CH. II THE LAMP OF TRUTH 95

continual base of the central, or other larger, columns with which they were grouped; but it being felt, when the eye of the architect became fastidious, that the dimension of moulding which was right for the base of a large shaft, was wrong for that of a small one, each shaft had an independent base; at first, those of the smaller died simply down on that of the larger; but when the vertical sections of both became complicated, the bases of the smaller shafts were considered to exist within those of the larger, and the places of their emergence, on this supposition, were calculated with the utmost nicety, and cut with singular precision; so that an elaborate late base of a divided column, as, for instance, of those in the nave of Abbeville, looks exactly as if its smaller shafts had all been finished to the ground first, each with its complete and intricate base, and then the comprehending base of the central pier had been moulded over them in clay, leaving their points and angles sticking out here and there, like the edges of sharp crystals out of a nodule of earth. The exhibition of technical dexterity in work of this kind, is often marvellous, the strangest possible shapes of sections being calculated to a hair’s breadth, and the occurrence of the under and emergent forms being rendered, even in places where they are so slight that they can hardly be detected but by the touch. It is impossible to render a very elaborate example of this kind intelligible, without some fifty measured sections; but fig. 6, Plate IV., is a very interesting and simple one, from the west gate of Rouen.* It is part of the base of one of the narrow piers between its principal niches. The square column k, having a base with the profile p r, is supposed to contain within itself another similar one, set diagonally, and lifted so far

* Professor Willis was, I believe, the first modern who observed and ascertained the lost structural principles of Gothic architecture. His book above referred to (§ 21) taught me all my grammar of central Gothic, but this grammar of the flamboyant I worked out for myself, and wrote it here, supposing the statements new: all had, however, been done previously by Professor Willis, as he afterwards pointed out to me, in his work On the Characteristic Interpenetrations of the Flamboyant Style. [1880.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]