Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/252

240 situation, but that situation is particularly good. Seen from the west in particular (Fig. 46), the composition is

extraordinarily scientific; the group beginning with the concave sweep on the right, rising up the broken crags which form the summit, and give character to the mass; then the tower, which, had it been on the highest point, would have occasioned rigidity and formality, projecting from the flank of the mound, and yet keeping its rank as a primary object, by rising higher than the summit itself; finally, the bold, broad, and broken curve, sloping down to the basalt crags that support the whole, and forming the large branch of the great ogee curve (Fig. 46), from a to b. Now, we defy