CH. VI THE LAMP OF MEMORY 231

the line of the angle, and diminished its apparent strength; and therefore in the midst of them, entirely without relation to them, and indeed actually between the executioner and interceding mother, there rises the ribbed trunk of a massy tree, which supports and continues the shaft of the angle, and whose leaves above overshadow and enrich the whole. The capital below bears among its leafage a throned figure of Justice, Trajan doing justice to the widow, Aristotle “che die legge,” and one or two other subjects now unintelligible from decay.¹ The capitals next in order represent the virtues and vices in succession, as preservative or destructive of national peace and power, concluding with Faith, with the inscription “Fides optima in Deo est.” A figure is seen on the opposite side of the capital, worshipping the sun. After these, one or two capitals are fancifully decorated with birds (Plate V.), and then come a series representing, first the various fruits, then the national costumes, and then the animals of the various countries subject to Venetian rule.²

§ 8. Now, not to speak of any more important public building, let us imagine our own India House³ adorned in this way, by historical or symbolical sculpture: massively built in the

¹ [This is capital No. 36 in the Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 127, where the inscription is given as “Aristot * * che die lege” (“Aristotle who declares law”).]

² [The MS. continues (with reference to a further intended illustration):-

“I have given one of the simplest of the first capitals in fig.-. I am sorry that I have not a drawing of its opposite side, for the group of figs. which appear upon it are expressed with peculiar truth, though by few and simple lines. They look flaccid and breaking with ripeness. The peaches have tried the sculptor, but they are like peaches; and the modesty of the intitular inscription above is altogether unnecessary.”

The capital here referred to is No. 27 in the description in the Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 125, where Ruskin says that the names of the various fruits are inscribed above them, “somewhat unnecessarily, and with certainly as much disrespect to the beholder’s intelligence as the sculptor’s art.”]

³ [The old East India House in Leadenhall Street, pulled down in 1862, was in the classical style, with a portico of six large Ionic fluted columns on a raised basement. The pediment was an emblematic sculpture representing the commerce of the East protected by the King of Great Britain. The new Government Offices, including the India Office, were, it will be remembered, built-after a long “battle of the styles”-by Scott and Digby Wyatt in the Italian style. A good many sculptured figures were introduced-representing in the case of the India Office, various Indian tribes, with busts of British Indian worthies. A characteristic letter from Ruskin (August 18, 1859) on the battle of the styles above referred to is included in the privately printed volume of Letters upon Subjects of General Interest to Various Correspondents, 1892, p. 23, reprinted in a later volume of this edition.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]