186 THE STONES OF VENICE CONSTRUCTION

to Heaven, as distinguished from the flattened slope of the Greek pediment, than the steep gable of a Norman house has, as distinguished from the flat roof of a Syrian one. We may now, with ingenious pleasure, trace such symbolic characters in the form; we may now use it with such definite meaning; but we only prevent ourselves from all right understanding of history, by attributing much influence to these poetical symbolisms in the formation of a national style. The human race are, for the most part, not to be moved by such silken cords; and the chances of damp in the cellar, or of loose tiles in the roof, have, unhappily, much more to do with the fashions of a man’s house building than his ideas of celestial happiness or angelic virtue. Associations of affection have far higher power, and forms which can be no otherwise accounted for may often be explained by reference to the natural features of the country, or to anything which habit must have rendered familiar, and therefore delightful: but the direct symbolisation of a sentiment is a weak motive with all men, and far more so in the practical minds of the North than among the early Christians, who were assuredly quite as heavenly-minded, when they built basilicas, or cut conchas out of the catacombs, as were ever the Norman barons or monks.

§ 7. There is, however, in the North an animal activity which materially aided the system of building begun in mere utility,-an animal life, naturally expressed in erect work, as the languor of the South in reclining or level work.¹ Imagine the difference between the action of a man urging himself to his work in a snowstorm, and the action of one laid at his length on a sunny bank among cicadas and fallen olives, and you will have the key to a whole group of sympathies which were forcibly expressed in the architecture of both; remembering always that sleep would be to the one luxury, to the other death.

§ 8. And to the force of this vital instinct we have farther

¹ [Cf. Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. vi. § 75.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]