for the practical and indeed profitable purpose of vineyards;
and serves for a reminder that this ancient seat of civilisation
has not lost the tradition of the mercy and the glory of the vine.
But in outline such a mountain looks much like the mountain
of Purgatory that Dante saw in his vision, lifted in terraces,
like titanic steps up to God. And indeed this shape also is symbolic;
as symbolic as the pointed profile of the Holy City.
For a creed is like a ladder, while an evolution is only like a slope.
A spiritual and social evolution is generally a pretty slippery slope;
a miry slope where it is very easy to slide down again.

Such is something like the sharp and even abrupt impression produced
by this mountain city; and especially by its wall with gates
like a house with windows. A gate, like a window, is primarily
a picture-frame. The pictures that are found within the frame are
indeed very various and sometimes very alien. Within this frame-work
are indeed to be found things entirely Asiatic, or entirely Moslem,
or even entirely nomadic. But Jerusalem itself is not nomadic.
Nothing could be less like a mere camp of tents pitched by Arabs.
Nothing could be less like the mere chaos of colour in a temporary
and tawdry bazaar. The Arabs are there and the colours are there,
and they make a glorious picture; but the picture is in a Gothic frame,
and is seen so to speak through a Gothic window. And the meaning of all
this is the meaning of all windows, and especially of Gothic windows.
It is that even light itself is most divine within limits;
and that even the shining one is most shining, when he takes upon
himself a shape.

Such a system of walls and gates, like many other things thought rude
and primitive, is really very rationalistic. It turns the town,