On Thu, 3 Aug 2000, John Leeke, Preservation Consultant wrote:

> Steve Franks writes:
> > Greetings from Washington state.  I am on the preservation list serve and
> > appreciate your contributions to it.
> > Question:  who is the author of the quote you use ("by hammer and
> hand...")?
> > Sounds Roycroftian--is it Elbert Hubbard?
>
> Hi Steve !
>
> I guess you could say that I am the author, it certianly feels like it is
> mine. But, as with most things it is derivitive.
> I have been using "by hammer and hand great works do stand" as my personal
> motto since the late 1950s when I was growing up in my dad's woodworking
> shop. When ever I asked a question that stumped him he would reach up to the
> shelf over his bench and bring down his 1923 edition of Audels Carpenters
> and Builders Guide. On the title page of each volume of Audels is the
> saying, "by hammer and hand all things do stand," which I suspect is where I
> got the idea for my motto. (When I was revisions editor for the Audel series
> in the early 1990s I changed the original Audel's saying to my own motto.)
> However, similar sayings have been around for a lot longer. In 1970 I
> visited Winterthur Museum and studied the shop and
> tools of the Dominy craftsmen of 18th century East Hampton, NY.  Felix
> Dominy was a member of the New York Mechanick Society which had the motto
> "By Hammer & Hand All Arts Do Stand." Felix often paraphrased this as "With
> hammer in hand/ All Arts do stand/ All Arts do stand/ With hammer in hand."
>
> I have also notice that when I say my motto in front of a Mason (of the
> speculative variety) he will get a sparkle in his eyes and ask about it. So,
> I suspect there is something very similar in the Masonic rites and rituals.
>
> Recently I was in touch with a member of the current New York Mechnanic's
> Society who advised me that "By Hammer & Hand All Arts Do Stand" is still
> their motto.
>
> by hammer and hand great works do stand....
>
> It does sound like something any erstwhile tradesperson would pick up on,
> especially one who not only knows how his work is done, but also wonders
> why.
>
> John
> by hammer and hand great works do stand

I tried a web search, and turned up the following passage, from "The Good
Soldier", by Ford Madox Ford (1915):

    It was a frenzy that now I can hardly realize. I can understand it
    intellectually. You see, in those days I was interested in people with
    "hearts." There was Florence, there was Edward Ashburnham--or,
    perhaps, it was Leonora that I was more interested in. I don't mean in
    the way of love. But, you see, we were both of the. same
    profession--at any rate as I saw it. And the profession was that of
    keeping heart patients alive.

    You have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become. Just as
    the blacksmith says: "By hammer and hand all Art doth stand," just as
    the baker thinks that all the solar system revolves around his morning
    delivery of rolls, as the postmaster-general believes that he alone is
    the preserver of society--and surely, surely, these delusions are
    necessary to keep us going--so did I and, as I believed, Leonora,
    imagine that the whole world ought to be arranged so as to ensure the
    keeping alive of heart patients.

See: http://www.eldritchpress.org/fmf/gs.htm

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com