He might carve his pillars, and flourish them off with acanthus capitals, and run friezes along his architraves: but always in these three stones, the two uprights and the beam, the trick of it resided.

And his building lasted.
The pillars stood firm in solid ground, into which the weight of the cross-beam pressed them yet more firmly.

The whole structure was there to endure, if not for ever, at least until some ass of a fellow came along and kicked it down to spite an old religion, because he had found a new one.

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