Civilization and Decay 349 



ject could. It is difficult to write of a fortress and 

 make a pen-picture which will always stay in the 

 mind ; yet this is what Mr. Adams has done in deal- 

 ing with the grim religious castles, terrible in size 

 and power, which were built by the Knights of the 

 Temple and the Hospital as bulwarks against Sara- 

 cen might. He is not only a scholar of much re- 

 search, but a student of art, who is so much more 

 than a mere student as to be thrilled and possessed 

 by what he studies. He shows, with a beauty and 

 vigor of style not unbecoming his subject, how pro- 

 foundly the art of Europe was affected by the Cru- 

 sades. It is not every one who can write with equal 

 interest of sacred architecture and military engineer- 

 ing, who can appreciate alike the marvels of Gothic 

 cathedrals and the frowning strength of feudal for- 

 tresses, and who furthermore can trace their inter- 

 relation. 



The story of the taking of Constantinople by the 

 Crusaders who followed the lead of the blind Doge 

 Dandolo is told with an almost brutal ruthlessness 

 quite befitting the deed itself. Nowhere else in the 

 book is Mr. Adams happier in his insistence upon 

 the conflict between what he calls the economic and 

 the imaginative spirits. The incident sets well with 

 his favorite theory of the inevitable triumph of the 

 economic over the imaginative man, as societies 

 grow centralized and the no less inevitable fossiliza- 

 tion and ruin of the body politic which this very tri- 

 umph itself ultimately entails. The history of the 

 English conquest of India is only less vividly told. 



