so that at once one may know them for what they are, elms, poplars, willows, oaks, rejoicing in the light and air, with the wind whispering through their branches.
•••
In one of Hardy’s novels, The Woodlanders, an old man becomes ill through fear of a tree which stands outside his cottage and which, in his sick fancy, he sees threatening him. It was planted on the day he was born, he says, and has human sense and has grown up to rule him and make a slave of him. When reasoning fails, his doctor orders the tree to be cut down, unknown to the sick man, and the elm of the same birth year as the old woodman is brought to the ground as silently as skilful hands can contrive it. But the next morning, when the old man sees the vacant patch of sky where once the lattice of the tree had been he has a stroke and, after lingering all day, dies as the sun goes down. “Damned if my remedy hasn’t killed him,” murmurs the doctor. Although mercifully one need not anticipate quite such devastating results from a tree felling, to see a mighty tree brought low by the woodman’s axe does induce a feeling of regretful sadness. Here was a living sentient thing which could, if we are to believe the poets and our own imaginations, take pleasure in the sun and rain and the life it lived. And now this is the end.
•••
But is it really so? Isn’t the life that is ended only one part of the story? Rather it means that new life is beginning, one which will take a new direction in house or ship or barn or fence. Maybe a century or more of growth has formed the oak which has gone into our gateposts, and they may still be standing when we ourselves are no more. It is a humbling thought, and yet because there is so strange a parallel between man’s life and the life of a tree there is comfort in it too. So often in life we feel that everything for us is over when plans we made and rejoiced in have been axed at the root. But it may be something which only seems the end and is a beginning, opening up new, unlooked-for possibilities at present hidden from us. There is much more of a pattern in life than we are often ready to credit, it unfolds so slowly. That is what makes youth so difficult a time. If its joys are keen, so are its sorrows. For youth cannot abide frustration and takes it so hardly when plans go awry. But if we will but possess our souls in patience, opportunity comes again in full cycle, not the less because it comes along unexpected paths. It is something the woodworker will understand better than most. He knows the living wood, knows how generously it gives in the patient hands of a craftsman, and that the real end comes only with decay. Life is not always a woodland dream, but it has its moments. And if we keep our belief in it to the end, some of them will be great moments.
I loved this! Thank you for sharing it.
Words cannot express how much I love that book and the diamonds of wisdom it contains. Just an incredible read. The best $37 I have ever spent. A job well done LAP.
Your need to apologize for the “gendering terms” saddens me.
Get over it, Bill.
Why is your comment ok, but his is not? Seems a bit hypocritical.
Yeah, pretty absurd
“Gendered terms”. Enough already. This is “triggering” me. I love the woodworking. The rest is just juvenile.
A perfect read for a slow Sunday morning. Thanks!
I love you guys, I really do. I hope my use of a gendered term doesn’t diminish the sentiment. You are the best source for quality woodworking literature I know of and this free blog is just icing on the cake of the growing library of great books you have brought to market. I don’t care what your politics are or who you want to support with your financial resources. I come here and buy your books to get away from all things woke and immerse myself in woodworking. I can’t help but believe most others feel the same.. Thank you for brightening an often dark world.
I would agree. The publications are amazing and the woodworking is inspiring. The rest is fatiguing.
Perfect. Time for so many of us to wake up and remember to laugh when we can and smile when we can’t.
An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
John W. Gardner, Excellence
My dad was a plumber and always said do what you do right so you don’t have to come back. Probably read Hayward.
Very well expressed, sir. Eloquent.
I offer the following not as an attempt to provoke but rather as a sort of gentle counter to the current slightly 1984-ish atmosphere which makes people feel that it is necessary to write things like “… please excuse the gendered terms as a product of their time”.
In my opinion there is no need to excuse them whatsoever. They were normal for their time in polite, civilised discourse and I think that that is the point. It’s not what you say or write but the intention behind it. It is obvious from his writings that Mr Hayward was a kindly and greatly humane man and it is equally clear that he expressed himself according to the civilised conventions of his day.
I imagine that even the dimmest sociology professor is capable of understanding that things were different in the past. People do not need shepherding and in my experience, most of our fellow humans are reasonable and understanding people and I suspect that they will not find it necessary to excuse anything about Mr Hayward’s gentle musings.
I think the acknowledgement of the gendered language is important, especially for those who feel that they are not represented in contemporary woodworking or are new to the field.
LAP could have edited the language to make it more PC for modern audience. No one would have noticed, but it would have been disingenuous to the original author. First, LAP seems to recognize the value of the creator and their art (be it words or wood). Second, LAP strives to reach a broad audience by making woodworking accessible and approachable. If that includes a bigger tent (and thereby a bigger market), then so be it.
However, to mock efforts at inclusivity run contrary to the discussion guidelines of “Be kind or be gone.”
I’m honestly surprised those comments even made it past the moderation process. It’s sad that attempts to be inclusive and welcoming get people so angry, but anger does seem to fuel so much of the conversation these days. And getting angry is so much easier than, say, thinking.
Our policy is to let people have their say whenever possible. I have deleted maybe 10 comments in 15 years of blogging.
I delete comments that are libelous, hate speech or very profane. Occasionally we have someone who is just outright trolling with no other agenda except being a jerk. We ask them to go elsewhere. If they don’t, we ban them. This has happened three times in 15 years.
In general, we support free expression as much as possible. And we have thick skins.
It might be worth remembering that only a part of the modern audience would welcome the rewriting of old texts. I have no idea of how large or small that part would be but it is probably smaller than the adherents of PC would like and not as large as the opponents of PC would wish.
The reason that the notion of rewriting worries me so much is that it implies that modern people are not to be exposed to reality and then to be allowed to come to their own conclusions under their own steam. There is also the question of who should be given the role of The Censor. It is not for no reason that we have a free press and freedom of expression in the western world. Give people the freedom to express themselves and they have to be prepared to be judged in the court of public opinion. I can think of no justification whatsoever for trying to airbrush history and the idea of rewriting the harmless works of Mr Hayward would be a mild example of that.
Even though this is a minor issue in the gentle world of woodworking, it goes right to the heart of democracy. A chap once famously said: “I may not agree with what you say but I am prepared to fight to the death for your right to say it”. It seems to me that that principle is more important than any views that you, I or anybody else may hold. The politically correct, the woke etc. worry me greatly (irrespective of how well-intentioned they are and of the extent to which I may or may not agree with them) because they constantly gnaw at this principle rather like woodworm in a beautiful piece of walnut. To cave in to them is to invite Orwell’s nightmarish vision to become unbearable reality.
There are limits to freedom of expression of course but they should be set widely and generously. I note below that the LAP has only banned 3 people in 15 years. That indicates two things: first a banning here is probably well and truly deserved and second this is still a haven where the above-quoted principle is adhered to.
Finally, as this is an overtly political post, I would understand were the LAP to delete it. I think it will also be my last contribution on this particular matter as I’m sure that we all don’t want a massive row to ensue and there is always a danger of that when this subject rears its head.
Most if not all of the folks at LAP try to make this corner of the woodworking world inviting to almost everybody, and I appreciate that. First, it’s simply good manners. More selfishly, we all gain when we see different perspectives and approaches to issues both aesthetic and technical.