Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/273

Rh Weary of the gigantic monotony of the gigantic houses, exactly alike, your eye shall not catch a glimpse of some distant cloud rising like a snowy mountain (as Japanese artists show the top of Fusiyama); you shall not see the breadth of the sky, nor even any steeple, tower, dome, or gable; you shall see nothing but Paris; the avenue is wide enough for the Grand Army to march down, but the exit to the eye is blocked by this immense meaningless facade drawn across it. No doubt it is executed in the "highest style;" in effect it appears a repetition of windows, columns, and doorways exactly alike, all quite meaningless, for the columns support nothing, like the fronts sold in boxes of children's toy bricks. Perhaps on the roof there is some gilding, and you ask yourself the question why it is there. These façades, of which there are so many, vary in detail; in effect they are all the same, an utter weariness to the eye. Every fresh day's research into the city brings increasing disappointment, a sense of the childish, of feebleness, and weakness exhibited in public, as if they had built in sugar for the top of a cake. The level ground will not permit of any advantage of view; there are none of those sudden views so common and so striking in English towns. Everything is planed, smoothed, and set to an oppressive regularity.

Turning round a corner one comes suddenly on a pillar of a dingy, dull hue, whose outline bulges unpleasantly. In London you would shrug your shoulders, mutter "hideous!" and pass on. This is the famous Vendome Column. As for the Column of July, it is so insignificant, so silly (no other word expresses