]
104. Now, as to the situation of the cottage, we have already seen that
great humility was necessary, both in the building and its site, to
prevent it from offending us by an apparent struggle with forces,
compared with which its strength was dust: but we cannot have this
extreme humility in the villa, the dwelling of wealth and power, and yet
we must not, any more, suggest the idea of its resisting natural
influences under which the Pyramids could not abide. The only way of
solving the difficulty is, to select such sites as shall seem to have
been set aside by nature as places of rest, as points of calm and
enduring beauty, ordained to sit and smile in their glory of quietness,
while the avalanche brands the mountain top,[15] and the torrent
desolates the valley; yet so preserved, not by shelter amidst violence,
but by being placed wholly out of the influence of violence. For in this
they must differ from the site of the cottage, that the peasant may seek
for protection under some low rock or in some narrow dell, but the villa
must have a domain to itself, at once conspicuous, beautiful, and calm.
[Footnote 15: There are two kinds of winter avalanches; the one, sheets
of frozen snow sliding on the surface of others. The swiftness of these,
as the clavendier of the Convent of St.
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