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Altogether these are more like the windows of a castle or manor-house than of a church. The four towards the south are of three lights, but the east window has five lights and is set higher in the wall, while its dripstone terminates at one end in a grotesque sitting figure. Various gargoyles project from the string-course, which rises to pass over the east window.
Mark's: it is the root of all the Byzantine Arab capitals, and of all the most beautiful capitals in the world, whose function is to express lightness. V. But this, it will be remembered, was said in § VI. of Chap. VI. to be especially characteristic of southern work, and that in northern and wet climates it took the form of a dripstone.
The upper arch is enriched with the chevron, and its dripstone with two rows of the round billet arranged chequerwise and with a moulding composed of a series of little crosses, rather suggestive of the dog-tooth. The interior has up to this time escaped 'restoration. There have been repairs, but enough only to arrest decay, and the plaster has not been removed from the walls.
The principal face below had a gigantic representation of the Madonna and Child, more than 12 feet in height. At about the same time the elegant little doorway at the west end of the aisle was found. It could not be reopened, but its mouldings were uncovered. It is of the Early English period and has a dripstone ending in a bishop's and a female head.
The ceiling drops to a height of little more than three feet directly above the Lake margin, and is a beautiful crystal mass, which at a little distance down the sloping floor appears as the background for a fine piece of cave statuary called The Bridal Veil, and formed of cream-tinted dripstone.
The brackets are not allowed, because they would interfere with the sculpture, which in this architecture is put beneath the cornice; and the overhanging form of the gutter is nothing more than a vast dripstone moulding, to keep the rain from such sculpture: its decoration of guttæ, seen in silver points against the shadow, is pretty in feeling, with a kind of continual refreshment and remembrance of rain in it; but the whole arrangement is awkward and meagre, and is only endurable when the eye is quickly drawn away from it to sculpture.
Accordingly, in the northern climates, the dripstone gathered together forms a peculiar northern capital, commonly called the Early English, owing to its especial use in that style. There would have been no absurdity in this if shafts were always to be exposed to the weather; but in Gothic constructions the most important shafts are in the inside of the building.
They have, however, a thick shaft worked on the stones of the jamb, and a large keeled round on the edge of the arch, and there is no dripstone. Below them is a small string-course, which is carried round the east end. The string or cornice above them is made to match that on the western portion of the aisle, but in the battlement the merlons are of merely ordinary width.
A cornice thus treated loses its character as the crown or honor of the wall, takes the office of its protector, and is called a DRIPSTONE. The dripstone is naturally the attribute of Northern buildings, and therefore especially of Gothic architecture; the true cornice is the attribute of Southern buildings, and therefore of Greek and Italian architecture; and it is one of their peculiar beauties, and eminent features of superiority.
When finally reached, the Crystal Palace proved worthy of the effort, its decoration being entirely of dripstone and very beautiful, although on too small a scale to be compared with similar work in many caves: it is merely an attractive "extra" in Wind Cave, and not one of the important attractions that give the Cave the rank that may have a few equals but no superiors.
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