och.

Out of this gloomy depression the Anglo-Saxon world, in England and in
this country, is trying to emerge. It began its efforts with the
perfectly natural conviction that by studying the artistic history of
the past, something could be done to benefit the arts of the present.
The Gothic revival, which you have heard of so much, and which was
followed with real ardor and with unquestioning zeal by crowds of
devotees for years, beginning with, perhaps, 1840, was an attempt
along the most obvious lines,--along what seemed to be the line of
least resistance, to change the metaphor. To develop anew an old art,
which had flourished so greatly in the past,--how easy! and how
certain! How certain were the enthusiasts of that time, that by
earnestly poring over and closely analyzing and heartily loving the
buildings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such buildings,
and others like them, could be built in the nineteenth! How happy was
the conviction of all these men that it was not more difficult than
that! The secret of what had been done was to be found in the
phenomena themselves. There, in this parish church, in this cathedral,
lay the secret of their charm. Let us analyze first, they said, and
let us put together again the ingredients that our analysis shall have
discovered, and we will re-create the thing that we are in search of.

In like manner, in the minor arts, the people of 1850 felt, or some of
them did, that they did not know how to weave curtains that it was
worth any one's while to hang up, except to shut out the light and
shut in the warmth; that so far as beauty of texture, beauty of
pattern, and beauty of color went, they were powerless to produce
anything of any avail. But they saw that the Venetians of the
sixteenth century and the Florentines of the seventeenth century and
the French of the eighteenth century had produced splendid stuffs; and
although there were no museums in those days that condescended to
anything so humble, such stuffs were still to be bought of the
bric-a-brac dealers, and very cheap, too, and still existed, rolled up
in some old garrets. By studying them, surely the art of making others
like them could be learned. And so around the whole circle of the arts
of decoration, it was believed, and in thoroughly good faith, and
with, as it seemed, perfectly good reason, that the study of what had
been would suffice, with zeal and patience and good will, to the
production of wh