THE ROMANTIC FALLACY
51
romantic
spiritinacruder,alessinteresting,anda
less instructive manner than the Greek movement
whichwehave been criticising. Technique,organi-
sation, vigour, understanding—everything, in fact,
savelearningandenthusiasm,werewantingtoit. It
illustrates,asabundantlyasonecouldwish,theeffect
uponarchitectureofanexclusivelyliteraryattitudeof
mind
;
andas fewto-daywould dootherwisethan
lament
its
achievements,wemaytakeleaveofthem.
But among the
consequences of that ill-timed
experimentwehavetoemphasisethis. TheRomantic
Movement,
in
destroying the
existing architectural
tradition,destroyedsimultaneouslytheinterestwhich
was
feltin its principles, and replacedit by amis-
understood mediaevalism out
of whichnoprinciples
of
valuecouldeverbe recovered. Thecatastrophe
forstylewasequallya
catastropheforthought; To
this, without doubt, no
small
part
of the existing
confusion in
architectural criticism may be traced.
We laugh at Fonthill and
Abbotsford and Straw-
berryHill:
Georgianarchitectureonceagainenjoys
its vogue. Yet the
Romantic Tendency, expelled
fromarchitecture, still
lingersin itscriticism. The
Gothicrevivalis
past,whiletheromanticprejudices
that
engendereditremain.
Andtheseitisimportant
todefine.
•^he first
fallacy of
Romanticism, then, and the
