Therefore, if we take care of the near effect in any country, we need
never be afraid of the distant.
[Footnote 49: This is rather a bold assertion; and we should be sorry to
maintain the fact as universal; but the crystals of _almost_ all the
rarer minerals are larger in the larger mountain; and that altogether
independently of the period of elevation, which, in the case of Mont
Blanc, is later than that of our own Mendips.]
225. For these reasons, the cottage villa, rather than the mansion, is
to be preferred among our hills: it has been preferred in many
instances, and in too many, with an unfortunate result; for the cottage
villa is precisely that which affords the greatest scope for practical
absurdity. Symmetry, proportion, and some degree of simplicity, are
usually kept in view in the large building; but, in the smaller, the
architect considers himself licensed to try all sorts of experiments,
and jumbles together pieces of imitation, taken at random from his
note-book, as carelessly as a bad chemist mixing elements, from which he
may by accident obtain something new, though the chances are ten to one
that he obtains something useless. The chemist, however, is more
innocent than the architect; for the one throws his trash out of the
window, if the compound fail; while the other always thinks his conceit
too good to be lost.
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