no sculpture, nor color,
nor imagination, nor sacredness, nor any other quality whatsoever in it,
but ratios of measures. And it is difficult to express with sufficient
force the absurdity of the supposition that there is more room for
refinements of proportion in the relations of seven or eight equal
pillars, with the triangular end of a roof above them, than between the
shafts, and buttresses, and porches, and pinnacles, and vaultings, and
towers, and all other doubly and trebly multiplied magnificences of
membership which form the framework of a Gothic temple.

64. Second reply.--It is often said, with some appearance of
plausibility, that I dwell in all my writings on little things and
contemptible details; and not on essential and large things. Now, in the
first place, as soon as our architects become capable of doing and
managing little and contemptible things, it will be time to talk about
larger ones; at present I do not see that they can design so much as a
niche or a bracket, and therefore they need not as yet think about
anything larger. For although, as both just now, and always, I have
said, there is as much science of arrangement needed in the designing of
a small group of parts as of a large one, yet assuredly designing the
larger one is _not the easier_ work of the two. For the eye and mind can
embrace the smaller object more completely, and if the powers of
conception are feeble, they get embarrassed by the inferior members
which fall _within_ the divisions of the larger design.[21] So that, of
course, the best way is to begin with the smaller features; for most
assuredly, those who cannot design small things cannot design large
ones; and yet, on the other hand, whoever can design small things
_perfectly_, can design whatever he chooses. The man who, without
copying, and by his own true and original power, can arrange a cluster
of rose-leaves nobly, can design anything. He may fail from want of
taste or feeling, but not from want of power.

[Footnote 21: Thus, in speaking of Pugin's designs, I said, "Expect no
cathedrals of him; but no one, at present, can design a better finial,
though he will never design even a finial perfectly." But even this I
said less with reference to powers of arrangement, than to materials of
fancy; for many men have store enough to last them through a boss or a
bracket, but not to last them through a church front.]

And the real reason why architects are so eager in protes