We wanted to exercise and display our power over stone. We made
it into reeds and branches. We squirted it up in all these spires and
pinnacles. The priest and his altar were just an excuse. Do you think
people have ever feared and worshipped in this--this artist's lark--as
they did in Stonehenge?"
"I certainly do not remember that I ever worshipped here," she said.
Sir Richmond was in love with his idea. "The spirit of the Gothic
cathedrals," he said, "is the spirit of the sky-scrapers. It is
architecture in a mood of flaming ambition. The Freemasons on the
building could hardly refrain from jeering at the little priest they had
left down below there, performing antiquated puerile mysteries at his
altar. He was just their excuse for doing it all."
"Sky-scrapers?" she conceded. "An early display of the sky-scraper
spirit.... You are doing your best to make me feel thoroughly at home."
"You are more at home here still than in that new country of ours
over the Atlantic. But it seems to me now that I do begin to remember
building this cathedral and all the other cathedrals we built in
Europe.... It was the fun of building made us do it..."
"H'm," she said. "And my sky-scrapers?"
"Still the fun of building. That is the thing I envy most about America.
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