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our eye full of the flaring colors of the street, be patient 

 and wait for the object to glide into our mind, which one 

 day it will do. It cannot be forced, and art is too deli- 

 cate a thing to be captured coup de main. Our knowledge 

 shifts, and taste winnows. It is a step, a gradation. 

 Judgment at last becomes secure, and perception rapid. 

 Coleridge said, "every great artist creates the taste by 

 which he is appreciated." He brings something new into 

 the world, his genius. He must instruct us, not we him. 

 He can teach us to see what we did not see before. 



The Greek mind drew all nature into itself, distilled it 

 in the alembic of its imagination, and gave it forth sim- 

 ply as form. Hence the perfection of that form. The 

 northern, Christian, and later mind, feels nature mysti- 

 cally, sympathetically, and does not attempt to embody, 

 personify, reduce to form. Gothic architecture is the 

 greatest fruit of this feeling. It represents the infinite, 

 strives after it, is filled with it. It is unending, flexible, 

 emotional, spiritual. It is a life and literature in stone. 

 For three centuries all that men felt and knew went to it. 

 It created the grotesque. A gray mist of stone, it grows 

 into marvellous life under our eye. It is peopled with 

 Calibans and Midsummer Night's Dreams. It suggests 

 something beyond itself. The Greek did what he felt, 

 the Goth felt what he could not do. The Greek is one 

 intense concentration, fired with the beauty of the world, 

 drawn from all experience, the genius of nature made 

 manifest. The Roman arch expresses dominion, security, 

 serenity, beauty. The Gothic emotion, restless but as- 

 piring, ever pointing upward. The Roman arch, law, 

 the Gothic, religion. Hence the sublime impulse of the 

 northern churches. 



St. Peter's fails of effect from this cause. It is prosaic, 

 though huge. You have to accustom yourself to it to 



