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[Page 25]
sacred import. Without were sacred ones too; but, in addition, so that their flock might not be overweighted with seriousness and that they should not forget the joyous side of worship and the life of which it was the outcome, they sang, (in stone), the joys of the hunt and the vintage and harvest festivals, as gifts from Heaven for which, it would be ungrateful not to offer thanks. And all with a restraint that justified their exuberance; for, they recognised that temperance was due, as much as prodigality of worship, it stood as a manifestation of taste; and taste showed balance; proof that their creed came not from ill considered impulse but, from glowing fervour, tempered by the crystal waters of reason, for this has always been the basis of French thought; that, a belief that could not survive criticism, was not worthy to be held. This gives them a right to their enthusiasms and furnishes them with the enthusiasm that makes them fight for their beliefs. So that their devotion might receive all the aid from their surroundings that could be obtained, they built their cathedrals on a huge plan and of lofty elevation; and the decision imposed on them all the penalties of mental hard-labour which such a task implied. Such height failed for comparatively thin walls, but clustered pillars inside and buttresses outside reinforced them and offset their frailness. Their width demanded, and so did the burden of winter snow, a slanting roof. To cope with the outward thrust, which the great weight of these roofs made, they stiffened them with great props of masonry - flying buttresses, whose bare utility they made a virtue off by making them in themselves beautiful. These were placed where they were most needed, to uphold the apse, which they did with a superabundance of strength, not ventured on without reason, for thoughtless extravagance was early held by the French to be a vice. The interior structure of their cathedrals left no room for the story-telling decoration, and the necessity in those latitudes for light was imperative, so decoration, (a vital matter, the visible recitation of Holy writ, no less) would, but for the ingenuity of piety, have gone by the board. St. Luke himself must have carried the first painted window from heaven in