II. Architecture proper, then, naturally arranges itself under five
heads:--
Devotional; including all buildings raised for God's service or honor.
Memorial; including both monuments and tombs.
Civil; including every edifice raised by nations or societies, for
purposes of common business or pleasure.
Military; including all private and public architecture of defence.
Domestic; including every rank and kind of dwelling-place.
Now, of the principles which I would endeavor to develope, while all
must be, as I have said, applicable to every stage and style of the art,
some, and especially those which are exciting rather than directing,
have necessarily fuller reference to one kind of building than another;
and among these I would place first that spirit which, having influence
in all, has nevertheless such especial reference to devotional and
memorial architecture--the spirit which offers for such work precious
things simply because they are precious; not as being necessary to the
building, but as an offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of what is to
ourselves desirable. It seems to me, not only that this feeling is in
most cases wholly wanting in those who forward the devotional buildings
of the present day; but that it would even be regarded as an ignorant,
dangerous, or perhaps criminal principle by many among us. I have not
space to enter into dispute of all the various objections which may be
urged against it--they are many and spacious; but I may, perhaps, ask
the reader's patience while I set down those simple reasons which cause
me to believe it a good and just feeling, and as well-pleasing to God
and honorable in men, as it is beyond all dispute necessary to the
production of any great work in the kind with which we are at present
concerned.
III. Now, first, to define this Lamp, or Spirit of Sacrifice, clearly. I
have said that it prompts us to the offering of precious things merely
because they are precious, not because they are useful or necessary. It
is a spirit, for instance, which of two marbles, equally beautiful,
applicable and durable, would choose the more costly because it was so,
and of two kinds of decoration, equally effective, would choose the more
elaborate because it was so, in order that it might in the same compass
present more cost and more thought. It is therefore most unreasoning and
enthusiastic, and perhaps best negatively defined, as the opposite of
the prevalent feeling of modern times, which desires to produce the
largest results at the least cost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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