For the rest, even the architectural defacement is overstated,
the church was burned down and rebuilt in a bad and modern period;
but the older parts, especially the Crusaders' porch, are as
grand as the men who made them. The incongruities there are,
are those of local colour. In connection, by the way, with what I
said about beasts of burden, I mounted a series of steep staircases
to the roof of the convent beside the Holy Sepulchre. When I got
to the top I found myself in the placid presence of two camels.
It would be curious to meet two cows on the roof of a village church.
Nevertheless it is the only moral of the chapter interpolated here,
that we can meet things quite as curious in our own country.
When the critic says that Jerusalem is disappointing he generally
means that the popular worship there is weak and degraded,
and especially that the religious art is gaudy and grotesque.
In so far as there is any kind of truth in this, it is
still true that the critic seldom sees the whole truth.
What is wrong with the critic is that he does not criticise himself.
He does not honestly compare what is weak, in this particular world
of ideas, with what is weak in his own world of ideas.
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