ness in your street architecture, as of additional comfort and
delight in the interiors of your rooms.

27. Thirdly, as respects windows which do not project. You will find
that the proposal to build them with pointed arches is met by an
objection on the part of your architects, that you cannot fit them with
comfortable sashes. I beg leave to tell you that such an objection is
utterly futile and ridiculous. I have lived for months in Gothic
palaces, with pointed windows of the most complicated forms, fitted with
modern sashes; and with the most perfect comfort. But granting that the
objection were a true one--and I suppose it is true to just this extent,
that it may cost some few shillings more per window in the first
instance to set the fittings to a pointed arch than to a square
one--there is not the smallest necessity for the _aperture_ of the
window being of the pointed shape. Make the uppermost or bearing arch
pointed only, and make the top of the window square, filling the
interval with a stone shield, and you may have a perfect school of
architecture, not only consistent with, but eminently conducive to,
every comfort of your daily life. The window in Oakham Castle (_fig._ 2)
is an example of such a form as actually employed in the thirteenth
century; and I shall have to notice another in the course of next
lecture.

28. Meanwhile, I have but one word to say, in conclusion. Whatever has
been advanced in the course of this evening, has rested on the
assumption that all architecture was to be of brick and stone; and may
meet with some hesitation in its acceptance, on account of the probable
use of iron, glass, and such other materials in our future edifices. I
cannot now enter into any statement of the possible uses of iron or
glass, but I will give you one reason, which I think will weigh strongly
with most here, why it is not likely that they will ever become
important elements in architectural effect. I know that I am speaking to
a company of philosophers, but you are not philosophers of the kind who
suppose that the Bible is a superannuated book; neither are you of those
who think the Bible is dishonored by being referred to for judgment in
small matters. The very divinity of the Book seems to me, on the
contrary, to justify us in referring _every_ thing to it, with respect
to which any conclusion can be gathered from its pages. Assuming then
that the Bible is neither superannuated now, nor ever likely to be s