There is, I repeat, no degradation, no reproach in this, but all
dignity and honourableness: and we should err grievously in refusing
either to recognize as an essential character of the existing
architecture of the North, or to admit as a desirable character in that
which it yet may be, this wildness of thought, and roughness of work;
this look of mountain brotherhood between the cathedral and the Alp;
this magnificence of sturdy power, put forth only the more
energetically because the fine finger-touch was chilled away by the
frosty wind, and the eye dimmed by the moor-mist, or blinded by the
hail; this outspeaking of the strong spirit of men who may not gather
redundant fruitage from the earth, nor bask in dreamy benignity of
sunshine, but must break the rock for bread, and cleave the forest for
fire, and show, even in what they did for their delight, some of the
hard habits of the arm and heart that grew on them as they swung the
axe or pressed the plough.
If, however, the savageness of Gothic architecture, merely as an
expression of its origin among Northern nations, may be considered, in
some sort, a noble character, it possesses a higher nobility still,
when considered as an index, not of climate, but of religious
principle.
In the 13th and 14th paragraphs of Chapter XXL of the first volume of
this work, it was noticed that the systems of architectural ornament,
properly so called, might be divided into three:--1.
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