Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/155

Rh from momentary inconvenience, covered with stiff efforts at decoration, and exactly typical of the mind of its inhabitant: not noble in its taste, not haughty in its recreation, not pure in its perception of beauty; but domestic in its pleasures, fond of matter of fact rather than of imagination, yet sparkling occasionally with odd wit and grotesque association. The Italian obtains his beauty, as his recreation, with quietness, with few and noble lines, with great seriousness and depth of thought, with very rare interruptions to the simple train of feeling. But the Englishman's villa is full of effort: it is a business with him to be playful, an infinite labour to be ornamental: he forces his amusement with fits of contrasted thought, with mingling of minor touches of humour, with a good deal of sulkiness, but with no melancholy; and, therefore, owing to this last adjunct, the building, in its original state, cannot be called beautiful, and we ought not to consider the effect of its present antiquity, evidence of which is, as was before proved, generally objectionable in a building devoted to pleasure, and is only agreeable here, because united with the memory of departed pride.

Again, it is a life-like building, sparkling in its casements, brisk in its air, letting much light in at the walls and roof, low and comfortable looking in its door. The Italian's dwelling is much walled in, letting out no secrets from the inside, dreary and drowsy in its effect. Just such is the difference between the minds of the inhabitants; the one passing away in deep and dark reverie, the other