CH. VI THE LAMP OF MEMORY 229

another head;¹ but, at all events, with such differences as might suit and express each man’s character and occupation, and partly his history. This right over the house, I conceive, belongs to its first builder, and is to be respected by his children; and it would be well that blank stones should be left in places, to be inscribed with a summary of his life and of its experience, raising thus the habitation into a kind of monument, and developing, into more systematic instructiveness, that good custom which was of old universal, and which still remains among some of the Swiss and Germans, of acknowledging the grace of God’s permission to build and possess a quiet resting-place, in such sweet words as may well close our speaking of these things. I have taken them from the front of a cottage lately built among the green pastures which descend from the village of Grindelwald to the lower glacier :-

“Mit herzlichem Vertrauen

Hat Johannes Mooter und Maria Rubi

Dieses Haus bauen lassen.

Der liebe Gott woll uns bewahren

Vor allem Unglück und Gefahren,

Und es in Segen lassen stehn

Auf der Reise durch diese Jammerzeit

Nach dem himmlischen Paradiese,

Wo alle Frommen wohnen,

Da wird Gott sie belohnen

Mit der Friedenskrone

Zu alle Ewigkeit.”²

§ 7. In public buildings the historical purpose should be still more definite. It is one of the advantages of Gothic architecture,-I use the word Gothic in the most extended sense as broadly opposed to classical,-that it admits of a richness of record altogether unlimited. Its minute and multitudinous sculptural decorations afford means of expressing, either symbolically or literally, all that need be known

¹ [See below, ch. vii. § 3, pp. 251-252.]

² [The inscription may be thus literally translated:-“With heartfelt trust Have Johannes Mooter and Maria Rubi Had this house built. The dear God will shield us From all misfortune and danger, And let it stand in blessedness On the journey, through this time of sorrow, To the heavenly Paradise, Where all good people dwell, There will God reward them With the Crown of Peace To all eternity.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]