450 APPENDIX, 16, 17

Now there is a correspondence of the same kind between the technical and expressional parts of architecture;-not a true or entire correspondence, so that when the expression is best, the building must be also best; but so much of correspondence as that good building is necessary to good expression, comes before it, and is to be primarily looked for: and the more, because the manner of building is capable of being determinately estimated and classed; but the expressional character not so: we can at once determine the true value of technical qualities, we can only approximate to the value of expressional qualities: and besides this, the looking for the technical qualities first will enable us to cast a large quantity of rubbish aside at once, and so to narrow the difficult field of inquiry into expression: we shall get rid of Chinese pagodas and Indian temples, and Renaissance Palladianisms, and Alhambra stucco and filigree, in one great rubbish heap; and shall not need to trouble ourselves about their expression, or anything else concerning them. Then taking the buildings which have been rightly put together, and which show common sense in their structure, we may look for their farther and higher excellencies; but on those which are absurd in their first steps we need waste no time.

16. P. 99.-STRENGTH OF SHAFTS

[Appendix 16 in ed. 1 was afterwards, and is here, printed as a footnote to ch. vii. § 1, see p. 99 above.]

17. PP. 106, 183.-ANSWER TO MR. GARBETT¹

Some three months ago, and long after the writing of this passage, I met accidentally with Mr. Garbett’s elementary Treatise on Design. (Weale, 1850.)² If I had cared about the reputation of originality, I should have been annoyed-and was so at first, on finding Mr. Garbett’s illustrations of the subject exactly the same as mine, even to the choice of the elephant’s foot for the parallel of the Doric pillar: I even thought of omitting, or re-writing, great part of the chapter, but determined at last to let it stand. I am striving to speak plain truth on many simple and trite subjects, and I hope, therefore, that much of what I say has been said before, and am quite willing to give up all claim to originality in any reasoning or assertion whatsoever, if any one cares to dispute it. I desire the reader to accept what I say, not as mine, but as the truth, which may be all the world’s, if they look for it. If I remember rightly, Mr. Frank Howard promised at some discussion respecting the Seven Lamps, reported in the Builder, to pluck all my borrowed feathers off me; but I did not see the end of the discussion, and do not know to this day how many feathers I have left: at all events the elephant’s foot must belong to Mr. Garbett, though, strictly speaking, neither he nor I can

¹ [The first part of this appendix, down to p. 454 (see note 1), appeared in ed. 1 only.]

² [Elementary Treatise on the Principles of Design in Architecture as deducible from Nature and exemplified in the Works of the Greek and Gothic Architects, by Edward Lacey Garbett, pp. 264. The parallel between the elephant’s foot and the Doric pillar is illustrated by a woodcut at p. 116.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]