Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/92

 in degradation of the artist's function. Man was not intended to work with the accuracy of a machine; and, in architecture, slight irregularities, which an engineer would condemn as unpardonable defects, are on the contrary the inseparable accidents of individual effort, and as evidences of its exercise, please rather than offend the educated eye. Human faculties will never succeed in realizing their ideal; but still it is a nobler part to form an ideal and struggle towards it, than to rest content with the easy attainment of stereotyped mediocrity. If the system that I advocate, viz., the free employment of local talent, unhampered by departmental interference, were adopted throughout India, there might be occasional failures, but it is reasonable to expect there would also be brilliant successes; and the failures must be numerous indeed before they produced at all the same depressing effect as the present deadness of uniformity.

Of all the new improvements in the town, the first that I undertook was the construction of a terrace, which once a week is used for a market. The site was an untidy road-side strip on the top of the hill, immediately opposite the Tahsili Gate. It has been converted into a paved platform in two stages, 194 feet long and 28 feet broad, made of brick, with a cut-stone edging. An arcade at the back, which forms a convenient place of deposit for bales of cloth and other perishable goods in case of a storm, is also mainly of brick construction, and is a pleasing specimen of local skill. But so much time and labour were involved in cutting each separate brick into shape for the slender rounded and fluted shafts, that the ultimate expense was scarcely, if at all, less than if stone had been employed. I have therefore never repeated the experiment on a similar scale, and have restricted the application of ornamental brick work to small niches and similar details, where it has an excellent effect. The cost of the work was Rs. 1,600, the whole of which has been already recovered by the annual income from the market-dues. The money for this improvement was obtained by the sale of a small plot of confiscated ground close by, which had belonged to the rebel Abdul Latif. The purchaser, Kunvar Maháráj Sinh, intended to build a house upon it, which would have been an additional improvement; but he died before the walls were more than a few feet above the ground.

The next enterprise was the Bathing Ghat on the river bank. The foundation stone was laid on the 1st November 1878, but the completion of the work was delayed for two years by the officiousness of an Executive