CH. II THE LAMP OF TRUTH 69

§ 11. The limit, however, thus determined, is an ultimate one, and it is well in all things to be cautious how we approach the utmost limit of lawfulness; so that, although the employment of metal within this limit cannot be considered as destroying the very being and nature of architecture, it will, if extravagant and frequent, derogate from the dignity of the work, as well as (which is especially to our present point) from its honesty. For although the spectator is not informed as to the quantity or strength of the cement employed, he will generally conceive the stones of the building to be separable; and his estimate of the skill of the architect will be based in great measure on the supposition of this condition, and of the difficulties attendant upon it:¹ so that it is always more honourable, and it has a tendency to render the style of architecture both more masculine and more scientific, to employ stone and mortar simply as such, and to do as much as possible with their mere weight and strength, and rather sometimes to forego a grace, or to confess a weakness, than attain the one, or conceal the other, by means verging upon dishonesty.²

in the crystalline structure of iron, or over its modes of decay. The definition of iron by the Delphic oracle, “calamity upon calamity” (meaning iron on the anvil), has only been in these last days entirely interpreted: and from the sinking of the Vanguard and London to the breaking Woolwich Pier into splinters-two days before I write this note,-the “anarchy of iron” is the most notable fact concerning it.3 [1880].

¹ [The MS. adds:-

“He does not imagine, in wondering at the slightness of the shafts of the window traceries, that there are iron rods through the body of them; nor as he looks up to the slender points of the uppermost pinnacles, that they are supported by stays from the roof. So that ...”]

² [The MS. adds:-

“There is a pretty little piece of confession of this kind in one of the open traceries which separate the lateral chapels of the cathedral of Coutances (Plate I., fig.-). A little iron would have saved the awkwardness of the prop at a; but the occurrence of this slight disfigurement, while it hardly affects the grace of the principal lines, both fixes the attention upon the difficulty of obtaining so great slenderness, and gives us perfect confidence through the rest of the designs in the simplicity and purity of their structure.”

The plate was never more than planned. The MS. adds a note to “introduce about the quatrefoil at Rouen.”]

³ [The 1880 edition here added, “See Appendix III.,” the reference being to the author’s note now given on p. 67, above. The definition of iron by the Delphic oracle is given in Herodotus (i. 68): phma epi phmati keimenon kata toionde ti eikaxwn,

[Version 0.04: March 2008]