Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/33

 Harvard nor the severe colonial of the other halls,—“the Muses’ factories,” as James Russell Lowell so aptly dubbed them,—but a pure and beautiful Georgian. The proportions were so correct that even the solid unbroken roof, with its high-pitched gables, seemed to be carried easily and naturally. The round-topped windows (originally shorter, and thus better shaped), the wall pilasters, paired at the corners, the classic entablature (now unfortunately missing from the side walls), the monumental treatment of the west end, were all totally new here, and have been extensively copied by later designers. The entrance was at the west—all the college buildings then faced the Common—with a doorway much larger and more stately than the present dummy portal; which, by the bye, is a finely allegorical type of the modern “entrance requirements,” outwardly fair, but practically deceptive. In the gable above it is the strictly memorial and personal feature of the edifice, Mrs. Holden’s coat of arms—a far more decorative and impressive method of commemoration than the modern “tablet” to those who are not fortunate enough to be armigeri. The bold and handsome carving, with its florid scrolls and apoplectic cherubs in high relief, is an admirable piece of work, so solidly and honestly executed that in spite of its exposed situation it has successfully defied the ravages of one hundred and