Medievalism died, but it died young.  It was at once energetic and incomplete when it died, or very shortly before it died.  This is not a matter of sympathy or antipathy, but of appreciation of an interesting historic comparison with other historic cases.  When the Roman Empire finally failed we cannot of course say that it had done all it was meant to do, for that is dogmatism.  We cannot even say it had done all that it might have done, for that is guesswork.  But we can say that it had done certain definite things and was conscious of having done them; that it had long and even literally rested on its laurels.  But suppose that Rome had fallen when she had only half defeated Carthage, or when she had only half conquered Gaul, or even when the city was Christian but most of the provinces still heathen.  Then we should have said, not merely that Rome had not done what she might have done, but that she had not done what she was actually doing.  And that is very much the truth in the matter of the medieval civilisation.  It was not merely that the medievals left undone what they might have done, but they left undone what they were doing.  This potential promise is proved not only in their successes but in their failures.  It is shown, for instance, in the very defects of their art.  All the crafts of which Gothic architecture formed the frame-work were developed, not only less than they should have been, but less than they would have been.  There is no sort of reason why their sculpture should not have become as perfect as their architecture; there is no sort of reason why their sense of form should not have been as finished as their sense of colour.  A statue like the St. George of Donatello would have stood more appropriately under a Gothic than under a Classic arch.  The niches were already made for the statues.  The same thing is true, of course, not only about the state of the crafts but about the status of the craftsman.  The best proof that the system of the guilds had an undeveloped good in it is that the most advanced modern men are now going back five hundred years to get the good out of it.  The best proof that a rich house was brought to ruin is that our very pioneers are now digging in the ruins to find the riches.  That the new guildsmen add a great deal that never belonged to the old guildsmen is not only a truth, but is part of the truth I maintain here.  The new guildsmen add what the old guildsmen would have added if they had not died young.  When we renew a frustrated thing we do not renew the frustration.  But if there are some things in the new that were not in the old, there were certainly some things in the old that are not yet visible in the new; such as individual humour in the handiwork.  The point here, however, is not merely that the worker worked well but that he was working better; not merely that his mind was free but that it was growing freer.  All this popular power and humour was increasing everywhere, when something touched it and it withered away.  The frost had struck it in the spring.