In our own earliest style, and in the French examples down to a far later date, there is one feature which I confess I have a great love for--I mean the square and angular abacus. I think it is probably the feeling for this feature which has, more than any other, led to our tendency to follow French types. I would mention, however, that it is not necessarily a _foreign_ feature, as it is found in our own earlier style, and sometimes (as in the side chapels of the nave at Chichester) is continued later; nor is it necessarily a very _early_ form, as it was in France continued to a comparatively late date. I do not, therefore, see that we need deny ourselves its use. I would only _moderate_ it, and use it and our own more typical _round_ abacus, and our own _moulded_ capital, as frequently as, and on at least equal terms with, the other. In the form of _arches_, though keeping to typical forms as a rule, I would not deny myself the use of the _round_ arch nor the plain segment where there is any practical reason for their introduction, only I would not use the abnormal forms frivolously or without a reason. I would assert the greatest liberty in such matters, yet restrain myself by common sense in the exercise of the liberty I claim. I would again advise (particularly in the use you make of your _foreign_ studies) the avoiding of _queer, odd-looking_ features, for which there has of late been so eager an appetite. I believe that most of those we see in modern works are pure inventions for the sake of novelty and apparent cleverness. The little stumpy columns with gigantic capitals, and all the thousand-and-one pieces of quirkiness which one sees, are things which, I confess, I have rarely if ever found in old work in any country or of any period. We have really become so French of late, in our own imagination, that no Frenchman would recognise his native style as seen in our exaggerations of it. All this is a _vulgar_ vice, and should be repudiated as a person of taste would all that is _loud_ and _vulgar_ in dress or in anything else.[90] All this has led to much neglect of our own examples, and, when we use them, to our going too much in the contrary direction; and, from want of familiarity with the endless variety they contain, we have got into the way of confining ourselves to their most typical forms, whereas a careful study of our old examples would supply us with an infinity of varieties of the most charming kind.