his pier of Rouen is a type of the last condition
of the good Gothic; from this point the small shafts begin to lose
shape, and run into narrow fillets and ridges, projecting at the same
time farther and farther in weak tongue-like sections, as described in
the "Seven Lamps." I have only here given one example of this family, an
unimportant but sufficiently characteristic one (16) from St. Gervais of
Falaise. One side of the nave of that church is Norman, the other
Flamboyant, and the two piers 14 and 16 stand opposite each other. It
would be useless to endeavor to trace farther the fantasticism of the
later Gothic shafts; they become mere aggregations of mouldings very
sharply and finely cut, their bases at the same time running together in
strange complexity and their capitals diminishing and disappearing. Some
of their conditions, which, in their rich striation, resemble crystals
of beryl, are very massy and grand; others, meagre, harsh, or effeminate
in themselves, are redeemed by richness and boldness of decoration; and
I have long had it in my mind to reason out the entire harmony of this
French Flamboyant system, and fix its types and possible power. But
this inquiry is foreign altogether to our present purpose, and we shall
therefore turn back from the Flamboyant to the Norman side of the
Falaise aisle, resolute for the future that all shafts of which we may
have the ordering, shall be permitted, as with wisdom we may also permit
men or cities, to gather themselves into companies, or constellate
themselves into clusters, but not to fuse themselves into mere masses of
nebulous aggregation.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] In saying this, it is assumed that the interval is one which is
to be traversed by men; and that a certain relation of the shafts
and intervals to the size of the human figure is therefore
necessary. When shafts are used in the upper stories of buildings,
or on a scale which ignores all relation to the human figure, no
such relative limits exist either to slenderness or solidity.

[39] Vide the interesting discussion of this point in Mr.
Fergusson's account of the Temple of Karnak, "Principles of Beauty
in Art," p. 219.

[40] I have assumed that the strength of similar shafts of equal
height is as the squares of their diameters; which, though not
actually a correct expression, is sufficiently so for all our
present purposes.

[41] How far this condition l