raised
so high above the hills on which it is built as to make them seem little
else than a basement for its glittering stateliness, and those lowland
huts, half hidden beneath their coverts of forest, and scattered like
gray stones along the masses of far-away mountain. Here man contending
with the power of Nature for his existence; there commanding them for
his recreation; here a feeble folk nested among the rocks with the wild
goat and the coney, and retaining the same quiet thoughts from
generation to generation; there a great multitude triumphing in the
splendor of immeasurable habitation, and haughty with hope of endless
progress and irresistible power.

254. It is indeed impossible to limit, in imagination, the beneficent
results which may follow from the undertaking thus happily begun.[53]
For the first time in the history of the world, a national museum is
formed in which a whole nation is interested; formed on a scale which
permits the exhibition of monuments of art in unbroken symmetry, and of
the productions of nature in unthwarted growth,--formed under the
auspices of science which can hardly err, and of wealth which can
hardly be exhausted; and placed in the close neighborhood of a
metropolis overflowing with a population weary of labor, yet thirsting
for knowledge, where contemplation may be consistent with rest, and
instruction with enjoyment. It is impossible, I repeat, to estimate the
influence of such an institution on the minds of the working-classes.
How many hours once wasted may now be profitably dedicated to pursuits
in which interest was first awakened by some accidental display in the
Norwood palace; how many constitutions, almost broken, may be restored
by the healthy temptation into the country air; how many intellects,
once dormant, may be roused into activity within the crystal walls, and
how these noble results may go on multiplying and increasing and bearing
fruit seventy times seven-fold, as the nation pursues its career,--are
questions as full of hope as incapable of calculation. But with all
these grounds for hope there are others for despondency, giving rise to
a group of melancholy thoughts, of which I can neither repress the
importunity nor forbear the expression.

255. For three hundred years, the art of architecture has been the
subject of the most curious investigation; its principles have been
discussed with all earnestness and acuteness; its models in all
countries and of al