Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/51

Rh some proportion; and if it be partially concealed, not intruding on the eye, but well united with everything around, it becomes altogether perfect; humble, beautiful, and interesting. Perhaps no cottage can then be found to equal it; and none can be more finished in effect, graceful in detail, and characteristic as a whole.

The ornaments employed in the decoration of the Swiss cottage do not demand much attention: they are usually formed in a most simple manner, by thin laths, which are carved into any fanciful form, or in which rows of holes are cut, generally diamond-shaped; and they are then nailed one above another, to give the carving depth. Pinnacles are never raised on the roof, though carved spikes are occasionally suspended from it at the angles. No ornamental work is ever employed to disguise the beams of the projecting part of the roof, nor does any run along its edges. The galleries, in the canton of Uri, are occasionally supported on arched beams, as shown in Fig. 5, which have a very pleasing effect.

Of the adaptation of the building to climate and character, little can be said. When I called it "national," I meant only that it was quite sui generis, and, therefore, being only found in Switzerland, might be considered as a national building; though it has none of the mysterious connexion with the mind of its inhabitants which is evident in all really fine edifices. But there is a reason for this: Switzerland has no climate, properly speaking, but an assemblage of every climate, from Italy to the pole;