on. Secondly, because there
are countless methods of expression, some conventional, some natural:
each conventional mode has its own alphabet, which evidently can be no
subject of general laws. Every natural mode is instinctively employed
and instinctively understood, wherever there is true feeling; and this
instinct is above law. The choice of conventional methods depends on
circumstances out of calculation, and that of natural methods on
sensations out of control; so that we can only say that the choice is
right, when we feel that the means are effective; and we cannot always
say that it is wrong when they are not so.

A building which recorded the Bible history by means of a series of
sculptural pictures, would be perfectly useless to a person unacquainted
with the Bible beforehand; on the other hand, the text of the Old and
New Testaments might be written on its walls, and yet the building be a
very inconvenient kind of book, not so useful as if it had been adorned
with intelligible and vivid sculpture. So, again, the power of exciting
emotion must vary or vanish, as the spectator becomes thoughtless or
cold; and the building may be often blamed for what is the fault of its
critic, or endowed with a charm which is of its spectator's creation. It
is not, therefore, possible to make expressional character any fair
criterion of excellence in buildings, until we can fully place ourselves
in the position of those to whom their expression was originally
addressed, and until we are certain that we understand every symbol, and
are capable of being touched by every association which its builders
employed as letters of their language. I shall continually endeavor to
put the reader into such sympathetic temper, when I ask for his judgment
of a building; and in every work I may bring before him I shall point
out, as far as I am able, whatever is peculiar in its expression; nay, I
must even depend on such peculiarities for much of my best evidence
respecting the character of the builders. But I cannot legalize the
judgment for which I plead, nor insist upon it if it be refused. I can
neither force the reader to feel this architectural rhetoric, nor compel
him to confess that the rhetoric is powerful, if it have produced no
impression on his own mind.

Sec. III. I leave, therefore, the expression of buildings for incidental
notice only. But their other two virtues are proper subjects of
law,--their performance of their common an