The Englishman is, also, fond of
display; but the ornaments, exterior and interior, with which he adorns
his dwelling, however small it may be, are either to show the extent of
his possessions, or to contribute to some personal profit or
gratification: they never seem designed for the sake of ornament alone.
Thus, his wife's love of display is shown by the rows of useless
crockery in her cupboard; and his own by the rose tree at the front
door, from which he may obtain an early bud to stick in the buttonhole
of his best blue coat on Sundays: the honeysuckle is cultivated for its
smell, the garden for its cabbages. Not so in France. There, the meanest
peasant, with an equal or greater love of display, embellishes his
dwelling as much as lies in his power, solely for the gratification of
his feeling of what is agreeable to the eye. The gable of his roof is
prettily shaped; the niche at its corner is richly carved; the wooden
beams, if there be any, are fashioned into grotesque figures; and even
the "air neglige" and general dilapidation of the building tell a
thousand times more agreeably to an eye accustomed to the picturesque,
than the spruce preservation of the English cottage.
19. No building which we feel to excite a sentiment of mere complacency
can be said to be in good taste.
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