.

[9] All grandest effects in moldings may be, and for the most part have
been, obtained by rolls and cavettos of circular (segmental) section.
More refined sections, as that of the fluting of a Doric shaft, are only
of use near the eye and in beautiful stone; and the pursuit of them was
one of the many errors of later Gothic. The statement in the text that
the moldings, even of best time, "have no real relation to
construction," is scarcely strong enough: they in fact contend with, and
deny the construction, their principal purpose seeming to be the
concealment of the joints of the voussoirs.

[10] Some of the most precious work done for me by my assistant, Mr.
Burgess, during the course of these Lectures, consisted in making
enlarged drawings from portions of photographs. Plate III. is engraved
from a drawing of his, enlarged from the original photograph of which
Plate I. is a reduction.

LECTURE II.

IDOLATRY.

_November, 1870._

28. Beginning with the simple conception of sculpture as the art of
fiction in solid substance, we are now to consider what its subject
should be. What--having the gift of imagery--should we by preference
endeavor to image? A question which is, indeed, subordinate to the
deeper one--why we should wish to image anything at all.

29. Some years ago, having been always desirous that the education of
women should begin in learning how to cook, I got leave, one day, for a
little girl of eleven years old to exchange, much to her satisfaction,
her schoolroom for the kitchen. But as ill-fortune would have it, there
was some pastry toward, and she was left unadvisedly in command of some
delicately rolled paste; whereof she made no pies, but an unlimited
quantity of cats and mice.

Now you may read the works of the gravest critics of art from end to
end; but you will find, at last, they can give you no other true account
of the spirit of sculpture than that it is an irresistible human
instinct for the making of cats and mice, and other imitable living
creatures, in such permanent form that one may play with the images at
leisure.

Play with them, or love them, or fear them, or worship them. The cat may
become the goddess Pasht, and the mouse, in the hand of a sculptured
king, enforce his enduring words "[Greek: es eme tis horeon eusebes
esto]"; but the great mimetic instinct underlies all such purpose; and
is zooplastic,--life-shaping,--alike in the reverent and the impious.

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