in the persons of their employers.

What an endless variety of interruptions must have been common! all of a
kind eminently calculated to stimulate the imagination. Municipal
functions, religious festivals with their splendid gatherings and
processions, the exciting events of political contest, often carried to
the point of actual combat, to say nothing of the frequent Saint's day
holidays, enjoyed by the craftsman in jovial social intercourse. All and
every scene clothed in an outward dress of beauty, ranging from the
picturesque roughness of the village inn to the magnificent pageantry of
a nobleman's display, or the majestic surroundings of an archi-episcopal
reception.

From dreams of the past with its many-sided life and background of
serious beauty, we turn with feelings almost bordering on despair to the
possibilities of the present. Not only has the modern craftsman to
master the technicalities of his business, but he must become student as
well. No universally accepted form of his art offers him a ready-made
language; he is left fatally free to choose style, period, or
nationality, from examples of every conceivable kind of carving, in
museums, photographs, and buildings. As proud but distracted heir to
all, he may cultivate any one of them, from Chinese to the latest style
of exhibition art. For his studies he must travel half a dozen miles
before he can reach fields, trees, and animals in anything like
inspiring conditions. He must find in books and photographs the
botanical lineaments of foliage and flowers, of which he mainly seeks to
know the wild life and free growth. With but one short life allowed him
in which to make his poor effort in a single direction, he must yet
study the history of his craft, compare styles, and endeavor with all
the help he can get to shape some course for himself. Can he be assured
of selecting the right one, or out of the multitude of counselors and
contradictory views, is there not a danger of taking a false step? No
wonder, if in the cloudy obscurity of his doubts, he sometimes feels a
tired desire to abandon the problem as too intricate to be resolved.

CHAPTER XXVII

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF COOPERATION BETWEEN BUILDER AND CARVER

The Infinite Multiplicity of Styles--The "Gothic" Influence:
Sculpture an Integral Element in its Designs--The Approach of the
so-called "Renaissance" Period--Disturbed Convictions--The Revival
of the Classical Style