But the main point is that the archways made by Nature not only suggested the arched bridge of handicraft, but heralded all the lovely styles of building which have used vaults, domes, turrets, towers, spires, steeples, and arched openings--gateways, porches, and windows. There is a rival art, as we know, an art which has glorified the long lintel-stone carried by pillars; but it has never won from the genius of great men the highest technical inspiration. To it we owe much work of a noble dignity, but in the powerful aspiration of this work there is but little upward flight; it is not near at once to the point of heaven and the point of home. In fact, its masterpieces weigh down heavily on the earth instead of rising towards the light. Not till we come to genuine _archi_tecture--to the art that employs arches and vaults and domes--do we find united in the same edifice a majestic weight and a buoyant fervour. This union of qualities may be found in a supreme Roman bridge, such as the Puente Trajan at Alcántara, but it reigns most beautifully in a Gothic cathedral, whose bulk, earth-bound and vast, has in it what Goethe defined as a petrified music, lofty and spiritual. Rome built for man and the ages, while Gothic art has a symphonic ardour expressed in a creed of hope that transcends all terrene things. The work done by Nature in various archways, some pointed and many round-headed, is a surprise to many persons. Yet Nature’s custom is to build in curves and circles, as in the trunks of trees, and the shapes of flowers, and the forms of birds’ nests. She hates angles, and particularly right angles; these she makes in her moods of violence, when she flashes into zigzag lightning, or splinters trees and rocks with an earthquake. We ourselves are accustomed from early youth to squared shapes in handicraft, yet our actions often speak to us of mankind’s primitive fondness for circular huts and round pit-dwellings. We find it difficult to walk forward in a straight line, the steps we take having a tendency to curve; and untaught boxers never hit straight from the shoulder, their arms swing in segments of a circle. Art students, again, begin by drawing “too round,” so they have to be shown how “to square their touch.” Are you tempted to believe that the spinning of our globe has transmitted to all living things the routine of its movement?