DECORATION XXVI. WALL VEIL AND SHAFT 349

§ 3. But why, it will be asked, should the lines which mark the division of the stones be wrong when they are chiselled, and right when they are marked by colour? First, because the colour separation is a natural one. You build with different kinds of stone, of which, probably, one is more costly than another; which latter, as you cannot construct your building of it entirely, you arrange in conspicuous bars. But the chiselling of the stones is a wilful throwing away of time and labour in defacing the building: it costs much to hew one of those monstrous blocks into shape; and, when it is done, the building is weaker than it was before, by just as much stone as has been cut away from its joints. And, secondly, because, as I have repeatedly urged,¹ straight lines are ugly things as lines, but admirable as limits of coloured spaces; and the joints of the stones, which are painful in proportion to their regularity, if drawn as lines, are perfectly agreeable when marked by variations of hue.

§ 4. What is true of the divisions of stones by chiselling, is equally true of divisions of bricks by pointing. Nor, of course, is the mere horizontal bar the only arrangement in which the colours of brick-work or masonry can be gracefully disposed. It is rather one which can only be employed with advantage when the courses of stone are deep and bold. When the masonry is small, it is better to throw its colours into chequered patterns. We shall have several interesting examples to study in Venice besides the wellknown one of the Ducal Palace. The town of Moulins,² in France, is one of the most remarkable on this side of the Alps for its chequered patterns in bricks. The church of Christchurch, Streatham,³ lately built, though spoiled by many grievous errors, (the ironwork in the campanile being

¹ [See, e.g., Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. p. 145, and above, p. 266.]

² [Moulins, capital of the department of the Allier, was in the 15th century the residence of the Dukes of Bourbon. Several houses of that and the succeeding century remain; built of red bricks, the fronts being ornamented with patterns formed in black bricks. Ruskin sketched there in 1850, on his way from Lyons to Bourges.]

³ [“In my own immediate neighbourhood,” adds the MS. It would seem, however, from the local guide-book, that the inhabitants do not altogether appreciate the opportunity: “Christchurch was built from the designs of J. W. Wild, Esq., and

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