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e inspired by the frostwork wreathed upon its glittering point, and the Italian by the dark green depth of sunshine on the broad table of the stone-pine[52] (and consider by the way whether the spruce fir be a more heavenly-minded tree than those dark canopies of the Mediterranean isles). Sec. IX. Circumstance and sentiment, therefore, aiding each other, the steep roof becomes generally adopted, and delighted in, throughout the north; and then, with the gradual exaggeration with which every pleasant idea is pursued by the human mind, it is raised into all manner of peaks, and points, and ridges; and pinnacle after pinnacle is added on its flanks, and the walls increased in height, in proportion, until we get indeed a very sublime mass, but one which has no more principle of religious aspiration in it than a child's tower of cards. What is more, the desire to build high is complicated with the peculiar love of the grotesque[53] which is characteristic of the north, together with especial delight in multiplication of small forms, as well as in exaggerated points of shade and energy, and a certain degree of consequent insensibility to perfect grace and quiet truthfulness; so that a northern architect could not feel the beauty of the Elgin marbles, and there will always be (in those who have devoted themselves to this particular school) a certain incapacity to taste the finer characters of Greek art, or to understand Titian, Tintoret, or Raphael: whereas among the Italian Gothic workmen, this capacity was never lost, and Nino Pisano and Orcagna could have understood the Theseus in an instant, and would have received from it new life. There can be no question that theirs was the greatest school, and carried out by the greatest men; and that while those who began with this school could perfectly well feel Rouen Cathedral, those who study the Northern Gothic remain in a narrowed field--one of small pinnacles, and dots, and crockets, and twitched faces--and cannot comprehend the meaning of a broad surface or a grand line. Nevertheless the northern school is an admirable and delightful thing, but a lower thing than the southern. The Gothic of the Ducal Palace of Venice is in harmony with all that is grand in all the world: that of the north is in harmony with the grotesque northern spirit only. Sec. X. We are, however, beginning to lose sight of our roof structure in its spirit, and must return to our text. As the height of t
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