194 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

and I do not know anything more oppressive, when the mind is once awakened to its characteristics, than the aspect of a dead architecture. The feebleness of childhood is full of promise and of interest,-the struggle of imperfect knowledge full of energy and continuity,-but to see impotence and rigidity settling upon the form of the developed man; to see the types which once had the die of thought struck fresh upon them, worn flat by over use; to see the shell of the living creature in its adult form, when its colours are faded, and its inhabitant perished,-this is a sight more humiliating, more melancholy, than the vanishing of all knowledge, and the return to confessed and helpless infancy.

Nay, it is to be wished that such return were always possible. There would be hope if we could change palsy into puerility; but I know not how far we can become children again, and renew our lost life. The stirring which has taken place in our architectural aims and interests within these few years,¹ is thought by many to be full of promise: I trust it is, but it has a sickly look to me.* I cannot tell whether it be indeed a springing of seed or a shaking among bones; and I do not think the time will be lost which I ask the reader to spend in the inquiry, how far all that we have hitherto ascertained or conjectured to be best in principle, may be formally practised without the spirit or the vitality which alone could give it influence, value, or delightfulness.

* I am glad to see I had so much sense, thus early;-if only I had had just a little more, and stopped talking, how much life-of the vividest-I might have saved from expending itself in useless sputter, and kept for careful pencil work! I might have had every bit of St. Mark’s and Ravenna drawn by this time. What good this wretched rant of a book can do still, since people ask for it, let them make of it; but I don’t see what it’s to be. The only living art now left in England is Bill-sticking. [1880.]

¹ [Previous to 1848, it must be remembered. Historians of modern British architecture generally take 1851 as the date of a new era: see, e.g., James Fergusson’s History of the Modern Styles of Architecture, vol. i. p. v. But there had been some “stirring” before that date; shown, for instance, in the incorporation (1837) of the Society of British Architects, and in the large amount of interest taken in the rebuilding and decoration of the Houses of Parliament (commenced in 1840). The “Gothic revival” had also been started, in part by the writings of Pugin (for whom, see Modern Painters, vol. iii. app. iii.).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]