CH. VII THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE 259

exquisite decorated Gothic of France, of which, in such cases, it would be needful to accept some well-known examples, as the North door of Rouen¹ and the church of St. Urbain at Troyes,² for final and limiting authorities on the side of decoration.

APHORISM 33. The glory and use of restraint.³

§ 8. It is almost impossible for us to conceive, in our present state of doubt and ignorance, the sudden dawn of intelligence and fancy, the rapidly increasing sense of power and facility, and, in its proper sense, of Freedom, which such wholesome restraint would instantly cause throughout the whole circle of the arts. Freed from the agitation and embarrassment of that liberty of choice which is the cause of half the discomforts of the world; freed from the accompanying necessity of studying all past, present, or even possible styles; and enabled, by concentration of individual, and co-operation of multitudinous energy, to penetrate into the uttermost secrets of the adopted style, the architect would find his whole understanding enlarged, his practical knowledge certain and ready to hand, and his imagination playful and vigorous, as a child’s would be within a walled garden,⁴ who would sit down and shudder if he were left free in a fenceless plain. How many and how bright would be the results in every direction of interest, not to the arts merely, but to national happiness and virtue, it would be as difficult to preconceive as it would seem extravagant to state: but the first, perhaps the least, of

¹ [For which see above, pp. 89, 216.]

² [The Church of St. Urbain was founded by Pope Urban IV., son of a shoemaker of Troyes (1261-1266) on the site of his father’s house. It was never finished beyond the choir and nave, and has now been restored. Ruskin went to Troyes on his way home in 1846, and made “notes on the external tracery of St. Urbain, which fixed that church for me as the highest type of Gothic construction, and took me off all Italian models for the next four years” (Præterita, ii. ch. x. § 191). M. Viollet le Duc endorses Ruskin’s opinion of the church. “L’église S. Urbain est certainement,” he says, “la dernière limite à laquelle la construction de pierre puisse atteindre, et, comme composition architectonique, c’est un chef-d’œuvre.” It contains, also, some fine glass, which Ruskin noted in his diary.]

³ [The text of this aphorism, in black-letter in the 1880 edition, is from “It is almost impossible for us ...” down to “endeavour to trace them further.”]

⁴ [As was the case with Ruskin himself as a child, within the walled garden at Herne Hill: see Præterita, vol. i. ch. ii. (“Herne Hill Apple Blossoms”).]

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