The Corinthian capital stood alone among the details of ancient architecture, as being founded on principles of beauty common to all _ages_. It was foreshadowed in the works of their earliest predecessors, the Egyptians, and had suggested the forms for the capitals used in all succeeding styles, whether by the Byzantines, the Sassanians, the Saracens, or the Gothic conquerors of Rome. It was, then, consistent that, while about to purge their arts of mere dead rudimental relics of ancient art, this one feature should be revived as a nucleus for development. The same may be said of the pointed arch, if the theory be true of its Saracenic suggestion. It had been invented in very early times, perhaps earlier than even the round arch, though its uses were not then appreciated. The Romanesque builders had adopted many dead forms of ornament from Saracenic and Persian manufactures, and the introduction of this one really living feature at the moment when the exigencies of the style demanded it (whether the idea occurred to them spontaneously or by suggestion) was the signal for throwing off, as effete and useless, all the Orientalisms which they already had in use. From this we may learn not to shrink from adopting into our developments external suggestions from whatever source, provided only that they approve themselves to our eye and our intellect as legitimate sources of beauty, or aids to construction, and as capable of being harmonised with the style we are working out. Let us throw them boldly into the fining-pot, and if we are skilful manipulators, the gold will remain and the dross be thrown off. Another thing we may learn is, that the mere precedence of one nation in the working out of a style does not deprive the developments of neighbouring countries of the claims of nationality. The English transition began a little later than the French, and it is, as we have seen, distinctly marked in its character and its results, so that no one can ever mistake an English building for a French one. The German transition came on after the English and French were perfected, yet is (if anything) even more national than our own; while the Italian Gothic, though an absolute importation, and often defective in detail, has more strongly-marked national characteristics than any other.[34]