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. 4, which have a very pleasing effect.
[Illustration: Swiss Chalet Balcony, 1842.]
46. 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
connection 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; the vine wild in its valleys, the ice eternal on its
crags. The Swiss themselves are what we might have expected in persons
dwelling in such a climate; they have no character. The sluggish nature
of the air of the valleys has a malignant operation on the mind; and
even the mountaineers, though generally shrewd and intellectual, have no
perceptible nationality: they have no language, except a mixture of
Italian and bad German; they have no peculiar turn of mind; they might
be taken as easily for Germans as for Swiss.
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