on the deep serenity of the
starry sky, and watch the fantastic shadows of the clustered arches
shorten in the moonlight on the chequered floor; or he may close the
casements fitted to their unshaken shafts against such wintry winds as
would have made an English house vibrate to its foundation, and, in
either case, compare their influence on his daily home feeling with that
of the square openings in his English wall.

Sec. XLVII. And let him be assured, if he find there is more to be enjoyed
in the Gothic window, there is also more to be trusted. It is the best
and strongest building, as it is the most beautiful. I am not now
speaking of the particular form of Venetian Gothic, but of the general
strength of the pointed arch as opposed to that of the level lintel of
the square window; and I plead for the introduction of the Gothic form
into our domestic architecture, not merely because it is lovely, but
because it is the only form of faithful, strong, enduring, and honorable
building, in such materials as come daily to our hands. By increase of
scale and cost, it is possible to build, in any style, what will last
for ages; but only in the Gothic is it possible to give security and
dignity to work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I trust
that there will come a time when the English people may see the folly of
building basely and insecurely. It is common with those architects
against whose practice my writings have hitherto been directed, to call
them merely theoretical and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a
single principle asserted either in the "Seven Lamps" or here, but is of
the simplest, sternest veracity, and the easiest practicability; that
buildings, raised as I would have them, would stand unshaken for a
thousand years; and the buildings raised by the architects who oppose
them will not stand for one hundred and fifty, they sometimes do not
stand for an hour. There is hardly a week passes without some
catastrophe brought about by the base principles of modern building;
some vaultless floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged
rents of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed away by
the first wave of a summer flood; some fungous wall of nascent
rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with its workmen into a heap
of slime and death.[96] These we hear of, day by day: yet these indicate
but the thousandth part of the evil. The portion of the national income
sac