shade with light
which, in equal succession, forms one of the chief elements of
_continuous_ ornament, and in some peculiar ones, such as dentils and
billet mouldings, is the source of their only charm. The opposition of
good and evil, the antagonism of the entire human system (so ably worked
out by Lord Lindsay), the alternation of labor with rest, the mingling
of life with death, or the actual physical fact of the division of light
from darkness, and of the falling and rising of night and day, are all
typified or represented by these chains of shade and light of which the
eye never wearies, though their true meaning may never occur to the
thoughts.

Sec. XXXIV. The next question respecting the arrangement of ornament is
one closely connected also with its quantity. The system of creation is
one in which "God's creatures leap not, but express a feast, where all the
guests sit close, and nothing wants." It is also a feast, where there is
nothing redundant. So, then, in distributing our ornament, there must
never be any sense of gap or blank, neither any sense of there being a
single member, or fragment of a member, which could be spared. Whatever
has nothing to do, whatever could go without being missed, is not
ornament; it is deformity and encumbrance. Away with it. And, on the
other hand, care must be taken either to diffuse the ornament which we
permit, in due relation over the whole building, or so to concentrate
it, as never to leave a sense of its having got into knots, and curdled
upon some points, and left the rest of the building whey. It is very
difficult to give the rules, or analyse the feelings, which should
direct us in this matter: for some shafts may be carved and others left
unfinished, and that with advantage; some windows may be jewelled like
Aladdin's, and one left plain, and still with advantage; the door or
doors, or a single turret, or the whole western facade of a church, or
the apse or transept, may be made special subjects of decoration, and
the rest left plain, and still sometimes with advantage. But in all such
cases there is either sign of that feeling which I advocated in the
First Chapter of the "Seven Lamps," the desire of rather doing some
portion of the building as we would have it, and leaving the rest plain,
than doing the whole imperfectly; or else there is choice made of some
important feature, to which, as more honorable than the rest, the
decoration is confined. The evil is when,