96 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

above the inclosing one, as that the recessed part of its profile p r shall fall behind the projecting part of the outer one. The¹ angle of its upper portion exactly meets the plane of the side of the upper inclosing shaft 4, and would, therefore, not be seen, unless two vertical cuts were made to exhibit it, which form two dark lines the whole way up the shaft. Two small pilasters are run, like fastening stitches, through the junction, on the front of the shafts. The sections k, n, taken respectively at the levels k, n, will explain the hypothetical construction of the whole. Fig. 7 is a base, or joint rather, (for passages of this form occur again and again, on the shafts of flamboyant work,) of one of the smallest piers of the pedestals which supported the lost statues of the porch; its section below would be the same as n, and its construction after what has been said of the other base, will be at once perceived.*

§ 28. There was, however, in this kind of involution, much to be admired as well as reprehended; the proportions of quantities were always as beautiful as they were intricate; and, though the lines of intersection were harsh, they were exquisitely opposed to the flower-work of the interposing mouldings. But the fancy did not stop here; it rose from the bases into the arches; and there, not finding room enough for its exhibition, it withdrew the capitals from the heads even of cylindrical shafts, (we cannot but admire, while we regret, the boldness of the men who could defy the authority and custom of all the nations of the earth

* I cannot understand how, in the subsequent illustrations of the principle I had, during the arrangement of this volume, most prominently in my mind, on the founding of all beautiful design on natural form, I omitted so forcible a point as the exact correspondence of these mouldings to the structure of involved crystals. Perhaps it was because I knew the builders had never looked at, or thought of, a crystal; but then I ought to have said so. The omission is the more strange because I caught the resemblance in the Pisan Gothic-see below, Chap. IV. § 7-where it is not half so distinct! [1880.]

¹ [The MS. reads:-

“The recession of the upper part of the profile is, however, so much proportionately greater in the enclosed shaft, that while the angle of its lower portion emerges through the plane of the greater one, the angle,” etc., ut sup.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]