I do not for a moment dispute that there is room for excess, even in acting on a principle so reasonable. If we were to make it an excuse for careless planning; if we were so affected as to seek excuses for irregularity when the arrangement, if carefully considered, offered none; or if we neglect reasonable means of avoiding them when it can be done without any injury to the arrangement, we are clearly open to the charge of excess; but, on the other hand, if we were to avoid irregularity by making two essentially different parts look alike, at the sacrifice of their practical demands; if we place windows in inconvenient or unsightly positions in the interiors of our rooms, for the sake of making them match some windows in an opposite wing, or to form a regular range, disagreeing with internal divisions; if we make sham windows where none are wanted, or omit real ones where they would be useful; or if we torture and displace our rooms to obtain uniformity; or play any of the thousand tricks which are too current amongst us to make our exteriors uniform where our interiors are the contrary; surely we are guilty of a far more culpable excess in the opposite direction, for the exaggeration of common sense is unquestionably a more venial sin than its renunciation. However this may be, Gothic architecture, whether rightly or wrongly, looks to internal requirements as paramount to external regularity; places its windows rather with reference to the rooms within than to the elevations without; and rejoices in making the exterior express in some degree the changes of purpose in the internal arrangement: but it does not reject uniformity where compatible with truth and utility, nor refuse to admit of careful artistic combinations of parts, so long as they are made subservient to, or at least do not militate against, practical requirements. As I have said before, I believe that in this it only reflects, and carries out more perfectly, the principles of true Classic art; and that, if these principles are often forgotten or rejected, it is in the main an abuse of modern date. It is, however beyond all question inherent upon that form of revived Classic art with which we are surrounded. The same may, in fact, be said of truthfulness in minor things. It would be unjust to father the contemptible and endless fallacies of our own day upon Classic architecture. It is true that they pervade and saturate many of the modern productions of that style, and that the revival of Gothic architecture has somehow led to their exposure; but the truthfulness which we are proud to claim as one of its great and leading stars, we freely yield as the property, not of one style, but of all noble architecture.[62]