TREES IN ARCHITECTURE 185 



and also with strict accuracy, when he says, 

 as already noted, that the Gothic buildings 

 ** wreathed themselves into the semblance of 

 summer woods at their fairest". The sem- 

 blance is much nearer to winter woods at 

 their barest ; for the woods are never much 

 if any barer of foliage than are the piers, col- 

 umns and vaulting shafts of our Gothic build- 

 ings. The point beyond which the imitation 

 of life in architectural structure and decoration 

 may not legitimately go may be difficult to fix, 

 but assuredly it is a long way short of literal- 

 ness. The lotus, papyrus and other vegetable- 

 formed columns of Egypt would have been a 

 mistake apart from their religious significance ; 

 and the Caryatid columns of Greece — human 

 figures bearing a massive entablature and 

 cornice — were little short of barbarism, apart 

 from a similar intention. 



We ought not then, in a Gothic building, to 

 feel as if we were in a forest ; but our pleasure 

 in the beauty of the architecture may rightly be 

 increased because it has in it some of the ele- 

 ments of forest -beauty. Kingsley thought that 

 Ruskin did not go far enough when he said 

 that the form of the cusped arch was not *'in- 



