Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/76

64 the one is a chimney, the other a paltry model of a paltrier edifice. Fig. 22 is Swiss, and is liable to all the objections advanced against the Swiss cottages; it is a despicable mimicry of a large building, like the tower in the engraving of the Italian cottage (Fig. 40, p. 104), carved in stone, it is true, but not the less to be reprobated. Fig. 21, on the contrary, is adapted to its use, and has no affectation about it. It would be spoiled, however, if built in stone; because the marked bricks tell us the size of the whole at once, and prevent the eye from suspecting any intention to deceive it with a mockery of arches and columns, the imitation of which would be too perfect in stone; and therefore, even in this case, we have failed to discover a chimney adapted to the higher class of edifices.

Fig. 10 is a Netherland chimney, Figs. 11 and 12 German. Fig. 10 belongs to an old Gothic building in Malines, and is a good example of the application of the same lines to the chimney which occur in other parts of the edifice, without bestowing any false elevation of character. It is roughly carved in stone, projecting at its base grotesquely from the roof, and covered at the top. The pointed arch, by which its character is given, prevents it from breaking in upon the lines of the rest of the building, and, therefore, in reality it renders it less conspicuous than it would otherwise have been. We never should have noticed its existence, had we not been looking for chimneys.