re
Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields
are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, the streets and
roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood
and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly as if they were in the London
water-pipes. But the parish pump is carved with all the creatures out of
the wilderness. Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of
wild animals, but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music
that are more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast
at night. And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their
strength, seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the
primal mire, and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a
startled bird.

.....

This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in
humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man
who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever
undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild.
And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art,
it is also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts
of the world. This is what people really mean when they say that
Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of
historic fact, it didn't; it arose in the most equably civilised period
the world has ever seen.

But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline
of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the
blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses
of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is
primeval; there is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate
in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me
if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band.
I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely
approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children
shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in
the name of good taste. He said: "If these were silent the very stones
would cry out." With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic
creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words He
founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, which seems to
have grown Gothic