" But it was
too late to mind what they were about; for, in another instant,
the whole tower sloped aside; and the Gothic imps rose out of it
like a flight of puffins, in a single cloud; but screaming worse
than any puffins you ever heard: and down came the tower, all in a
piece, like a falling poplar, with its head right on the flank of
the pyramid; against which it snapped short off. And of course
that waked me.
MARY. What a shame of you to have such a dream, after all you have
told us about Gothic architecture!
L. If you have understood anything I ever told you about it, you
know that no architecture was ever corrupted more miserably; or
abolished more justly by the accomplishment of its own follies.
Besides, even in its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes
of this kind. I have stood too often, mourning, by the grand
fragment of the apse of Beauvais, not to have that fact well burnt
into me. Still, you must have seen, surely, that these imps were
of the Flamboyant school; or, at least, of the German schools
correspondent with it in extravagance.
MARY. But, then, where is the crystal about which you dreamed all
this?
L. Here; but I suppose little Pthah has touched it again, for it
is very small. But, you see, here is the pyramid, built of great
square stones of fluor spar, straight up; and here are the three
little pinnacles of mischievous quartz, which have set themselves,
at the same time, on the same foundation; only they lean like the
tower of Pisa, and come out obliquely at the side: and here is one
great spire of quartz which seems as if it had been meant to stand
straight up, a little way off; and then had fallen down against
the pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away.
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