The vital principle is not the love of
_Knowledge_, but the love of _Change_. It is that strange _disquietude_
of the Gothic spirit that is its greatness; that restlessness of the
dreaming mind, that wanders hither and thither among the niches, and
flickers feverishly around the pinnacles, and frets and fades in
labyrinthine knots and shadows along wall and roof, and yet is not
satisfied, nor shall be satisfied. The Greek could stay in his triglyph
furrow, and be at peace; but the work of the Gothic heart is fretwork
still, and it can neither rest in, nor from, its labour, but must pass
on, sleeplessly, until its love of change shall be pacified for ever in
the change that must come alike on them that wake and them that
sleep....
Last, because the least essential, of the constituent elements of this
noble school, was placed that of REDUNDANCE,--the uncalculating
bestowal of the wealth of its labour. There is, indeed, much Gothic,
and that of the best period, in which this element is hardly traceable,
and which depends for its effect almost exclusively on loveliness of
simple design and grace of uninvolved proportion; still, in the most
characteristic buildings, a certain portion of their effect depends
upon accumulation of ornament; and many of those which have most
influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means of this
attribute alone.
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