Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/589

 CHAP. III. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 485 low level as their other arts, it is rich, ornamental, and appro- priate for domestic purposes, but ephemeral and totally wanting in dignity and grandeur of conception. Still it is pleasing, because truthful; but after all, its great merit in the eyes of the student of architecture will probably turn out to rest on the light it throws on the earlier styles, and on the ethno- graphic relations of China to the surrounding nations of Eastern Asia.