refer to the
easily intelligible laws of convenience and necessity, whenever he found
his judgment likely to be overborne by authority on the one hand, or
dazzled by novelty on the other. If he has time to do more, and to
follow out in all their brilliancy the mechanical inventions of the
great engineers and architects of the day, I, in some sort, envy him,
but must part company with him: for my way lies not along the viaduct,
but down the quiet valley which its arches cross, nor through the
tunnel, but up the hill-side which its cavern darkens, to see what gifts
Nature will give us, and with what imagery she will fill our thoughts,
that the stones we have ranged in rude order may now be touched with
life; nor lose for ever, in their hewn nakedness, the voices they had of
old, when the valley streamlet eddied round them in palpitating light,
and the winds of the hill-side shook over them the shadows of the fern.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] I have spent much of my life among the Alps; but I never pass,
without some feeling of new surprise, the Chalet, standing on its
four pegs (each topped with a flat stone), balanced in the fury of
Alpine winds. It is not, perhaps, generally known that the chief use
of the arrangement is not so much to raise the building above the
snow, as to get a draught of wind beneath it, which may prevent the
drift from rising against its sides.

[61] Appendix 20, "Shafts of the Ducal Palace."

[62] I have taken Professor Willis's estimate; there being discrepancy
among various statements. I did not take the trouble to measure the
height myself, the building being one which does not come within the
range of our future inquiries; and its exact dimensions, even here,
are of no importance as respects the question at issue.

CHAPTER XX.

THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT.

Sec. I. We enter now on the second division of our subject. We have no
more to do with heavy stones and hard lines; we are going to be happy:
to look round in the world and discover (in a serious manner always,
however, and under a sense of responsibility) what we like best in it,
and to enjoy the same at our leisure: to gather it, examine it, fasten
all we can of it into imperishable forms, and put it where we may see it
for ever.

This is to decorate architecture.

Sec. II. There are, therefore, three steps in the process: first, to find
out in a grave manner what we like best; sec