§72,73. THE POINTED STYLE. 291 



condition so much required. How fanciful, then, is the idea, 

 now so often repeated by those theorists who appear to look 

 upon architecture as if it were part of religion, that the pointed 

 style is especially Christian. It was neither exclusively, nor 

 even originally, Christian. 



73. Mr. Kuskin makes a very just remark respecting "the 

 system of aspiration, so-called, which the German critics have 

 so ingeniously and falsely ascribed to a devotional sentiment 

 pervading the Northern-Gothic." He "entirely and boldly" 

 denies " the whole theory ;" and adds, " our cathedrals were for 

 the most part built by worldly people, who loved the world, 

 and would have gladly stayed in it for ever ; whose best hope 

 was the escaping hell, which they thought to do by building 

 cathedrals, but who had very vague conceptions of heaven in 

 general, and very feeble desires respecting their entrance 

 therein ; and the form of the spired cathedral has no more 

 intentional reference to heaven, as distinguished from the flat- 

 tened slope of the Greek pediment, than the steep gable of a 

 Norman house has, as distinguished from the flat roof of a 

 Syrian one. We may now, with ingenious pleasure, trace 

 such symbolic characters in the form ; we may now use it with 

 a definite meaning ; but we only prevent ourselves from all 

 right understanding of history, by attributing much influence 

 to these poetical symbolisms in the formation of a national 

 style. The human race are, for the most part, not to be 

 moved by such silken cords ; and the chances of damp in the 

 cellar, or of loose tiles on the roof, have, unhappily, much 

 more to do with the fashions of a man's house building than 

 his ideas of celestial happiness or angelic virtue." (" Stones 

 of Venice," i. p. 146.) 



Analogous to this is the idea of blue being " the colour of 

 humility ;" but I hope to be pardoned if I ask whether it is in 

 connexion with blue stockings, blue beard, or any other appli- 



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