Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/180

168, to allow us to become ridiculous by imitative efforts; and, as it is only by endeavouring to appear what he is not, that a man ever can become so, properly speaking, our truewitted Continental neighbours, who shrink from John Bull as a brute, never laugh at him as a fool. "Il est bête, il n'est pas pourtant sot."

The brick house admirably corresponds with this part of English character; for, unable as it is to be beautiful, or graceful, or dignified, it is equally unable to be absurd. There is a proud independence about it, which seems conscious of its own entire and perfect applicability to those uses for which it was built, and full of a good-natured intention to render every one who seeks shelter within its walls excessively comfortable: it therefore feels awkward in no company; and, wherever it intrudes its good-humoured red face, stares plaster and marble out of countenance, with an insensible audacity, which we drive out of such refined company, as we would a clown from a drawingroom, but which we nevertheless seek in its own place, as we would seek the conversation of the clown in his own turnip field, if he were sensible in the main.

Lastly. Brick is admirably adapted for the climate of England, and for the frequent manufacturing nuisances of English blue country: for the smoke, which makes marble look like charcoal, and stucco like mud, only renders brick less glaring in its colour; and the inclement climate, which makes the composition front look as if its architect had been amusing himself by throwing buckets of green water