The committee of prelates and influential laymen who undertook the work had conceived the idea of a fine agglomeration, consisting of a great Cathedral, with a presbytery, convent and schools attached. Pugin was called on to supply a complete plan, which he prepared, as may be conceived, with enthusiasm. On an appointed day it is related that he attended, and submitted a series of his always beautiful drawings, a cathedral, chapter house, cloisters, convent, etc., forming a vast and picturesque pile of buildings. These were received with admiration, when a practical member of the company put some questions as to the cost. Another followed with a question as to the time necessary for carrying out the ambitious design. The architect, without directly replying, quietly contrived to get back all his drawings into his hands, rolled them up, took his hat, and walked away from the astonished committee without a word! [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE ORATORY.] Being later asked for an explanation, he replied, in his rough style: “I thought I was dealing with people who knew what they wanted; but your absurd questions showed me my mistake. No cathedral was ever, or could be, built within the lifetime of a single man. As to its cost, how can I tell? Building materials may increase to double their present price in a few years.”[25] He was induced to supply a more modest, though still an ambitious, design, and this had eventually to be re-shaped, as the funds fell short. The original plan, still preserved, was a truly magnificent one, with its great central tower, and lofty soaring proportions, with which contrast the rather mean dimensions of the present edifice, which is low, but of great length. “It was spoilt,” he said, “by the instructions of the committee that it was to hold 3,000 people on the floor at a limited price; in consequence, height, proportion, everything was sacrificed to meet these conditions.” [Illustration: CONFESSIONAL IN THE ORATORY.] But let us hear Mr. Ruskin on this excuse: “St. George’s was not high enough for want of money? But was it want of money that made you put the blunt, overloaded, laborious ogee door into the side of it? Was it for lack of funds that you sunk the tracery of the parapet in its clumsy zigzags? Was it in parsimony that you buried its paltry pinnacles in that eruption of diseased crockets, or in pecuniary embarrassment that you set up the belfry foolscaps with the mimicry of dormer windows, which nobody can ever reach, nor look out of? Not so, but in mere incapability of better things.... Employ him by all means, but on small work. Expect no cathedrals of him; but no one at present can design a better finial. There is an exceedingly beautiful one over the western door of St. George’s; and there is some spirited impishness and switching of tails in the supporting figures.” There is some truth in these bitter lines--but there is more injustice. Probably the writer has long since repented of his warmth.