rificed in mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift
condemnation and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses, passes all
calculation. And the weight of the penalty is not yet felt; it will tell
upon our children some fifty years hence, when the cheap work, and
contract work, and stucco and plaster work, and bad iron work, and all
the other expedients of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to
show themselves for what they are.

[Illustration: Fig. XXXV.]

Sec. XLVIII. Indeed, dishonesty and false economy will no more build
safely in Gothic than in any other style: but of all forms which we could
possibly employ, to be framed hastily and out of bad materials, the
common square window is the worst; and its level head of brickwork (_a_,
Fig. XXXV.) is the weakest way of covering a space. Indeed, in the
hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there may be seen often even a
worse manner of placing the bricks, as at _b_, supporting them by a bit
of lath till the mortar dries; but even when worked with the utmost
care, and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir and
accurately fitted, I have seen such a window-head give way, and a wide
fissure torn through all the brickwork above it, two years after it was
built; while the pointed arch of the Veronese Gothic, wrought in brick
also, occurs at every corner of the streets of the city, untouched since
the thirteenth century, and without a single flaw.

Sec. XLIX. Neither can the objection, so often raised against the pointed
arch, that it will not admit the convenient adjustment of modern sashes
and glass, hold for an instant. There is not the smallest necessity,
because the arch is pointed, that the aperture should be so. The work of
the arch is to sustain the building above; when this is once done
securely, the pointed head of it may be filled in any way we choose. In
the best cathedral doors it is always filled by a shield of solid stone;
in many early windows of the best Gothic it is filled in the same
manner, the introduced slab of stone becoming a field for rich
decoration; and there is not the smallest reason why lancet windows,
used in bold groups, with each pointed arch filled by a sculptured
tympanum, should not allow as much light to enter, and in as convenient
a way, as the most luxuriously glazed square windows of our brick
houses. Give the groups of associated lights bold gabled canopies;
charge the gables with sculpture and