“Quality” By John Galsworthy

                                                        "Quality" is a short story about passion and art. When your work is your hobby and your hobby is your passion, it transforms into a thing of beauty, it becomes an art and you become the master. Mr. Gessler is the incarnation of this passion and his dedication to his craft of shoemaking is a thing of beauty. 

                    I can just imagine how customers must've fallen in love with his boots, perhaps Gessler even made boots for dandified/dapper gentleman or two.  I can just imagine how customers must've fallen in love with his boots, perhaps Gessler even made boots for dandified/ dapper gentleman or two. 

                    When questioned about his craft by the Narrator… "Isn't it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?" And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonic redness of his beard: "Id is an Ardt"! Yes, art is hard! It's also painful, you'll experience many sorrow but the result is worth it. Just as long as you don't abandon yourself and the world while doing it. 

                    While reading I realised it is hard to separate Mr. Gessler from his work because it encompasses his personality. And if the saying is true that people look like their pets after a while, then Mr. Gessler is the embodiment of his craft...

'Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellow crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard; and neat folds slanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and his guttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance, and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of his face, save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them the simple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal.'

                 He also takes quite pride in putting his heart and soul into his work, turning pieces of leather into pairs of boots fit for royalty, lovingly made and customized for each patron's feet as if it were its soul mate.

              'Those pairs could only have been made by one who saw before him the Soul of Boot--so truly were they prototypes incarnating the very spirit of all foot-gear.'

                         

                I also really love how the character's personality, quirks and accent jump out at you and there is a subtle humour in the story. The nuance of Mr Gessler's character is seen through, the description of his face, his shop, his boots, his work ethic and in his interaction with the narrator and also in his relationship with his older brother. For example, the older brother's answer to customer inquiry..."I will ask my brudder!"

               like a true artist, Mr Gessler has many strange and endearing quirks and one of them is that...
'He would never have tolerated in his house leather on which he had not worked himself.' 

                It is hard not to admire someone who is hard on himself, extremely disciplined, so dedicated to his work in order to produce something beautiful, useful, long lasting and admirable. Sadly, in 1911 he was becoming a relic in world desperate for modernization, mass production and quick satisfaction at the cost of quality. 

                This story appeals to the part of me that loves made to last quality items, it reminded me of the times I've railed against newly bought products that stopped working or fell apart quickly just after the guarantee ran out, as if the makers conspired in order for you to buy more. Which they probably did.

              This short story is so beautiful, deep and inspiring to me and with an economy of words (which I can only admire) the author paints an unforgettable character and makes a point about the importance and cost of taking pride in your work and making something of Quality , and I loved that.