by the spiritual
nature of the men who make them, and express what is spiritual in
humanity under concrete forms invented for them by the artist--yet it
is certain that all of these arts do not deal exactly with the same
portions of this common material in the same way or with the same
results. Each has its own department. Each exhibits qualities of
strength and weakness special to itself. To define these several
departments, to explain the relation of these several vehicles
of presentation to the common subject-matter, is the next step in
criticism.

* * * * *

Of the fine arts, architecture alone subserves utility. We build for
use. But the geometrical proportions which the architect observes,
contain the element of beauty and powerfully influence the soul. Into
the language of arch and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and facade and
pediment, of spire and vault, the architect translates emotion, vague
perhaps but deep, mute but unmistakable. When we say that a building
is sublime or graceful, frivolous or stern, we mean that sublimity
or grace, frivolity or sternness, is inherent in it. The emotions
connected with these qualities are inspired in us when we contemplate
it, and are presented to us by its form. Whether the architect
deliberately aimed at the sublime or graceful--whether the dignified
serenity of the Athenian genius sought to express itself in the
Parthenon, and the mysticism of mediaeval Christianity in the gloom of
Chartres Cathedral--whether it was Renaissance paganism which gave its
mundane pomp and glory to S. Peter's, and the refined selfishness of
royalty its specious splendour to the palace of Versailles--need not
be curiously questioned. The fact that we are impelled to raise these
points, that architecture more almost than any art connects itself
indissolubly with the life, the character, the moral being of a nation
and an epoch, proves that we are justified in bringing it beneath
our general definition of the arts. In a great measure because it
subserves utility, and is therefore dependent upon the necessities of
life, does architecture present to us through form the human spirit.
Comparing the palace built by Giulio Romano for the Dukes of Mantua
with the contemporary castle of a German prince, we cannot fail at
once to comprehend the difference of spiritual conditions, as these
displayed themselves in daily life, which then separated Italy from
the Teutonic na