We seem to be of opinion that variety of character is attainable only by variety of style: hence our Museums are classically _antique_, our churches after the mode of the middle ages, and so forth, according as the buildings happen to belong to the class in which any particular period was most distinguished for buildings of that class. The character of such examples strikes us by its expressiveness; nor do we find it difficult, with models before us that we are now acquainted with and understand, to produce the same kind of effect and expression by merely copying their physiognomy and style. He, however, who is well grounded in the study, is aware that at different periods the art was treated according to its own principles as resulting from different modes of culture; and that consequently the adoption of a style previously discarded, though it may suit the vitiated taste of the artist, as the _haut gout_ pleases the fastidious palate of the Epicure, yet it can never be pleasing to a really cultivated taste. You may think me somewhat fantastical, but it appears to me that we cannot read Homer with perfect relish in a saloon à la Louis Quatorze, or Shakespeare beneath the roof of a Grecian impluvium; and that it is only where the character of the surrounding forms and objects in some degree accord, at least do not harshly contrast with our mental occupation, that we can fully abandon ourselves to the imaginings of genius. I might, however, without impropriety, substitute "_character_" for "_style_" in the question you put to me, and my answer would then be: Let it be as noble and as cheerful as possible. Still the making a distinction between style and character does not entirely get rid of the difficulty; for a person who is as intelligent as you are in matters of art will say, "Even if you hit the character, the mere _desire_ to invent an appropriate style does not of itself satisfy me, and on this account I wish you to state more explicitly which of former styles you intend mainly to select." This I will now attempt to do, and begin by stating it as my opinion, that the most perfect architectural style is that which admits at the same time of a refined style both of sculpture and of painting:--that which, while it serves as the vehicle of graceful embellishment, can maintain an equal excellence in itself. Such, as it appears to me, is the ideal which an architect of the present day ought to keep in his mind's eye. Yet before we proceed to inquire which of the principal styles we are acquainted with possesses such a quality in the most eminent degree, it will be proper to consider what is the kind of relationship which the three separate arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture, bear to each other.