We have
several times alluded to the extreme richness and variety of hill
foreground, as an internal energy to which there must be no contrast.
Rawness of color is to be especially avoided, but so, also, is poverty
of effect. It will, therefore, add much to the beauty of the building,
if in any conspicuous and harsh angle, or shadowy molding, we introduce
a wreath of carved leafwork,--in stone, of course. This sounds startling
and expensive; but we are not thinking of expense: what ought to be, not
what can be afforded, is the question. Besides, when all expense in
shamming castles, building pinnacles, and all other fantasticisms has
been shown to be injurious, that which otherwise would have been wasted
in plaster battlements, to do harm, may surely be devoted to stone
leafage, to do good. Now, if there be too much, or too conspicuous,
ornament, it will destroy simplicity and humility, and everything which
we have been endeavoring to get; therefore, the architect must be
careful, and had better have immediate recourse to that natural beauty
with which he is now endeavoring to assimilate.
250. When Nature determines on decorating a piece of projecting rock,
she begins with the bold projecting surface, to which the eye is
naturally drawn by its form, and (observe how closely she works by the
principles which were before investigated) she finishes this with
lichens and mingled colors, to a degree of delicacy, which makes us feel
that we never can look close enough; but she puts in not a single mass
of form to attract the eye, more than the grand outline renders
necessary.
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