Page:Stirling William The Canon 1897.djvu/17

Rh could he but find a style in which our builders could express their thoughts, and help them build for us, our churches, houses, theatres, and bridges, without adhering slavishly to bygone styles, the twelve shillings which I understand his volume is to cost will be well spent.

Music and literature, with painting, surgery, and economics, with boxing, fencing, and others of the liberal arts, all have a style fit and peculiar to the times, but architecture yet remains a blot and a disgrace to those who live by it, and to all those who use the edifices which it makes, and pay the makers' bills.

But leaving architects bemired in stucco and happy in their "co-operation with the present system," let us return to the folly of the ancients.

Strabo and Celsus, with Diodorus Siculus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Maimonides, Raimundo Llull, with the Rabbi Jehudah ben Gabirol and others, whose names look well writ large in a quotation, have all remarked upon the symbolism not only of the Cross but of all ancient temples.

Pedro Mexia in his curious Silva de Varia Leccion says that the Egyptians and the Arabians honoured the figure of the cross, and thought so much of it, that the Egyptians drew it upon the