i82 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



that ''the stony pillar grew slender and the 

 vaulted roof grew light, till they had wreathed 

 themselves into the semblance of the summer 

 woods at their fairest"? If the exaggeration 

 be pardonable, because of the beauty of the 

 thing respecting which it is made, it is still an 

 exaggeration. The Gothic interior did come 

 to bear a resemblance to the woods, but not to 

 bear the semblance of the summer woods at 

 their fairest. The Gothic builders, one hopes, 

 did not attempt this. They would have over- 

 stepped the limitations of their art had they 

 done so. It is one thing to be in a building — 

 a good thing if the building be beautiful ; it is 

 another and at least as good a thing to be 

 in the woods. To merge the distinguishing 

 qualities of one in those of the other would 

 merely be to have only one pleasure instead of 

 two. 



Kingsley seems to have regretted that this 

 was not done, for he says, in the lecture already 

 quoted : " The mediaeval architects were crip- 

 pled to the last by the tradition of artificial 

 Roman forms. They began improving them 

 into naturalness, without any clear notion of 

 what they wanted; and when that notion 



