Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

“My boy,” returned my father, “you must not judge by the work, but by the work in connection with the surroundings.  Could Giotto or Filippo Lippi, think you, have got a picture into the Exhibition?  Would a single one of those frescoes we went to see when we were at Padua have the remotest chance of being hung, if it were sent in for exhibition now?  Why, the Academy people would be so outraged that they would not even write to poor Giotto to tell him to come and take his fresco away.  Phew!” continued he, waxing warm, “if old Pontifex had had Cromwell’s chances he would have done all that Cromwell did, and have done it better; if he had had Giotto’s chances he would have done all that Giotto did, and done it no worse; as it was, he was a village carpenter, and I will undertake to say he never scamped a job in the whole course of his life.” “But,” said I, “we cannot judge people with so many ‘ifs.’  If old Pontifex had lived in Giotto’s time he might have been another Giotto, but he did not live in Giotto’s time.” “I tell you, Edward,” said my father with some severity, “we must judge men not so much by what they do, as by what they make us feel that they have it in them to do.