Gothic architect had been
required to design such a bridge, he would have looked instantly at the
main conditions of its structure, and dwelt on them with the delight of
imagination. He would have seen that the main thing to be done was to
hold a horizontal group of iron rods steadily and straight over stone
piers. Then he would have said to himself (or felt without saying), "It
is this holding,--this grasp,--this securing tenor of a thing which
might be shaken, so that it cannot be shaken, on which I have to
insist." And he would have put some life into those iron tenons. As a
Greek put human life into his pillars and produced the caryatid; and an
Egyptian lotus life into his pillars and produced the lily capital: so
here, either of them would have put some gigantic or some angelic life
into those colossal sockets. He would perhaps have put vast winged
statues of bronze, folding their wings, and grasping the iron rails with
their hands; or monstrous eagles, or serpents holding with claw or
coil, or strong four-footed animals couchant, holding with the paw, or
in fierce action, holding with teeth. Thousands of grotesque or of
lovely thoughts would have risen before him, and the bronze forms,
animal or human, would have signified, either in symbol or in legend,
whatever might be gracefully told respecting the purposes of the work
and the districts to which it conducted. Whereas, now, the entire
invention of the designer seems to have exhausted itself in exaggerating
to an enormous size a weak form of iron nut, and in conveying the
information upon it, in large letters, that it belongs to the London,
Chatham, and Dover Railway Company. I believe then, gentlemen, that if
there were any life in the national mind in such respects, it would be
shown in these its most energetic and costly works. But that there is no
such life, nothing but a galvanic restlessness and covetousness, with
which it is for the present vain to strive; and in the midst of which,
tormented at once by its activities and its apathies, having their work
continually thrust aside and dishonored, always seen to disadvantage,
and overtopped by huge masses, discordant and destructive, even the best
architects must be unable to do justice to their own powers.

279. But, gentlemen, while thus the mechanisms of the age prevent even
the wisest and best of its artists from producing entirely good work,
may we not reflect with consternation what a marvelous ability