VI. THE NATURE OF GOTHIC 245

his poor and imperfect labour to the few stones that he had raised one upon another, for habitation or memorial. The years of his life passed away before his task was accomplished; but generation succeeded generation with unwearied enthusiasm, and the cathedral front was at last lost in the tapestry of its traceries, like a rock among the thickets and herbage of spring.

§ 79. We have now, I believe, obtained a view approaching to completeness of the various moral or imaginative elements which composed the inner spirit of Gothic architecture. We have, in the second place, to define its outward form.¹

Now, as the Gothic spirit is made up of several elements, some of which may, in particular examples, be wanting, so the Gothic form is made up² of minor conditions of form, some of which may, in particular examples, be imperfectly developed.

We cannot say, therefore, that a building is either Gothic or not Gothic in form, any more than we can in spirit. We can only say that it is more or less Gothic, in proportion to the number of Gothic forms which it unites.³

§ 80. There have been made lately many subtle and ingenious endeavours to base the definition of Gothic form entirely upon the roof-vaulting; endeavours which are both forced and futile; for many of the best Gothic buildings in the world have roofs of timber, which have no more connexion with the main structure of the walls or the edifice than a hat has with that of the head it protects; and other Gothic buildings are merely enclosures of spaces, as ramparts and walls, or enclosures of gardens or cloisters, and have

¹ [On the following §§, see above, Introduction, p. liii.]

² [In the first version of this sentence in the MS. Ruskin gives examples:-

“Now as in different varieties of Gothic, the various moral elements occur in different quantities-the element of grotesque, for instance, being found in small proportion in that of Venice, the element of wealth [redundance] deficient in that of England, and of savageness sometimes hardly traceable in that of Tuscany; so the forms into which the Gothic spirit casts itself are made up. ...”]

³ [See above, p. 181.]

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